I am not going to miss...

Leaving the house at 6:35 AM and arriving work at 9:20 AM.

This may be the first instalment of many for what I am not going to miss while I am off tending to my kids. May I never need the GO train again after my leave ends.

Way too early

Just as I had thought, I started my countdown way too early. I am struggling to get through a 3 day week. Perhaps next week won't be so hard to get by knowing it is a full week, my first of five full weeks in a row.

252 to go!

252 hours of work to go until I am off and the long weekend is here for me. Monday is Family day so get out to your local CHL rink to catch some cheap hockey fun with the family. Monday is also Canada's flag day so wave those flags proudly. Oh yeah, the Olympics are a day away. Go Canada!

Walking around the great city of Toronto

A friend of mine recently spent a short time living in downtown Toronto and his thoughts of that experience were not very favourable. Sure there is a lot to do in the land of failed sports teams for those who have the money to do any of it. Those with limited funds can still find things to do providing they can afford the $6 round trip on the TTC or don’t mind spending half the day walking to where they want to go and back. But that is not really the point of this.

The one thing that my friend commented on is something I have grown used to and perhaps even become a part of while traveling or wandering downtown. He said that everyone walked with their heads down and never made eye contact with anyone else. On the occasions he tried to exchange pleasantries with any passerby they either ignored him altogether or gave him a look as if he belonged in the looney bin or might rob them. People so wrapped up in their self; so entrenched in the greed and self importance that has infected what was once a great city that they cannot even be pleasant to their fellow citizens.

This is all too familiar to me. Sure I have been sucked into the negativity that seems to seep up through the pavement of the cracked sidewalks and pot-holed streets and have long ago stopped trying to make eye contact with everyone I pass by; I have even gotten to the point where I do not get out of the way of people who are too busy in themselves to notice anything other then their own two feet or their blackberry but I try to be pleasant to those who have yet to succumb to the poison and still knows how to be friendly.

Let’s just hope this is not the way of the future or the world will become a really lonely place.

The countdown is on!!!

A few months ago our second child was born and my wife started her maternity leave. Just like with our first child I will be once again sharing the parental leave portion. My leave has recently been approved at work making April 9th my last day.

With nothing else to really look forward to I have already begun my countdown. As of 11 AM today I will have just under 38 actual working days; 263 hours; or 15,780 minutes of ‘actual’ work left until my leave. With plenty of vacation time still to use my actual time here will be far less.

So what if I am a little too excited about leaving this place. Five months off work starting prior to the start of spring and lasting to just before summer officially ends. What a perfect time to not have to work. Even better than not working is not having to take the GO train at all for 5 months. I think I have reason to be this excited. The only downfall: with my countdown starting so early, the last 38 days are going to seem excruciatingly long.