Too much of a good thing/Be careful what you wish for

So I managed to get a job a couple of weeks ago. Testing video games no less.

I had been writing a post about how awesome my job is and had even made a picture.

My toolbox:



But it's funny what a difference a few days make. I would not have be able to comprehend how playing video games could be so torturous if someone had told me, so I suspect others may struggle with this: it sucks. Well some days, and then occasionally it is like "I can't believe they're paying me to do this".

The downsides to the job:

• they make you play the same game for weeks on end, 9am-5pm
• the games are not finished so are not very good and crash all the time
• the supervisors (or my one at least) act like the comic book guy from the Simpsons, if he were competing on the Apprentice
• I am not allowed to discuss any of the games outside of work
• They exercise collective punishment: they stopped email (?) at work for several hundred people "until further notice" because some guy looked at porn
• the pay is very low
• I am nothing more than a pair of thumbs who can use a spreadsheet to them
• the chairs (no couches) are awful
• it is of little value on my CV
  

The job was way better in my imagination.

===============
I have spent so many days writing this post, that I have now organised a new job to start on Monday. The position is "lead prospector" at a website firm. Hopefully my imagination hasn't ruined this one for me too.

Montreal and our golden ticket

Before we left Wellington I didn't really want to get travel insurance. My thought process was:

1. Insurance consists of you paying a relatively small amount of money which covers you in the case of a rare thing happening (gambling)
   
2. If one of these rare events happens, you win, and they pay you.
3. This is a worthwhile gamble if you cannot otherwise afford the cost of the rare thing, and it the event is possible. The rare bad things can never be completely avoided, but if you are young, healthy and travel smart, you can cut the risks.
4. The house generally wins. This is displayed by the simple fact that insurance companies exist.

Anyway we ended up getting insurance as a license to not worry. It turns out we got a winning ticket.

Upon our arrival at Montreal airport, we were informed our bags had not made it (from Ottawa, which is a two hour drive away). Air Canada took our details, and said they would be couriered to us within hours. It was 10pm. The delay caused us to end up at a motel (not the plan), which pissed me off, until I remembered our golden ticket. We read the policy to see that we would be entitled to replace $1500 worth of essentials if the bags took more than 12 hours.

We went to bed excited like it was Christmas; was Santa really coming?

Never have I been so happy to get back into dirty clothes. The bags arrived at 5.30pm, and we all lived happily ever after.

So anyway, turns out Montreal is totally sweet:

Marché Bonsecours - Montréal
Originally uploaded by Nino H


Gare-Hôtel Viger - Montréal
Originally uploaded by Nino H

Notre-Dame Basilica 1
Originally uploaded by Shutterscript

And the day bid a candy-colored farewell
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

The most wonderful time of the year
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

Round the bend
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

Bucky's dream
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

We have found ourselves a temporary apartment, and some groovy wheels. The trick now is finding jobs to pay for them.

The Belyea Bunch

In Vancouver Alana got to meet Mum's side of the family:


There were a lot of us the last time we met up in 1997, and the bad news for the world is that the clan seems to be expanded (in my cast not so much vertically as horizontally). Exhibit A: For the first half hour the whole thing was really quite overwhelming. For me, my extended family are kind of similar to fictional characters; I know their names, I know what they look like, I know what they've been doing, but I really haven't met them much. I cannot imagine what that must have been like for Alana.

As it turned out, Alana must have got her hands on some CliffsNotes or something, because she seemed to know everyone as well as I did. In fact, I think she might have had a better time than I did. Exhibit B: It turns out my family is filled with friendly, talented and interesting people. Almost all of my relatives are involved with some kind of artistic or design orientated career/study (exhibit C, D and E). As well as artistic stuff, one of my cousins is a game tester for Electronic Arts (totally sweet). I mentioned in an earlier post, Mike is a host for VIPs at LA clubs. Another cousin is an expert in indigenous rights in law.

I also found my long lost cousin/sister Vic:Awesome.


After the reunion was over, Alana and I stayed on in Vancouver. We spend a night with Dad's brother Fred and his partner Diane. Fred had the same twinkle in his eye as my dad does, same humour, same hand gestures.

Fred and Diane took us up Grouse Mountain where Alana got to cross her number one task of her list:These grizzly bears live in a habitat enclosed with just the number-8 wire in the photo, and an electric fence at waist height. Grizzlies can open heads like coke cans and some think could beat a mako shark in a fight.

Seattle and "the 4th"

Hendrix, Ray Charles, and Kurt Cobain were all from Seattle. This made me like Seattle even before we had arrived.

Sweet.

