Journal Entries for March 2006 March 2, 2006 - 2:30 PM Cat in the Hat - Meet Mouse in the House! There's a reason I carry my camera around with me all the time. Sometimes you'll see something that is just too strange to explain with mere words. You really have to see it to understand. Sometimes I take pictures of work-related things for clarification purposes, sometimes I see something beautiful and take it's picture just because. But once in a while I see something that is just plain bizarre. Look in the image above. Do you see anything strange there? I went to this house in Chestemere yesterday to transfer their cable services. Whenever I have to wait at the door for the customer to arrive, I usually look around the house, try to see if they have external cable running to any rooms, satellite, etc. What I observed at this house made me look a couple of times. Identifying what it was was pretty easy. What came next was bafflement and curiosity as to HOW it came to be where it was. That's a mouse, which somehow got stuck between the sections of siding and eventually died on the side of this house! A couple of theories: First, it might have been in the siding at the time of installation, got "installed", then weaseled it's way out, only to get stuck here where it's final hour was a tight one. Second: It somehow got underneath the siding after it had been installed and worked it's way upward until reaching this point before passing. Other than that, I don't know how else it would have gotten there. You can't tell from the picture, but that mouse is actually 7 or 8 feet off the ground! It's right up there. I held the camera above my head as far as I could reach in an attempt to take this picture and was still underneath him. Very strange. Here's something you don't see every day... A submarine in Alberta?! Here's a picture to prove it. The funny thing too, is that I think I might know the people who built this one! I'm going to show the picture to one of them and see if I can get confirmation but I'm pretty sure Jason's uncles Paul and Mick (Raychel's dad who we stayed with in Nanaimo) had some part in the creation of this yellow attention grabber.) If I'm not mistaken, it sunk on it's maiden voyage too! hehehe Then for years it sat outside the Dive Shop in Calgary on 16th Ave. Now I guess it has moved here. Quite a conversation piece if nothing else... You can't miss it. March 4, 2006 - 1:56 AM Once the feeling is gone and there's no trust anymore you should pack your belongings and be out of the door you see it really doesn't matter how much time that you spent relationships are ugly when they come to an end I knew when I left you that I had a good reason but wanting you now only feels like treason No matter how I fight it, it won't go away I've never wanted you as much as I want you today. One of those paragraphs is from a song I was listening to tonight from the Cafe Del Mar Chillout session, the other is one I penned myself just now while lying in bed. I've been having a lot of strange dreams lately. I don't know if it's just because I'm sleeping more and therefore remember more of the dreams when I wake up, but it's almost ominous, a subliminal foreshadowing of things to come. I was even going to go say hi to an old friend the other night, but when I tried to drive to the store where she worked, it didn't happen. I was going North on Deerfoot when I decided I'd stop in to say hi. I pulled off on an overpass, made two left turns in an attempt to go South, but once back on Deerfoot (and I still have no idea HOW this happened) I realized I had somehow wound up back on the north-bound side! Taking this as a sign, I continued on my way home instead. Still, it was very strange. I went and bought a new desk and chair today from Ikea, and let me tell you!!! If you've never been to that huge Ikea store, you have GOT to go check it out! I will definitely be going there again. I'll warn you now though - it's hard to leave without buying something. They have a LOT of neat stuff there. And most of it is quite reasonably priced. The chair I bought is most comfortable, and the desk is just the right size for me to do some much-needed work. Tom, Bo's dad's friend Tom, gave me his old computer when I upgraded his existing one. Mind you, his "old" computer is still a smoking machine, and is by far the best computer I now have. It was frustrating having this great computer with so much potential and not really having a comfortable place to work on it. So finally I gave in, went to Ikea, and got a little workstation set up. I've been listening to a band I've never heard of until a week ago with guarded optimism. So far I've really been enjoying the songs I've heard. The group name is Death Cab for Cutie. I have no idea what it means but their music has a certain appeal. If you'd like to hear a sample of their work, check out the songs Summer Skin and Someday You Will Be Loved. Presently, they are my favorite songs of the ones I've sampled so far. March 4, 2006 - 11:28 PM It was an exciting UFC as Canada took on the United States as match after match yielded very few dull moments. Although there were no knockouts this night, there were some lightning fast submissions and the championship title match went the