timeshare scams

i guess i entered my name in to win some stuff at a restaurant or somewhere like that because we got a call from a timeshare place in lynden, asking if we wanting to come to a tour/presentation thing. obviously, my initial reaction was, 'heck no!' but they lured me in with the promise of a gift certificate for free gas and a free trip. we knew it was probably a scam but thought we'd check it out in case at least the gas part was true.

so off we went.

here's the thing with timeshare. if you work the system, and have good enough properties, you can make it work for you. *but* you really do have to work the system. i am not interested in timeshare, and am especially not interested in RCI - possibly because i worked there, and mostly had to deal with customers who were confused about why they 'can't get a week in the UK on anything other than a canalboat' and why they have to go to florida, the canaries, or if they're lucky, costa del sol every year.

as well as that, the rates for exchange are crazy and then there's the maintenance fees, and of course the initial payment, oh and the cost of being a member so that you can do the exchange. so, as long as you know that, you have nothing to complain about. the problem is that the people selling the timeshare do not tell you that. our 'tour guide' really tried some moves on us, and they were exactly what people would complain to me about when they were trying to book a holiday.

anyway, no, i'm not interested in timeshare, and yes the gift certificates were bunk. there are a lot of hoops to jump through, and a lot of taxes and service fees to sort through before you see the cost of the 'free' stuff they give you.

also, while the suites seemed okay there, they weren't worth thousands of dollars for one week a year and what the heck is there to do in lynden?

moral of the story? don't expect the free gifts to be free or gifts if you get asked to a timeshare presentation in lynden. great links resorts and their gifts are a total scam. well done to Don, who tried his best moves on us, and made us laugh all the way home. his 'thing' was asking the manager for extra special rates and stuff for us. oh boy... thanks for the laughs, great links.

i don't know you, but i love you

today we were at london drugs and they had roombas on sale. we're talking supersale. 140 buckaroos sale. how could we resist? ruby is charging. we have 15 days to test her out and if she doesn't work as well as we would like, she will go back to the coal mine, i mean shop.

i will post my review.

my peeps

on friday, i julie came over for a n evening of foods, buffy (with gerry, while i did laundry) and some scrab action. good times. we met up with nicole for brunch and had a good gossip fest about my old work. oh, and the brunch was delicious!! YUMMY! guess i should blog about the cafe on eating out white rock.

saturday i got to watch the canucks beat the avalanche. it was a pretty boring game, but they did win, so now they've clinched the NW division title.

saturday night rachel, danielle and ian came over and we chatted, ate some food (i made pizza, and have to say, i was really impressed with the dough recipe i used. super easy) and had a quiet but nice evening.

now i have to work and then get ready for easter dinner at the stewart house! whoot!

found it!

last night gerry set up a surprise easter egg mystery hunt for me! how fun and surprising! also, how silly of him to think i would be able to wait until morning once i knew there were eggs hidden around the house and a big puzzle to solve at the end.

get it?

sent the invites today. well, most of them. please ignore the poor cutting. the time will be decided a bit later on.

Movie Review: The Watchmen

i thought this movie was boring and that it sucked. i also (oddly) didn't like that some people in the audience were laughing through the rape scene. oh, and that it's 3 hours of my life that i will not get back.

barf

today seymour barfed in gerry's office. twice. gerry doesn't know about it yet. :o)

i think poor seymour is sick-sick. he's getting old, and he's like an old man walking around the house, sleeping more than usual, and whining more than ever.

maybe he needs extra squishes.

a stitch in time

apparently (and maybe one of my doctor colleagues can comment on this) they don't give stitches anymore. they just tape that shiz up. well, i suspect the hole in my belly could have used some more tape, or a couple of stitches. it's not looking so hot to be honest... but it is kind of cool.

i am recovering well, despite some paranoia about the quack doctor not taking out enough infected organs. it's just that i still have some pain where my appendix was. gerry has interpreted this as meaning that i think i have more than one appendix, so in case anyone one else gets that idea, it's wrong. i just have some jabbing pain once in a while and it makes me think there's still some stuff going on. maybe if they'd shown me the CT scan.

anyway, yeah. i'm fine. working lots and working on wedding stuff. the invites are almost done, we just need some addresses to finish it up. and we have a meeting with the florist, the DJ and the restaurant this week. whoot!

my new job as a web officer starts in april. hopefully i like it and hopefully then it will be extended to a long-term position. i love the title, cause it sounds tough. however, the truth is that i will be working with two branches of a government health service. not so tough, but possibly super fun because the job is really diverse, and working with two departments means that i'll never be bored. whoot!

in fact, i can't believe my current job is ending soon. we'll be finished the project at the end of the month. i kind of hope i get a bit of OT before that, cause the $$ would be sweet. :o)

sam waterson really sells it

robot insurance

hurtin' for certain

i'm still sore. it's true. i thought i'd be healed by now, to be honest. but i really am not. i took some potatoes out of the oven, turned over the veggie dogs and picked up a paper from the floor. i'm exhausted. seriously.

