HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! I LOVE YOU!

I ROCK! Yes, I'm modest too! There is so much to update that I think I'm going to go in reverse order starting with the latest happenings first.

I got back from my business trip to Vancouver this evening, it seems almost surreal that I would have business trips to Vancouver. To be honest I'm already at the point where I'm not excited about them. This week went well and I had a good time with the other trainee's but I think the fact that it's summer in the Okanagan led me to be a little more not happy to be away from home. Anyway the first three days of the week was focused on learning the financial metrics of my business, retail math, how to read a profit and loss sheet for a store etc. Incredibly dry and it would have been terribly boring had the presenters not been very well picked for both their knowledge and their sense of humour. Great guys who made a terribly boring subject palatable at least.

The fourth day (today) was spent watching 'us' trainee's presentations on the Product Lifecycle. I, of course, blew the presentation away. Again 'my humour' which I don't even try to put on wins all of the judges over and I get top marks everytime. I wasn't even given any constructive feedback on how I could improve. I am so great! Ok enough of my own inflated head.

After getting home from the airport I called Tim and Lisa to see what they were up to. They were going to be heading downtown to watch the Canada Day fireworks. I decided that I would join them and am glad that I did. I met my friend Peter at his work and he asked me if I wanted to go to Evanescence tomorrow as he had managed to get free tickets! Of course I'm going. Can't wait!

Moving on to my new home. I love it here. It's just incredible what a relief it is to not have to worry about whether or not my room-mate is going to be home. Living with Conrad and Barbara (no not Black, I wish) has so far been fantastic. They are exceptionally nice and allow me to do whatever I want (as they should). Conrad is an exceptionally cool guy and we actually seem to have many of the same interests. He started his career in retail years ago (he's no longer in retail) and has been able to give me such excellent advice as "Give ulcers don't get ulcers!" He was also kind enough to hook my computer up to his home network allowing me to have a blazing fast ADSL connection. Oh did I mention that I have access to a 300 channel satellite TV! Going from basic cable and a total dickhead to this has been unreal.

Last time I wrote I mentioned the new stock program at work. Well the launch didn't go so well and let's just say that I'm thrilled I was away for a week. When the system was powered up and put online for the first time it crashed, causing all of our tills, price scanners, etc to die. We were lucky in that we were able to operate our tills off of our backup system but the price scanners and a number of other important systems were down for a number of days causing no end of work and extra running for our service associates.

I went to a gay dance on Saturday night. I had fun.

Tomorrow I'm believe that I'm going to hit the beach as the weather here has been incredible. I also have to do some planning for my big wine tour with Tim and Lisa on Saturday. I CANNOT WAIT for this one. It's going to be so much damned fun. We're going to make a day of it. We're driving down to Oliver in the morning and then are going to be working our way slowly back for the rest of the day. We'll be taking a decadent picnic lunch and stopping at a five star seafood restaurant on the way home. It's a good thing that Tim isn't much of a drinker and seems to be amused by Lisa and I's antics. Tim will be driving.

I think that's enough for now.

Good Night!