full five rounds to be decided (although unanimously) by judge's decision. All in all, a very entertaining evening. This weekend allowed me the chance to redesign my room, and I finally gave in and put a computer in my "living space". With all the side jobs I've been doing, this was more out of necessity than on a whim and it's something I've had in mind to do for a long time. I picked up a filing cabinet this weekend to sort out all my files, bills, and receipts and began going through my collection of such things. It's funny what you keep. I found a smile of quiet amusement creep across my face a number of times as I recalled the motivation behind the collection of numerous articles. I picked up a scanner with a backlight for scanning slides and negatives too this weekend, which coincides nicely with the discovery of several rolls of developed film for which I do not have the corresponding set of prints. I can't wait to scan the negatives and see what the pictures are of. I also picked up some 128 and 256 meg sticks of SD ram for a song, which because they are no longer in production are becomming harder and harder to find at a reasonable price. As well, I also scored a great deal on two Dell 18" (yes, eighteen inch) monitors. Beautiful Trinitron tubes, crystal clear, manufactured in April of 2002, they are in mint condition and will serve me well on my recently acquired dual head Pentium 4 mixing machine. Although this weekend has been fairly productive, I have been attempting to learn Flash and finding it quite a bit harder than I originally expected. I'm not sure what the problem is but I can't seem to grasp the basic operation of the Flash MX program. I've spent two weekends now with little to show for it. I'll admit it's a little embarassing too when I know 14 year olds who are creating complex flash programs with ease. I have, by no means, mastered the computer - the more I learn the more I've come to discover that I don't know. Almost sounds like a battle I can't win. Pedestrian with Right-Of-Way: 1 Chinese lady driving far too fast in a parking lot: 0 While I was leaving the bank and returning to my vehicle this afternoon I stepped into the roadway of a parking lot only to leap back in a crazy burst of surprise and adrenaline as this dumb chinese lady went flying by in a red minivan. When she saw me, she attempted to stop but the vehicle went into a skid so she let off the brakes and just kept going. Now out of harm's way, I was relieved but suddenly quite angry at this careless, incompetent driver who nearly caused me severe bodily harm so as her vehicle passed by I gave it a solid pound as if to say, Hey, watch where you're going! Much to my surprise, I ended up striking her tail light which shattered from the impact! The driver, either oblivious to the deed or too scared to stop since she knew she was in the wrong, kept on driving and so I also went my way. A guy in high school, Scott Wall, once told me: There are three "F's" of bad drivers: Foreign, Feeble, and Female. It would seem this driver was three for three in that list. March 10, 2006 - 12:11 AM Some people wonder why I carry my camera around with me pretty much everywhere I go. Once in a while I see something I think would make a great picture, and there have been too many times I did not have my camera at such moments. Having a great heater makes all the difference when it comes to winter driving. The other day I had some time to kill in the middle of the day so I crossed the threshold of a few pawn shops without any real intention to buy anything. I simply wanted to amuse my mind and rummaging through the second hand treasures one can sometimes discover for sale in pawn shops is a great way to pass the time. At one such shop, I came across a whole table of CD's marked $1.00. Slightly amused to behold what one-hit-wonders why were trying to clear out at a dollar, I started perusing the titles. But to my surprise and excitement, they weren't copies of Tiffany or Milli Vanilli, but recent, expensive titles. I picked out 4 or 5 "Now" series CD's and at least that many sequential editions of Women in Song. There were a few classic dance albums I grabbed as well, one double-disc compilation with it's original price tag still attached that read $49.95!! And all these discs were going for a dollar. So of course, my next thought was that they were all scratched and damaged. Disc after disc however, proved to be in mint to perfect condition! I'd be surprised if some of them had ever been played!! Having read through practically all the titles, I selected about 18 discs and brought them to the counter where I asked the attendant why they were priced so low. He explained that the night before a customer had brought in 800 (eight hundred) CD's and that he just wanted to push them through. I wasn't going to argue. Then, a day later I was scouring another pawn shop when my eyes beheld a diamond in the rough. There was a laptop which had obviously been marked down numerous times and by a significant amount. It's spec list included a Pentium III 700 Mhz processor, 256 Mb of Ram, a 40 gig hard drive, 32 mb video chip, 15" 1600x1200 LCD screen, and DVD/CDRW drive. It started off about $800, then had been marked down to $500 and was now