Hi

well, this week has not been great...

But I did get to my "custom" paint job on my car! I bought the caliper paint a while ago and finally did it yesterday evening. I kinda picked a bad time to start because by the time I was done, I was using my little LED flashlight to make sure I got all the touchups and things needed. But, upon inspection this morning, everything looks good! I posted a few pictures I took. I was just going to do the front ones, but a Ferrari inspired me to do all 4 (the Ferrari I saw the other day had all 4 calipers painted red too). I think it looks pretty good! It's too bad I can't afford to do anything mechanical. I think even with maybe $1000 I could do some nice things to enhance the sexyness and performance of the car. I looked at the exhaust while I had the car jacked up and there are 3 mufflers on this thing!! and they are huge! No wonder I can hardly hear the thing when I'm driving. I am pretty sure I won't get to anything like a new exhaust or any other mechanical things for a few years. Right now I have other priorities :) But I do plan on doing a few other $10 modifications such as a cool paint job with special stuff for a scuff gaurd on the bottom of the door sill. I plan to do a black strip with "RABBIT 2.5" written on it in either yellow or red. I'm pretty sure that these "mods" will not viod my warranty...hehe.

Anyways, I have some interesting news that I just got yesterday regarding my job. I am basically being paid for a month's worth of work that I'm missing due to this whole sinanigan at LMH, AND I will still have the hours which means that I will be able to work the whole school period part time and still have some hours to spare. I have only been working part time as a care aide because I only get called on weekends. I didn't work this weekend though because I thought I would be working this week. I had orientation at Surrey Memorial yesterday which was boring, but was the best orientation I've been to as far as topics covered and stuff. I was scheduled for another orientation session for today but it was geared more toward RN's - UGN's usually get their own "special" orientation to deal specifically with our scope of practice. So my manager dude said I don't need to come today but I will still get paid! woohoo! I will have my own special orientation next week on the unit which is nice. I'm looking forward to starting there.

This weekend I'm going to Kelowna for a friend's wedding. I got her this rad frame and then I got a picture (a stupidly-hilarious picture I might add) blown up to put into the frame. It's of 2 Lady bugs...that are making sweet love on a leaf! You would have to see it...She is quirky and I thought she would find it pretty funny...and there's the whole getting married thing...anways, won't go there. I actually have to run to Ikea when i finish this because I bought a frame that is too big. After that, I will do some quick cleaning and stuff and then I might go to Kelowna tonight as well. Depends how I feel. My cousin will be moving down to my place after the wedding so then I can take some crap for him if need be in my car.

Well, off to IKEA for me.

Hope you have a good week and I will post some pictures of the wedding when I come back!

<3

Hi :]

I have had a fairly boring week so far. Nothing new to report, but I wanted to blog anyways!

I haven’t worked yet this week, so it has been a nice to just sleep in most mornings, and do a whole lot of nothing. I have been cleaning and organizing my place, and I picked up some caliper paint the other day to paint my calipers on the new Rabbit a hot red. It should look nice once completed and I will update with pictures! It is a very cheap way to add a little pizzaz to a car.

I’m trying to think of other things I can write about, but I really can’t think of much…stuff that would be interesting anyways. I did build a giant box tonight for pop cans and bottles…*goes to take picture* (see picture below). I made it nice and BIG so it will store a few garbage bags full of cans. It is fashioned from cardboard that I got with my new TV stand I got at IKEA (A nice score in the "as is" section I might add). The only thing that might be a bit of a problem is the fact that it is almost 4’ from the top of the boxes so if a glass bottle happens to land on another glass bottle followed by a *kkksshh*. At least it will be in a closed space :]

There is also a pic of what I had there which inspired me to build such a box. I just got tired of it over-flowing.

I guess I will go to sleep now.

Cars, Jobs and Miracles

Well, I’m always apologizing for not writing in so long, but I’m not going to this time!! I don’t feel that bad because it’s not like all my friends blog that often anyways. I think I was doing pretty good there. Quite often before I go to bed I tell myself, self, I think you should blog tonight because there might be a few people that actually read what you write and want to know what’s happened in your life the last few days… But then I respond to myself saying, well, I would love to, but I’m just so tired and should really sleep because I’m not that much of a writer when I’m this tired. So, then it is a unanimous decision that myself is indeed right and I should really go to bed because I’m really not that funny when I’m that sleepy.

That being said, I do have a lot to say, so I hope you have a few minutes to read through everything. There might be something really good that you miss if you only read some and not all of this blog.

