Broken wrist blues

Ok so last Wednesday I decided to break my wirst. Well not so much decided as in more like it just happened. I dove for a baseball during practice, caught the ball, and then landed on my right wrist. So anyways to make a long story short I went to the hospital and 6.5 hrs later I had a nice white cast covering my wrist and forearm. This is a huge inconvience since now I am not able to drive my car which is a standard and instead will be driving my folks old Montana. This is my first day back to work since the accident and things are proving to be difficultm here. I'm a lot slower at typing now and I can only use the mouse with my right hand for short periods of time or else my wrist starts to hurt. I hate this thing but fortunately it's coming off in six weeks. It could be wrose I could be stuck with this for six months. I think I would undoubtably go insane if that were the case. There's not much I can do at the moment. Biking is out and forget about trying to play the guitar. But as I keep telling myself it could be worse. Anyways July 5th I head back into the hospital to see the doctor and see how my healing is progressing. Who knows maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to get out of this cast a little earlier than expected. I may also be ambidextrous at the end of all this too. Stay positive.

3rd Place

Sarah and i just finished playing at the ITB Idol and got third place. It was a lot of fun and it the event raised $430.00 for various charities! Once I get some pics I will post a few.

Awarded 2nd place

Yesterday Sarah and I were awarded 2nd place in the CRA Star Search show. I was completely shocked. I never thought we would place juding from the other acts that were there but I guess people really liked us. The way the judging worked was everyone in the audience could purchase votes for 25 cents each and then vote on which act they thought was the best. Almost all the various departments in the CRA were represented at the contest. We got a $50.00 gift certificate to the Rideau Centre. We have been asked to play at the CRA ITB Idol contest this Tuesday. So we'll have to see what happens there. I was just interested in doing this for fun so this is a nice bonus.

My Bio

Just checked my Bio on the CRA Star Search site and here is what they have. Only a few more days till show time.

Michael Powell, Information Technology Branch

Michael is a recent Acadia University grad and newcomer to Ottawa. He is fast approaching his first CRA milestone - by show time, he’ll have worked with us for almost 1 month! Michael started playing guitar at sixteen and has played in numerous bands over the years. He is passionate about music and list his musical influences as: U2, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.

It just really hit me

I was sitting at my desk today and it just hit me. I'm now working for the Federal Government. I've been saying for years that I wanted to land a job working for the Feds or at least working for the government on provincial level and now it's finally happened. I never truly thought it would but it has. There were a lot of very specific circumstances and events that had to happen in order for this to occur and in a way it sort of seems as if it was "fated" to happen, if you believe in that sort of thing, or "planned" if you will. Here's a quick run-down of all the events that led up to this position.

Back sometime in late September, early October of 2004 I went to the Halifax career fair to see what jobs were available in the IT industry and what companies were hiring. This led me to the booth setup by Cognos. I spoke with one of the managers there and he asked me to send him my resume, which I did. A few days later I got a call asking me for an interview in their customer support dept. I really didn't see customer support as a role I would be happy in for an extended period of time, but at the same time I didn't have any other job leads so I figured why not. I had one interview, which lead to a second interview which lead to a third and final interview. A few days later I was offered the position starting in January. I asked for a little time to think it over before I accepted. After a lot of thought I figured it would at least get my foot in the door so why not work in their customer support division and see where that leads. I accepted the job and in January, just a few weeks after my last exam, I was in a car with my dad headed for Ottawa. For the next 6 and a half months I lived with the family of a friend of mine from school while I got "settled" in my new environment. After working on the job for about 3 months I started thinking I had made a terrible mistake. I hated my job and dragging myself to work everyday seemed like a chore. I wasn't the only one. While I was there many people left and some were even fired. I started to look for positions back home in Nova Scotia and got an interview with a great little software company. When I flew home for my convocation ceremony I went in to interview for a position as a software developer. A few days later I got a call to come back in. Once I got there they offered me the job. It was a job that I knew I would be happier doing than my customer support postion so I accepted without hesitation. The next day I was on a plane back to Ottawa. Once I was back I gave my notice to my manager. He was disappointed of course but asked if I could stay for another month which I agreed to do. Now I forgot to mention that during those 6.5 months of living in Ottawa I had actually looked at a few places and one happened to belong to a girl who was working for the Feds. I exlained that I didn't want to get a place with a lease since I wasn't sure how long I was going to be in Ottawa. I explained my situation and said I would make a decision in the next few weeks whether or not I would move in. Well a week or two later I got an email from her stating that they were looking for people in her dept and that if I was interested she would forward my resume on to them. The position in question was doing development work so I was of course interested. I never heard back from them in regards to that job however, my resume did list ReportNet (the software I was supporting at Cognos) as one of my skills and as a result my resume was forwarded on to a department where the manager was looking for people with that specific skill. Now back to the story. A week before I left to return home to start at my new position I got a call for an interview for a position with the government. I thought it couldn't hurt to see what might come of this so I decided to accept. It was a job working with ReportNet and as a Developer/Analyst. Well in the end I was told that they would like to hire me, however, they needed to complete a background check first before anything was going to be put in writing. I decided to continue with my plan of working back in NS until I knew something concrete from the feds. That being said I went home and started my new job, which I loved. It was a nice change from the environment I was in before and I was doing what I loved to do... program. A few months later I got a call. It was the feds telling me that I had passed the background check and that they would like to offer me the job. After speaking with them and my folks I decided that this was simply too good an opportunity to let pass by and so I gave my notice and started planning my move back to O-town. The nomad was on the move yet again. Now I'm all settled and I haven't regreted my decision for a second. I know this is where I'm supposted to be. Incidentally enough, the girl I'm performing at the CRA talent show with is the same one who got my resume into the government's database. Go figure :-P

CRA Star Search

Yesterday a friend of mine and I auditioned for the CRA Star Search. It's basically a talent show consisting of comedy routines, musical acts, and various other amusing things. Anyways my partner and I were one of only two acts from the CRA ITB group selected to perform. We're going to be doing Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here". It should be a good time. The show is on the 28th.

All settled...more or less

I now have an apartment and have all of my stuff moved in. I ended up getting a 2 bedroom place simply because there was a lot more space and it was only a little more a month. I finished one full week of work and am slowly getting settled into my new job. It's still incredibly hot up here in Ottawa despite it being October. As it turns out across the hall from me is an old friend of mine that I graduated from high school with. I knew he lived in the building since I was over at his place when I was in Ottawa before but didn't expect to find him on the same floor as me. I thought he was on the 3rd and I am living on the 4th. It's great to already know someone in the building. I'm still without cable and internet until the 10th so I've been watching lots of old movies on DVD. My folks are staying up here until Thanksgiving and then heading back to Nova Scotia on Tuesday.