sitting on a shelf with a price tag of $300! Why is this laptop so cheap? I asked the lady behind the counter. She explained that they had "lost" the power supply for it and therefore could not turn it on. She claimed that it worked, but without the cord there was no way to verify this. I looked it over pessemistically while inside my head I was jumping for joy and squealing with glee like a little schoolgirl. I pointed out that it was difficult to justify the purchase without seeing it run, stating that no one would buy a used car without starting the engine and giving it a test drive or buy a TV without seeing what the picture was like - but if they'd take $50 off the price, I would take my chances with it and buy it. She punched in some numbers on her computer and agreed to the sale. Once the transaction had been completed, I thanked her, carried the laptop out to my van, went across the street to Memory Express, bought a power supply for it and tried it out. The thing works like a charm, it's fast, looks and sounds great, and as it turns out - the DVD drive had a copy of Lion King II in it! I'd say I came out ahead on that one... Much of my work day is spent in the van. Whether it's driving around the city or arranging my tools, supplies and stash of chocolate bars, the van is my base of operation for 12-16 hours a day on those four days that I work. And I'll be the first one to tell you that those days are long! When I get home at night, all I usually want to do is go to bed. But lately I've been finding an escape from the routine, a place my mind can wander off to and have a good time while my body is doing the daily deeds of driving. Have you ever heard a song and had it trigger a memory? Or listened to a tune and found it's melody caught hold of your mind's hand and lead it away from the world of reality to a better place, a place of enjoyment, fufilment and happiness? Everybody works for something. Some people have bills to pay. Some people work for the weekend. Some people are saving up to go back to school so they can get better jobs, others are simply trying to put food on the table. Perhaps a few people even work because they truly enjoy what they do and find unmatched levels of satisfaction through the accomplishment of the tasks they are assigned to complete. All this time on the road really got me asking myself, What am I working for? To what place does my mind wander most often when I hear those songs? Where do my thoughts end up residing when the ropes on my consciousness are slackened? I would have to say that a big part of me still lives for the summer. The motorcycle, the Seadoo, the camping trips, the houseboat trips, Pine Lake, the Warm Lake - these are where my happiest memories are forged. It has been occuring to me that my winters are not terribly exciting. I usually just try to save up enough money during the winter to pay for my summers! All that fun isn't cheap, you know... What about you? What are you working for? Last night Bo and I went to Swiss Chalet. Can you believe Bo had never been to Swiss Chalet before? I mean, I've never thought of my family as big "Eat Out" people - but my parents warm the seats of the Swiss Chalet twice a week! When I worked at Custom Linen, I'd often join them. I think he enjoyed his meal though, and I certainly enjoyed mine though this was nothing new. We had an interesting conversation about doing things differently in high school. It would be a lot of fun to go back knowing then what we know now. Some of the things I made a big priority would not have ranked at all in my revised list, while other things I neglected to follow up on would now take my utmost attention and devotion. Jenna Gardner comes readily to mind! hahaha She was a little hottie! Oh but to have the wisdom of age with the ambition of youth. You know, for our graduating year's yearbook we were all asked to compile a half-page worth of images, text, quotes, or whatever else we wanted. They really didn't give us a lot of notice for this, and at the time I typed up some quippie messages to various friends, gathered some pictures - young and old, and arranged it together on what would become my half-page's worth of yearbook legendry. At the time, I tossed together a redundant phrase as part of my thoughts on life -- and I really didn't give it much thought at the time. But more and more I'm realizing that those simple, rhetorical, perhaps even sarcastic series of words is more profound and meaningful that I had ever intended it to be. Live your life with no regrets, and you won't regret it. March 11, 2006 - 2:55 PM Happy Birthday Madisson! March 17, 2006 - 1:03 AM Sometimes You Find Treasure... A couple of days ago I was rummaging through some old files and I uncovered several sets of negatives. Now most of the film I ever got developed wound up on prints which I still have. I might have misplaced the odd photograph or two, but generally speaking I know where they all are. But as I was looking through these negatives I came across two rolls of film whose prints I had not seen in a very long time. In fact, one roll did not even look remotely familiar - if I ever did have a set of prints from it, it's memory has completely left me. With these recent finds, you can imagine my