I will start with my work situation. It has not been the greatest thing for me the last few weeks. There was some poor communication between me, my coworkers and my manager. I also had made a few mistakes which was bad. This lead to a clinical nurse educator following me around for 10 shifts and making notes on everything that I was doing, and I mean everything. It was a little unnerving and rather awkward and she wasn’t allowed to tell me much as she was just a shadow. So I had to pretend she wasn’t there, which, was not easy. After the 10 days was all said and done, we had a meeting with a bunch of people and this lead to me changing job sites. So I will be starting at Surrey Memorial Hospital soon and am quite looking forward to it. A gentleman that oversees UGN things was very helpful and supportive to me and I wish I had contacted him a lot sooner because things might not have been so awkward. I am now working along side him for a while to develop a learning plan which will help me in many ways. I think everyone in my position would benefit from an experience like this. It has sucked, but I have learned a great deal about how nursing politics work and also have honed my skills in many areas. I’m looking forward to starting at a new hospital and a new environment. It is supposed to be a great floor to work on. I believe it is an orthopedic ward so there will be a lot of old grannies that slipped and broke their hip and MVA’s…I’m sure there will be a lot of different people there but the grannies are my favourite ( They always like me! And it’s not because I’m such an amazing nurse (hah) but that I just spend a few extra moments talking to them about their grandchildren or what they used to be before they retired and things like that. Just taking some extra minutes with a patient will improve their quality of their hospital stay and also improves their spirits so they are willing to do the rehabilitation and get out of the hospital faster than someone that is neglected and lonely.

Just a second, I have to go pee. Coffee does this to me.
Ok, I can think more clearly now. I also got sidetracked and did a load of laundry and also got another cup of coffee.

So moving along….

I have been reflecting upon my whole car situation for the last few months now. I have not had the greatest luck as out of the last 3 cars I’ve owned, 2 of them have been write-offs. It doesn’t exactly reflect my driving skills because it’s more of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last car I owned was a 1988 prelude that has been “pimp-i-fied”. It was a nice car – but needed more than I thought it would need. I spent just over 2K extra on it with things such as catalytic converter, tire issues, belts, alternator, and new brakes all around and also new calipers (ca-ching) in the rear. Now it runs like a top, so I figured it would be the perfect time to sell it and move on. Then I can also pay off the remainder of the money I owe my uncle on it. It was great to get the car and did me a big favour in doing so but the issues were not foreseen. SOO…I decided to (after a great deal of thought and figuring out finances) to buy a brand new 2007 car. IT IS SO FREAKING NICE. I bought a 2007 VW Rabbit (see pictures below) and I added a few features such as the alloy rims, sunroof, and an upgraded stereo. The Rabbit comes quite loaded right from base so it wasn’t much extra for these things which will not only make it a lot nicer, but increase the resale value for when I want to sell it. The car is amazing. I could talk for a very long time about how nice it is, so I will just leave it at saying I am very happy with my purchase and it has greatly lowered my stress in the fact that I do not have to worry about random things dying and other surprises. I have gotten some criticism from some people about it being so expensive but I know what I have to spend on the car and I know how much I have to work in order to make the payments for the car and insurance, rent, food, gas, school fee’s, and everything else a student needs to spend money on to survive. With working part time at my UGN job, I will still be making money every month and will have enough time to balance my homework and the time I spend with my lovely Danielle. If any of this would suffer from this purchase, I would not have done it.

I’m also very certain that it is one of the safest cars on the road. My cousin had a 1999 GTI which is very similar to my Rabbit. He was involved in an awful accident yesterday and it is a miracle that he was able to walk away from it. Just look at the pic that I posted and I’m sure you would be a little impressed. His car ended up careening off the road, down a 15 foot embankment into a big ditch where it then did at least 3 or 4 ass-over-tea-kettle flips and then stopped dead after hitting an abnormally large wooden fence post. The nose of his car hit this post and he was still flipping through the air fast enough to take an arm size chunk off of the very top of this post. Both air-bags deployed and his only injury is due to the airbags (a burn on the side of his noggin). He was sent via ambulance to the lovely Merrit Hospital where I picked him up. He was on his way to my place to pick me up to look at this car he was buying (kinda ironic). After he didn’t show up when he was supposed to I called his dad and that’s when I heard the news. So I drove about 2 hours to get him (which wasn’t that big of a deal because I like driving the new car on the highway). We stopped at the site of the accident and it was crazy. After flying off the highway at a speed somewhere around 115kmph and hitting dirt almost 20 feet from said highway in the ditch, a lot of bad things can happen. There was broken glass and car parts scattered for about 100m from the first impact to where the car was stopped by the fence post. I found a nice memento in the ditch for him to remember how lucky he was – it was the VW emblem from the front of his once beautiful and well respected little GTI. We also then stopped in Hope where his car was toed to. It looked like a piece of cardboard that someone had bunched into a giant ball. The only things that were intact were the driver’s door (open and closed like new) and the gas cap. Everything else was beat to a pulp. We then had to stop in Chilliwack to get his bags and stuff because the cop on scene was from there. The RCMP detachment there is not the easiest thing to find because the signs that have a POLICE thing lead you to an old building with no cops in it. Then a comissionaire that we flagged down on the street sent us to another “RCMP” place that also had no cops in it. But a lady there was able to finally contact the officer that had Matt’s stuff. Amazingly his laptop has only minor war wounds and still boots up fine. His bags also survived with no major injuries but his pillow did not fair so well. It got dirt on it which is just not good.

Well, I thought I had more to write but I can’t think of much more. Maybe another coffee would help…and I also have to pee again.

So, I will say so long for now and I will do my best to post again much quicker than I have been.

:)
Chris

Rabbit Bumb 

How YOU doooing?? 

Rabbit Side Shot 

Rabbit Top 

Rabbit on the Highway 

New Rabbit Pix