B365V3.8 - Oh Canada

     So there was a plan afoot, one that would get me to vacation and beyond.  Getting Ed to agree to pay me for my vacation time early, like on payday, was a primary component of taking time off, simply because I figured I would use the vacation money to pay for my trip and by getting paid early it would allow me to go ahead and book it well enough in advance.  I figured the 13 days I had coming to me would be more than enough to pay for it.  Well payday came around but I only got paid for 8 of my 13 days.  Problem right?  Not so much.  Because the day before payday I stopped at Subway to grab a sandwich for dinner, I had maybe $30 in my wallet, I got one of the $6 footlongs and and figured when I got back to work I would buy a $10 scratchoff ticket, leaving me enough spending cash for my coffee the next morning.  Except the $10 scratchoff ended up wining $1000, whch came in handy given the next day when I would be shorted on my vacation pay. 

      I booked the trip Wednesday night (March 21 through March 25 for thos who need to know) it ended up costing $1100 and change.  I guesss that is an okay price for a round trip ticket to Vancouver with a 4 night stay in a dowtown, higher end hotel  (if I am going to take a vacation, I am going to do it up right).  In case you were wondering where I will be staying, or if you thought you might come by for a visit, it is the Hotel Blu (http://www.hotelbluvancouver.com/default-en.html).

      I can't begin to explain how giddy I am that my vacation is now booked.  It is my first real vacation since 1987, and that wasn't a vacation so much as it was a trip to the National Student Council Conference in Buffalo, NY.  So this is my first real adult vacation.  It will also be my first time on an aeroplane (I like pleasure spiked with pain and all that jazz).  The only thing that sucks is all of the places I layover on the way to and from Vancouver are places I would also love to visit (Chicago on my way there, Toronto and NY on the way back).  I have been scouring the web for things to do in Vancouver and there are lots of neat little things I want to poke my head into.  The Seawall, Stanley Park, sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the beach, etc.  The fun I will have, I am already rubbing my grubby little paws together.  Facebook friends will note I have been hashtagging 2016 #itsmyyear, this is part of the reason why.

     Off of the topic of vacation for just a moment, the homepage will be changing in the near future (again!).  It seems the bookshelf to the right will no longer be in service, Amazon is shutting it down, merging Shelfari with Goodreads.  I have contacted them to see if there is a similar widget for Goodreads, as I have already exported my reading material over (both apps are run my Amazon so they provided the export goodness to switch to the Goodreads for shelfari peeps).  As soon as I find a workable tool for the page I will make the necessary changes.

     As an added bonus to my vacation, I learned I could book through Swagbucks, as they have connections to Travelocity, Expedia and a couple other travel sites in their shop and earn section, so not only did I book my vacation but I earned 8 SBs for every dollar I spent  (that would be 8800+ SBs for me) which should help in my acquiring Amazon gift cards.  What can I say, I work my bonuses much like a $25 hooker works to pay the rent, lots of fucking around.  Let's hope this isn't the ast blog entry B.V. (Before Vancouver) but as lazy as I have been about blogging recently, it could be.