joy in finding a flatbed scanner at a surplus sale which had a transparancy adapter! I quickly dug out my old SCSI controller and hooked it up, carefully placing each strip of negatives on the glass before gently closing the lid so as not to disturb them from their placement. One roll was from a 35mm camera, the other a 110mm. Given the size of the originals, some scans turned out better than others, and I estimate that these pictures are close to 13 years old. Seen above, my brother and I at the back of a rental fishing boat. I remember the day I think, it was the last day of our family's annual Pine Lake reunion, probably around the summer of '92 or '93 and we went to Spruce Bay and rented a fishing boat for the hour. My mom, dad, brother, and I all climbed aboard and went for quite a splashy - though enjoyable - ride. Mom and Dad The Prairie Boat House at Pine Lake Blair relaxing on the hood of the old Skylark with his raft mounted on the roof My friend Rob Esau in grade 10 Sarah Burrows, my very first girlfriend at Camp Harmattan My first motorcycle March 17, 2006 - 10:43 AM So here's the plan... A couple of weeks ago I was doing an Internet Installation at this appartment downtown. Since I had to get into the basement electrical room to hook this customer up, I was already in the building. After doing the necessary work downstairs, I knocked on the door and this really attractive 23-year-old answered the door. We hit it off right away, and although I tried my best to keep my concentration on the installation process, the conversation wandered across the gamut from places we've been to what she wants out of life. I really wanted to ask her out, but considering that I was in her appartment on Shaw's dime, this was not an option. However, she did tell me where she works and that's where the plan comes into play. While the name of the place she works at sounded vaguely familiar, I could not put my finger on it. Once I looked it up, however, I realized why I knew I'd heard the name before. It's just down the street from DCM Mechanical. SO, I'm going to get dressed here, go visit Lee at DCM, and then - since I'm in the neighbourhood - stop in and say hi to Olivia. If all goes well, I'll leave with her phone number and perhaps even a date. NOW - there are a few things that could go wrong with this plan. First, I don't know if Lee is working today. So I might look like an idiot at DCM. Second, if Lee ISN'T working, her little sister might be! Which, worse than looking like an idiot, could create a fairly awkward situation for a moment or two because if she is working, she probably won't even say hi to me. Third, Olivia might not be working and the whole trip could be in vain. That is, however, a risk I'm willing to take. I'll let you know what happens! Wish me luck! March 18, 2006 - 6:36 PM Ok, so you know how my two universal constants are that Life's Not Fair and Plans Change? Well, let's just say that things didn't go quite according to plan yesterday. I walked into the place she works and saw her at the front desk right away. She was on the phone but looked up at me and smiled. Once off the phone, we established our respective identities, chuckled our way through some small talk until finally she squared up the barrels of her rifle and fired a shot straight at me. "What did you come down here today for?" she asked. I paniced. Instead of admitting that I was attracted to her from the moment she opened the door of her appartment and smiled at me or that I'd travelled across the city to visit her in the hope of leaving only with her phone number, the conversation steered clear of such matters entirely and through a blur of bullet dodging, I wound up having a guy come to our house and give a free estimate on a new furnace. *sigh* On another note, my birds discovered today that they can climb and cling to the grill on my sub. Just one more place for them to explore I guess. They are quite smart too I am learning. Since their wings are clipped, there's no way they can fly up to their cage. So what they do instead, when they want to go back to the cage they climb atop the drum set using the cords and cables that connect all the components together. They get as high up on the drum kit as they can and then leap across, effectively sailing down towards the cage. They land neatly on the side and then climb around to the door. Silly birdies. Now I realize that shopping is traditionally an addiction that affects females more than males... But I must admit that I am having a hard time struggling with an addiction to spending! Not on clothes or shoes or anything silly like that, but on electronics and toys! Even this laptop I am writing on at the moment was picked up at a pawn shop (at a fantastic price, mind you... $250) on a whim, but having all this money in my bank account makes it VERY hard to say no to the things I want! Now I am trying to save up and pay my parents back for their investment into my startup costs at Shaw. I am very close to having that amount paid back. But after that, then what? I had no idea I wanted as many things as I do! Yesterday I had some time to kill in the afternoon so I stopped into my all-time favorite store - Axe Music. I was *this* close to walking out of there with a