oh, and i have a phantom pain where my appendix used to be. and a weird belly button to boot. i may post photos at a later date.

what happened?

well, here's the scoop (while i'm still lucid, ie. before i get into the T3 for the day):

tuesday morning, i woke up with a pain in my lower right hand abdomen. gerry suggested that i had pulled a muscle working out the day before. later that day, i had a nice little veggie dog vom... which in fact, was less fun than it sounds, partly because they were spicy chili dogs. the whole day was full of sharp pains, so i was a bit out of it, but managed through.

that night, i started having trouble catching my breath. i chock it down to being a bit anxious about the pain (it is Dr. Ursula, in case you've forgotten). anyway, i couldn't sleep because i couldn't breathe, so gerry was like: okay, this is nonsense. we're going to the hospital. now. i couldn't even argue, so i knew i was sick.

we got in fairly quickly. the doctor felt i probably had appendicitis. which is what Julie and i were discussing that afternoon... when i was saying that what i had probably wasn't contagious, but she may want to reconsider her visit... especially since i'd barfed.

anyway, the doctor wanted to keep me overnight, but i started to cry when she that, so she let me go home. with T3 and the promise that if i barfed again, got a fever, or the pain got worse i would come back and that i wouldn't eat or drink anything in the meantime (in case it was appendicitis and they had to operate on me). i quickly promised and went home. i was still tossing around the idea that it could be something else too... indigestion, blocked bowel, kidney stone... anything that would not require an operation.

the CT scan the next morning showed that it was appendicitis and things were quickly arranged for an operation that evening. the surgeon was an ass, but everyone else at the hospital was lovely. the nurses, the other doctors, the anesthesiologist. i was pretty nervous about the whole thing, so in fact, it was probably a good thing that it happened so quickly. i didn't even get a choice of if i wanted to be put to sleep, it was just like: sign here. blah blah blah (apparently when you're on morphine this is how people sound).

so i went to sleep. woke up (thank you, jeebus) a couple hours later, with a dry sore throat (breathing tube) and pain in my belly. the next morning i got to go home. it's better to suffer at home despite having kind nurses at the call of a button.

i'm still very sore. very very sore. and tired. and on liquids for now. but i've had visitors, and gerry's being very good to me. now i will sleep.

6 months & 2 days

to sum up my feelings about this: eek.

well, we've made some progress. and i'm hoping to make more today.

yesterday gerry and went to look at rings, but the shop we wanted to go to was closed. boo urns. we did go to some fabric stores to look for dress material, and i may have got suckered in by the beautiful materials, and made some changes to The Dress. *but* i'm going to consult with a couple of people and go from there... i have made a deadline for buying the material next weekend. while at the shop, i somehow let myself get caught up in the idea that it might actually matter if i picked one colour over the other. once i was back in the car and away from the situation, i got my shit together and remembered that it doesn't actually matter. it's fine if i pick x over y, because it's really not that important. and if anyone at the wedding feels i've made the wrong decision about it, it's really not my problem. i still would like a couple of opinions about which one will suit me better, but at the end of the day, i wouldn't mind a dress out of any of those colours, and i know i will be happy with my choice.

we also went to a craft store to check out some papers for the invitations. we're going to send some information with the invites, which we're hoping to get out within the next couple of weeks, so there's going to be a bit of effort involved in these. who wants to help with craft night?

after gerry and i figure out if we can do these ourselves, we'll be looking for volunteers. big time. :o)

the railway club bouncer is a cowcunt

ohmygosh.

we went to the railway club for ang's bday tonight. but got stopped at the door. the last time i got stopped at the door, it was in first year when we couldn't get into some place because we didn't have proper ID.

tonight, we stopped at the 7-11 to get money, but had to wait for these two women in line. we joked around a bit with them (as will happen to canadians standing in lines) and learned that the bank machine was broken. as we were following them out, one said, i hope they just let us in to use the bank machine, because i don't have money for cover.

we followed them up to the railway club, where the bouncer let them straight in. i was like: listen, we were just trying to use the bank machine at 7-11 too, but it didn't work, so can i use the one here and then come back to pay? he was like: no. it's broken here too; there are lots of other bank machines. and i replied: you just let those two women in - can i just tell my friend what's happened. and he's like: no, it's too full in there. and then he let the next two people in!!! and i was like: it's so full, but more people can come in? so, i tried to call ang, to let her know what was going on, but it was pretty loud in there... after the 3rd time, dalia came by! YAY! so i gave her ang's present, told her the bouncer was a dick and that we were leaving, please tell ang we were here. as i was leaving, i could hear him saying that i had misunderstood him, that the women that he let in, had been in before. but there is no f'ing way they had been, because they told me they needed money for cover, and that he'd have to let them in to use the bank machine.

my fury is strong and fierce.

oh, and i refuse to go to the railway club ever again. not that they'll miss my business... but it truly is the principle.