Pat and Pam
My mum's identical twin sisters live two blocks from each other in Seattle. We got to enjoy their hospitality, caught up with cousins I hadn't seen for 10 years, and Alana had never met.

Boeing factory

I convinced Alana, Dad and Nic we should see the Boeing factory, where they do tours through their production line. It is the largest indoor space in the world (the blue doors in the picture are the size of football fields). It is in fact so large, that legend has it, one time they forgot to turn on the air conditioning, clouds formed inside the factory, and it rained. Another time, they had to send everyone home because there was a snowstorm inside. The factory is so big there are approximately one billion employees there. Each day they collectively consume the same amount of food as Finland does in a year. You can see the Boeing factory from space. The Boeing factory affects Earth's rotation around the Sun.

The true story is not quite as good. Like most things, the Boeing factory was better on paper.

Pike Place Market

Before the Pike Street Market, both fish, and the act of throwing existed. The Pike Street Market was the first place to combine the two (or something).

EMP (Experience Music Project)


EMP is a totally sweet museum founded by Paul Allen (who also co-founded Microsoft). We made the mistake of going EMP on a Thursday evening, when it is free to the public. It was originally meant to be a museum of Hendrix, but after disagreements with the family, ended up being a rock and roll museum, with a Hendrix focus. I would describe it to a Wellingtonian like Capital Discovery Place (which I don't think exists anymore), but with rock and roll, and with one hundred times the budget and taste. Neither the Boeing factory nor EMP let us take photos.

The 4th
I remember when it was Waitangi Day earlier this year, having to explain to Ben, a French friend, that New Zealander's don't really celebrate our national day (and I had never thought about until then either). You're more likely (guaranteed?) to see protests on the news. Compare this also to the number of American flags flown from front porches here, and you realise Kiwis really don't have a huge amount of patriotism (until Peter Jackson releases a film).

So I was pumped about the 4th of July. I wanted fireworks, mob frenzies, and guns being shot into the air.

As it turns out, they are not crazy up in the Northwest. We got fireworks (the best I have ever seen or ever will), a helicopter carrying a flag, and a brass band, but I would not describe the crowd as a mob, nor as frenzied.

Night terrors: Funniest story of the trip and everyone's chance to think less of me as a human being

So we rendezvoused with my family in San Francisco, and ended up sharing a room with my brother Nic. Mum, Dad and Nic were jet-lagged, so were sleeping at different times to us. One night, Alana and I were sound asleep, while Nic politely watched TV in the neighbouring lounge, as to not disturb us. As we had gone to sleep, Alana and I had both realised we had forgotten to lock the deadbolt, but gone to sleep nonetheless. The hotel we were at was themed (I think the theme was "arty"), and had murals all over the walls (they looked a bit like linear vomiting, and would have given you nightmares if you were a child).

Okay, so, scene set: Matt and Alana asleep, Nic not asleep. Weird room. Door not locked.

Nic quietly sneaks into the room at 3am for bed. The door to the bedroom is about 50cm from the foot of our bed (for those of you who have not met Nic, he is big).

Apparently, Alana was awoken by this. By Nic's account "she sat up in bed and started screaming". Poor Nic's attempts to reassure her, were drowned out by her screaming. One would guess an adult screaming is easily enough to wake the neighbours on both sides, as well as those above and below.

I am awoken to Alana screaming, the silhouette of a large man, and I panic. I start screaming. By Nic's account my screaming "was much louder and higher pitched". The screaming lasted "a very long time" but also was followed by a bout of all of us in hysterics.

Can you imagine being woken to two people screaming in the middle of the night? Absolute madness. As a side note, no one did come knocking to see if we were okay.

"Let's show these fools how we do this on that west side/Cos you and I know it's tha best side" ~ Tupac

We've arrived in Seattle after a road trip up the west coast with the rest of the Lanes (minus Kris). Here's a pictorial account of us conquering California, Oregon, and Washington:


Yes, I made a Matt-map. He forced me to do it.


1. Visiting Albie at Stanford Uni (just outside of San Jose). This is the university bookstore (containing more Stanford merchandise than books, including whole Stanford Mom and Stanford Dad sections).


2. Me and a python at the San Francisco Science Academy. San Francisco is a cool city but we didn't have time to see much of it.


3. Almost a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge.


4. Somewhere on the Californian coast.


5. This was great.


6. 'Avenue of the Giants'. Pacific coast redwoods are the largest living things on Earth. I saw the stump of one that was 2500 years old, and was cut down in the early 1900s. Redwoods are so big and resilient they are practically immune to fires, floods, and time generally. Not so immune to chainsaws it seems.


7. American cuisine. (TV dinner trays provided in our mobile home.)


8. Matt and Nic finally found their county courthouse that they had lost.