thousand dollar DJ CD Turntable! It's freaking sweet! I was looking at two models, a Denon and a Technics, and as I was playing with them, I told myself, "Ok, if either of these is under a thousand dollars, I'll buy it." When I asked John the cost on the Denon, he replied, "$996.") "ARRGH!" I exclaimed, to which John inquired as to the nature of my frustration. When I told him the deal I'd made with myself, he was quick to point out that he had several of them new, in boxes, ready to go - which didn't help the cause. I did manage to walk out without making the purchase, but it was definitely not easy. Man you'd think I had a late night or something! It's a few minutes past 7:00 and I'm barely able to keep my eyes open! That's crazy. I got most of the things scratched off my To-Do list for today, all that's left is vaccuuming my living room and sorting out my Shaw Receipts. I've also got one load of laundry to do but even that is not crucial for tomorrow. Perhaps I'll just crawl into bed for the night and get up early tomorrow. Boy that would feel good. March 21, 2006 - 10:47 PM Momentary Bliss is when your freezing feet find the heating pad at the bottom of the bed I've always had cold feet. I'm not sure why, during the day they're fine but when I'm at home by myself, walking around in my housecoat for an hour or so before bed, the ol' tootsie's take a turn to the bottom of the thermometer. When I was little, it used to be a grande treat to have a hot water bottle whilst going to sleep. Now in my older and perhaps wiser (though more likely just lazier) years, I've moved from the hot water bottle to the electric heating pad. Using but a few mere watts of electricity, it keeps my toes toasty throughout the night and every morning this week I've awoken with warm feet. Working these longer days I have to say I've found a new love for sleep. Like a new found girlfriend, I can never get enough of her. I often find my mind drifting away to thoughts of her throughout the day, the time we spend together is magic, and when I have to leave her each morning I miss her terribly so. I think I've found my first complaint about Shaw. It would seem that a couple of days ago they reduced the amount of time we were allotted for most of our most difficult types of calls - Internet installs, outlet installs, new installs, and cable box installs. And it seems too that often they forget to add time when they add work to a work order. For example, if a customer signed up for high speed Internet and a digital cable box, often they give you the same amount of time for that call as a plain Internet installation. But you're supposed to set up the Internet, which often includes running a new outlet, set up the customer's E-Mail accounts and show them the features of the modem, AS WELL AS install the digital cable box, get it provisioned, (activated) and show them all the features of it - as a 65 minute call. I think dispatch needs to do some ride-alongs with the installers. Particularly to houses where they want Internet in the most cable'y challenged room of the house with a bad drop, on a computer that has 16 megs of RAM and a 500 meg hard drive that barely runs Windows 95 which doesn't have a network card and won't take a PCI one. Ironically, while for a time I was nearly two hours behind schedule this afternoon, due to a couple of extremely lucky nobody-home's I was able to catch up and end my day off earlier than any other in recent memory! I got some grocery shopping done so hopefully I can start making lunches and save some money there. I looked at my bank account yesterday and MAN do I spend a lot of money eating out! I mean, I certainly do enjoy it... Boston Pizza has some mighty good food, especially when you are hungry! But it doesn't take long before those weekday afternoon meal monies add up and start taking a bite out of your savings and income. I'm trying not to let this new-found wealth change my 'habits', but it really is hard! At least if I were spending it on someone other than myself I wouldn't feel so bad. hint hint hehe It is now time for bed. My feet are tucked toastily beneath the covers of both my quilts, concealing the warmth of my body and my heating pad within and making me feel all snug. I need to spend some time with lady sleep now. She's telling me to get off the computer and come to bed. Haha - the more I extend this analogy, the more it works! I love it. Goodnight March 24, 2006 - 1:48 AM That... is one... SICK CD Player... Birds after my own heart... I was playing my drums this afternoon, fairly loudly, having a good time. Suddenly, both birds flew out of their cage, waddled across the floor and hopped up on a wire right in front of the sub where all the bass was blasting out of. This is the second time they've plopped themselves in front of the sub while the music is playing. I guess they must like the vibrations or something, but they sit there and the loud volume doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest. Birds after my own heart, I swear. I saw a sign the other day at the old Currie Barracks that made me chuckle. The sign reads, "This is a non-smoking area. Please extinguish your cigarette, cigar, or pipe." Now I guess they must not expect this sign to be obeyed, because