yummy

i've sort of gone off the cleanse. i mean... i'm still (or i was) mostly sticking to it. and there are still some things i'm avoiding. today, for example, instead of full-on bread, i chose a wrap. and until dessert last night i had an awesome cleanse friendly meal at the stewart house.

it was too long. and making me sad.

dead pixels

it's been a crazy busy week down here in the rock. i've been finishing up some contract work... turns out i have mad skills in the illustration department (the one that exists on a computer, not on paper with a pencil).

and i've been connected to a new contract position. it's only for 2 months, but it'll do for now.

i've also been thinking of flowers and such for the wedding. i saw some magazines with flowers in them today (i think they're the same ones that were being talked about last night at dinner - unless there are more than 2 $12 wedding flowers magazines out there). neither of which i bought, because that seems a bit steep for an f'ing flower magazine.

oh, and i've been busy trying to find my brother a place to move to. for those of you who don't know, he was decertified last November and (obviously) decided that he'd move out. mental health in misson basically did jack to help him find a place, so now he's living in this woman's living room. and clearly would not listen to me try to convince him otherwise. okay, there is a lot more to this story than i'm willing to get into right now. but i will simply say, some poor decisions were made on both his and mental health's parts, and now i'm left cleaning up the mess, without a broom and dustpan. so that didn't work out, and i'm basically waiting for him to go off his meds. i hope i'm wrong. in fact, i would love to be wrong.

today's title? i have a line of dead pixels on my screen. grrrr.

it's time!

in case you hadn't noticed, i haven't been much into blogging lately. i don't have a solid explanation, but i do have an idea of why... i've been busy. and when you're working an office job that's so boring and frustrating (and doesn't allow blogging) you don't really feel like sitting in front of the computer when you get home, unless it's to play scrabble. :o)

now that i'm working mostly from home, i will be more likely to share all the little things with you - my people, my fans, my voters... oh... right. well, whatever.

recently i've been looking for a new job, and doing some contract work. i've been mostly doing illustrations for product manuals. which is actually really cool, but not enough hours.

and of course The Wedding. oy. the good news is that things genuinely are coming along in that department. yay.

extra good news is that today i'm having a girly day with danielle. we are going to forget all of our woes (this includes my family, and being poor). can i get a whoot?

oh, the irony!

today i got hit by a van. multiple times.

i was walking from the hospital (VGH) to kits. busses should take interac... but that's another story. i decided to walk down arbutus, cause i like that road. i was crossing the road near an elementary school (it was the proper place to cross) when a blood services van stops at the corner (as it should). so i continued crossing and it inched forward, and hit me. then it did it again. i had to yell at him repeatedly but i'd say it's hard to hear a pedestrian when you're on your phone and only looking to your left.

i'm okay. but i'm pissed.

a not-so-subtle sign

today, as i was leaving work (rushing to work-out, no less) i paused in the kitchen and was chatting with a co-worker. there were some chips on the table (everyone leaves food out for sharing) and i was like: sweet! cleanse friendly, i'll just have a couple. then my manager came in and he said, oh you've found the chips too... i'm just going to get a bowl of them. and did.

then the other lady (that we hadn't been talking to, but was also in the kitchen) asked if we wanted any more chips, and i was like, oh no thanks (already feeling bold for having had the few i did) and my manager said something to the effect of: i'll fill up this bowl a bit more when i'm done with this one. then the woman moved the bag to where she was sitting (i thought just so they're closer for her dinner) and my manager was like: oh, were those *your* chips? and she was like: yes. but then proceded to be very kind about the whole us gorging on her chips. but let me tell you... i was mortified. the 1 freakin' time i eat any of the heaps of food the people leave out for everyone, and it's not even for that! we have had potlucks that i haven't participated in, chocolate like crazy at Hallowe'en, fajita day, random cookies left out, birthday cakes, retirement cakes and so forth. no no no.

lesson learned.

now i've got to get that lady some chips...

firm but fair

today a guy at work was annoying me so much i asked him: don't you have something you should be doing? in my defense, what i wanted to say was: 1. shut up, 2. mind your own bee's wax, 3. you really are not being helpful because you don't even know what we're talking about.

also, we were supposed to hear about our contracts being renewed today but we didn't. i've got my fingers crossed that something comes up before i get suckered in to signing anything.

*argh*

a moment of shrek

since my cold cleared up a few weeks ago, i have had this clogged feeling in my ear. i thought it might be cold related so i waited it out a bit. i *finally* went to the doctor today... it's a wax build up - YUCK!! anyway, he was all like: Q-tips are the road to the devil. but i was all like: dude, i have eczema, if i don't use a Q-tip, the moisture will irritate my eczema. he accepted that. or at least pretended to.

now i have to put oil in my ear before i go to bed to soften the wax up, and lay a towel on my pillow so the oil doesn't stain my pillow. in a while i go back and he'll drain it for me. how freakin' gross is that? but i have to admit, i'm desperate to see what it looks like. yuk, awesome!