directly beneath it is an ash tray. Now tell me, if this is a non-smoking area, why would anyone need an ash tray? That's kind of like those needle drop boxes downtown. Sure drugs are illegal, but we'll still put out needle disposal boxes so that when you do do your drugs, (which are illegal) you can dispose of your needles safely. I even heard that there are some places you can get sterile needles for free! They hand them out to the addicts so that they won't have to use rusty, infected needles or share the needles amongst themselves and so spread whatever diseases they might have. Isn't that aiding a criminal activity? You're providing the necessary tools to known drug addicts to enable them to "safely" inject themselves with the drug to which they are addicted. Kind of takes the brunt out of the whole anti-drug campaign if the government is handing out needles... I was at a customer's house the other day activating an outlet for her and she commented while she was showing me where the outlet to be turned on was about how they would sometimes get a bad picture on certain channels. It didn't take long to find the problem... I pulled my old Numark Professional CD player off the shelf tonight to play some discs but to my half-expected disappointment it wouldn't read discs. Instead, every attempt resulted in the message --Err being displayed on the screen. I could hear the laser focusing and aiming at the disc, but it wouldn't spin very much and give up after a few seconds. I tried cleaning the lens, blasting it out with air, even adjusting the height of the disc platter - no change in the result. So finally, convinced the pickup system was ok, I started looking to the electronics side. I wiggled and poked various components as the disc kept trying to read until suddenly, it fired, spun up and began playing perfectly. Turns out one of the connectors was loose. Swine connector! March 24, 2006 - 7:09 PM Happy Birthday Maria and Dustin! I am now convinced that my birds are addicted to bass. This afternoon I was working in my bedroom studio on my latest mix, but the bird cage sits sort of in the middle of the living room. As I was mixing, both birds jumped out of their cage and came waddling into my bedroom where they began to chirp at me. When I turned around to see what they wanted, they both scampered off and hopped up on the wire that is draped across the front of the sub where they perched themselves and looked back at me expectantly. I put some music on for them and they have been sitting there for several hours now since - sometimes on the wire, sometimes clinging to the metal grille on the front of the speaker. It's the funniest, silliest, cutest thing they've done yet. March 25, 2006 - 3:41 AM SIRRIUS MIX IS COMPLETE! And this time it didn't take 3 and a half years like Project X! Basically Sirrius Mix is a tribute to all the new songs I've listened to on my Sirius Satellite radio. I threw in another "R" in my rendition of the word "Sirrius" to uniquify the title and disassociate it from the Sirius radios themselves, but you can see the connection. This mix is great. It starts out with a peaceful, gently flowing remix of Roger Sanchez's Another Chance, then moves effortlessly into Narcotic Thrust's When The Dawn Breaks. From there the tempo picks up and you'll hear such artists as DJ Tiesto, Gabriel & Dresden, Natasha Beddingfield, Rhianna, Red Carpet, IIO, Fallout Boy, Kelly Clarkson and more! It was a lot of fun to mix this disc and I'll be giving out copies of it in the next week or so after I finish mastering it. If you would like to get a copy, contact me by MSN or E-Mail. I am really pumped about this one. She says she's no good with words but I'm worse Barely stuttered out, "A joke of a romantic," stuck to my tongue Weighted down with words too over-dramatic Tonight it's "It can't get much worse" vs. "No one should ever feel like..." I'm two quarters and a heart down And I don't want to forget how your voice sounds These words are all I have so I'll write them So you need them just to get by Dance, Dance We're falling apart to half time Dance, Dance And these are the lives you'd love to lead Dance This is the way they'd love if they knew how misery loved me [ Fallout Boy - Dance Dance ] Could spring actually be upon us? I shot this picture of the Seadoo keys a few weeks ago when the weather had started getting nicer but no sooner had I taken the picture but we got slamblasted with a blizzard that forced thoughts of summer back to the nether-regions of the mind. But now that it's been warming up again, I dare pull out this picture and the summer thoughts that accompany it. Bo and I have been talking camping trips already, I've heard rumours of another houseboat trip, and there's always the warm lake & Pine Lake. Now that Pat has a Jet Ski I'm sure it won't take much convincing to get him to go camping either, which makes the prospect of this summer look brighter, warmer, and more exciting than ever. March 28, 2006 - 7:04 AM Simply being love, love - loved... Is more than enough Great song by BT, it'll be on the next mix disc for sure. Work has gotten crazy busy... I had lunch with one of the other installers yesterday and he was able to shed some insight into what's happening. With more and more guys getting their phone training and going to the phone installation side, there's less guys being left on cable and Internet. Consequently, they've been giving us less time for each job in the hopes that we'll be able to get more work done. (Although honestly, let's face it - changing a number on paper does not make the work any less in real life...) Still, I've been tallying my code sheets for the past couple of weeks and I can't believe the money it's generating. The gross pay from the last two days is more than my net pay from two weeks at Custom Linen! One has to wonder how long this can continue. I was even phoned yesterday by one of the supervisors and asked to pick up an extra day this week, so Saturday will be the beginning of my next week instead of Sunday. If the call count contiues and assuming I don't run into too many problems at the jobs, I can't even think about what that will mean to the pay cheque for this period... It's a good thing I have no life though because these are long days! I was talking to Bo about it last night and he admitted he couldn't work the hours I've been putting in. The money's there, for whoever wants to work for it. I figure it's nice enough to be working outside right now but not nice enough to be camping so by putting in more days now, I can take more days off when I actually want to spend some extra time camping or at the lake. These are exciting times March 28, 2006 - 10:17 PM Jumper Cables and Front Yard Ped's So I walked into 7-Eleven this morning for my morning Slurpee fix, and there was a service technician from Pepsi working on one of the fountain pop dispensers in the store. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I strode over to the guy, put my hand on his shoulder and said, "You're a good man and you do good work." Speaking of slurpee's, the other day I wandered into a 7-Eleven looking for a good Slurpee, when suddenly a light went on. (hahahahaha) I realized that [this] was the VERY FIRST STORE I ever worked in, on my first day as a light bulb changer at Sylvania! Jason and I went there with Steve to perform a wash and relamp, where you basically change every light in the store and wash all the fixtures. Then, to complpiment my fondly remembered trip down memory lane, when I approached the counter with my Slurpee in hand, the girl at the till waved me on by, saying "I'm feeling generous today." Free Slurpee in hand, I marched through the front door to my van; my joy was complete. And, another bit of (I have nothing better to write about) information... This afternoon I ate the second donair I've ever had in my life. They are freaking awesome! Now I know what people were telle'ing me when they said they loved donairs. I wish I'd tried one years ago. My count would be a LOT higher than two! I think for some reason I always associated it with dounuts... perhaps the similarity in names or something, I don't know. But they are delicious. They truly are. I had an interesting call tonight. It was actually a call I'd had a few days ago, a transfer of services. It was a new house in Chestemere, and the guy was transferring his cable & Internet services from an account here in Calgary. When I got out there to hook him up, however - there was no line to his house. I later found out that the owner had actually built the house himself, and during the process had neglected to call Shaw to have that line put in. So I filled out the paperwork to have the Construction guys come out and run the line (this was on Sunday.) Well today I noticed I had the same call, and I know there's no way Construction has been out there already. So I phoned my supervisor and told him about the situation, he called me back a bit later and said he was sending a couple of Senior installers out there to see if they could fish a line through. It turns out they couldn't though, the conduit was too long and they didn't have a fish tape long enough so they ended up running a 300' temp line BEHIND two (BIG) houses to the green box the cable hooks up to. When I arrived they were pretty much done so I was able to start working in the guy's house and installing all his outlets and hooking up all his "stuff". In the end it got done but I've never seen a scenario like this. Almost every day I'm discovering little tricks to the job, sometimes from other installers, sometimes from customers, sometimes just by figuring things out. One neat and very handy trick I picked up a few days ago was when you're doing an attic crawl where you have to fish cable down from the attic, often it's very hard to tell where walls are because of all the insulation. But what you can do is strip back a foot of cable so just the stinger is exposed, and from the room where you want the cable to be run, push the stinger up through the drywall so that it's easy to find the exact spot you have to drill in the attic. The wire is thin enough that it will pass through the drywall pretty painlessly, and thin enough that the naked eye can't even see the hole when you're done. Once back in the attic, you just have to look for the copper wire sticking through, now you know EXACTLY where you need to drill and you can finish the job without any guesswork or holes to patch. This little gem alone has saved me countless hours of trial and error, trying to measure and re-measure from above, and even from patching holes where I've mis-drilled and come out of a ceiling or a wall somewhere. Every night this week I've come home with a smile on my face as I recap my day and think to myself, "Man I love my job." Song of the day: I know this will be something I remember in my head (something I remember) Sharp words push me back hanging on to anything I can (Anything I can) What do you tell me? Only things I want to hear What don't you tell me? This could just disappear. At the same time You keep tracking treasure down. At the same time (At the same time) Tracking treasure down (tracking treasure down) Can't stop my soul tonight Wanna find something I believe (Something I believe) Open up, take me in Makes no sense, help me understand (Help me understand) What do you tell me? Only things I want to hear. What don't you tell me? This could just disappear. — Gabriel & Dresden - Tracking Treasure Down — March 29, 2006 - 11:24 PM There's only one way to say it: I miss Shauntelle March 30, 2006 - 11:51 PM I need a taller microwave Evening. Sunlight is just starting to fade. Muffled sounds surround me; a stereo somewhere; children playing; a lawnmower. The air is still. I was standing in a back alley, next a large, wooden fence when suddenly I caught sight - just a hint - of my own breath. Suddenly, for a moment I was at the lake. Same feeling, same sounds, that sense of night approaching, the desire to find a fire. The fence beside me, the road beneath me, every sensation seemed so similar. Two people could see the same thing. To one, a meaningless series of unrelated events. To the other - significant beyond the possibility of chance. Perception. How do you percieve it? Two people meet. Every event, every decision, every circumstance, every course of action that lead up to that moment their eyes first made contact. Could it be that so many variables fall victim to the merciless law of randominity? Or is there purpose in everything? A plan, a decided course of action, intentional cause and effect resulting not in chaotic circumstancial chance but planned, purposeful happenings? If the latter, perception requires a larger scope within which to determine the correct focus. If the former, perception can merely be decided moment by moment, incident by incident, day by day without fear of any great consequence. But should one mix the two, expecting chance where there is purpose or intention where there was accident - one's whole perception may be skewed. How's that for some think to ponder over a big glass of hot chocolate? Speaking of which, that brings me back to my original comment above, about needing a taller microwave. I have a pretty small microwave, it's really nothing fancy but it heats my food. It's so primitive, it has a mechanical, rotary timer. Not even a clock. But it does the job and it was free so I really don't mind. For that matter, if I need a clock, I'll buy a clock. My only complaint with it, however - is the height of the cooking compartment: I have some glasses, big glasses, that I like making hot chocolate in because they can hold a lot of milk. But given the restricted height, I've found I have to remove the glass plate from the bottom of the microwave just to fit some of these cups in. By placing them exactly center on the supporting aparatus the plate turns on, the cup is able to be heated (and even rotated) without spilling. As for the picture, you'll just have to wonder. One thing I did want to mention as well, the other day while I was working on a new installation, I saw across the street a bunch of laborours playing hockey in the unfinished kitchen / dining room of a new house in Saddleridge. That's one thing about the trades, they're always making work fun. Bo tells me stories all the time about the crazy things they do on his work sites. Bo and I did a whole whack of spring cleaning today, cleared out a lot of stuff that's been sitting around waiting for the snow and ice to thaw. We even had a big fire this afternoon and I got rid of all my cardboard and paper garbage. My thermometer read 10 degrees this afternoon and that is a good sign. Of course, we might not be out of the snowy woods just yet, but it's definitely beginning to feel like spring, and that can only mean one thing: Summer is coming! March 31, 2006 - 11:27 PM I'm pretty tired and still VERY full from supper tonight so I'm just going to toss some pictures up of my day and (hopefully) explain them in more details later. Need I say more? Well, probably... But it will have to come another time. I have to work in the morning, we're VERY busy at Shaw these days and they've been crying for guys to pick up extra days. I could have worked today as well but I decided I needed the time off to get some things done and to spend some time with my friends. It turns out it was well worth it. I always have a great time hanging out with these guys, plus I got a whole whack of parts for Rusty from one of the blue vans. I'll tell you some stories behind that vehicle later, and why I'm glad to be able to carry on a part of it in Rusty. In the mean time, rest well - and may you dream of large women! Goodnight BACK to Journal Index