While in the Birks at West Ed today with my high school friend L buying Sister her birthday present I was plesantly surprised and quite amused when the sales lady came up to us, looked at me and said "Your not from Edmonton are you?" Ummm "Nope" I said but was quite happy about the whole exchange. Thank God I don't fit into Edmonton. :P

WHAT A FUCKING AWESOME DAY! I just bought Mariah Carey tickets for her show in September and I'm leaving camp and get to spent time with Raph in Edmonton! Life could NOT be better!

Sunday

Although it was Sunday and Sunday’s tend to be very boring around here it’s been a rather pleasant day.  We’ve blasted music in the office for hours, had a number of good laughs, and tomorrow I’m going to Edmonton to visit Raph and Wifey!  I’ve also become friends with the girls that work for our airline and may end up going out with them at some point.  Also seeing one of my high school friends is sure to be a highlight.  Can’t wait!

Housing Prices Cause Depression

As usually happens when I get tired and bored I get depressed.  Tonight I tried to entertain myself by looking through ads for condo’s in Kelowna and now I’m more depressed.  I don’t know how people do it.  I’m making reasonably decent money but when a 1 bed room has a monthly mortgage payment of 1,000 or more you start to wonder.  True I am not seriously looking and have not done any proper research into any of this but it still makes me uneasy.  Time to stop thinking about the future and start living in the present again.

Fanatical Fish!

Yet another excruciatingly boring Saturday at the office.  The fish did a flip today right out of his water.  It’s a good thing there’s a lid on his aquarium or he’d have been all over my desk which wouldn’t have been entirely good.  As it was I thought he was going to get stuck on top of the filter in the tank.  It was WILD man!  WILD!

The Breakfast of Champions

Unfortunately, at breakfast this morning, I ended up sitting with one of our strongest Union supporting people.  He’s a fairly powerful man in the Union that works for our company and he’s a miserable son of a bitch.  Of course I can’t go into the details of what was discussed but I can say I was clenching my teeth so hard that now my jaw hurts.  He made the wild accusations that the company was ONLY HERE TO MAKE MONEY! … Well let me tell you I was stunned that he’d come up with something like that; personally I wonder what the hell he’s here for.  He also stated that 75% of the people up here were just waiting for a better opportunity so they could get the fuck out.  I think I’m going to start surfing the internet looking for other Tim Horton’s counter positions that make $50,000 a year and giving them to him, just so we can get him the hell out.  Unfortunately I don’t think that’s very likely to happen.

Everything's Copesetic

Much better day today.

Started reading ‘The Great Gatsby’ last night and the first three chapters were really good.  I’m looking forward to reading more.

Dramatic Changes

Just read my post from this day last year.  Funny how life has changed SO dramatically.

Celebrities & Boys Who Bitch!

OMG!  I had a brush with Celebrity today!  On November 19, 2005 I had linked to my favourite blog and this morning I got a comment from the writer thanking me for the link (hey better late than never)!  WOW!  How insanely amazing!  So anyway here’s the link one more time http://zoeybella.blogspot.com/

The question of the night is… Is it possible for a camp of 2,000 men to simultaneously start to PMS?  Now I know physically it’s impossible and just should not happen but something has gotten a bee in they boys’ bonnets and they’re making life VERY difficult.  

The bitching and moaning started this morning at 6AM when I came into the office and continued throughout the day and is STILL going on at 7PM.  Yeah guys! I understand that your issue is excruciatingly important to you and the balance of your life.  I totally understand that life as you know it will end because your furnace is blowing hot air and your a/c is just to cold.  I totally commiserate that the guys on your floor are “fucking pigs” and don’t clean up after themselves… I live there to.  I’ve even gone as far as trying to convince the Recreation Manager that we should offer ‘Basic Personal Hygiene’ courses after work but, well we just didn’t think any of you grubby bastards would actually show!  No, life in camp isn’t as perfect as your lovely abode but hey we can’t all live in paradise.

Frankly it’s been a hard day and I really hope that tomorrow will be better.  

Work out...

The weather up here is HORRIBLE.  Well at least it looks really bad from my vantage point at the window.  There are many, many days I’m glad that I rarely if ever go outside.

I’m back working out at the gym during my down time and I’m really happy that I’m able to work out without feeling like I’m going to throw up.  I’ve been doing a lot of Pilates type exercises using a Nautilus ball and I’m very pleased with the results.  My core is a lot stronger which helps a lot with the headaches and back problems that I used to have.  Amazing, exercise and you feel better… who knew.

100 Years of Solitude

(No the title doesn’t actually have anything to do with my life…)

I’m within pages of finishing 100 Years of Solitude this wacked out crazy novel that Matthew recommended.  I don’t think I’ve read a more confusing novel since I was reading the Russian writers a couple of years ago.  Even though it’s insanely confusing I give 100 Years two thumbs up… as long as you can handle reading about generations of a family seemingly obsessed with incest!

Looking forward

Two things I’m looking forward to:

1. The Desperate Housewives season finale that’s on in 8 minutes.


2. Visiting Raph and Wifey in two weeks (or so)

Hot Fights

I’m SO fucking bored at work I’m trying to goad my Beta (fighter fish) into attacking his thermometer just to entertain me.  Weekends are deadly here because it’s so dead.  I’ve spent the last few hours taking apart and rebuilding Employee Hiring forms for the Human Resources Department.  SAVE ME FROM THE BOREDOM!

I'm not sick anymore but I seem to have to be careful of what I put into my tummy. For some reason it's got this queasyness to it that is not entirely pleasant. Ok, enough about me...

The girl that was laid off a couple of weeks ago is back! Seems that one of our other girls (women) was homesick or something for her boyfriend so she talked Management into letting her go and the other one come back. Totally bizarre situation and pretty weird but that's what happend. So eviedently everyone is happy.

Really nothing more to say. I had Cream of Wheat and oranges this morning for breakfast... in case anyone is interested.

Money, money, MONEY!

Sometimes I hate paydays.  No actually I usually hate paydays.  It’s not the sudden influx of cash into my bank account; rather it’s the sudden outflow of cash that happens when I pay my bills.  I hate bills.  It’s weird actually I don’t know how in hell I have so many bills… I don’t do anything or go anywhere.  The upside of this is that I have the money to pay off the bills I accumulate so all is not lost.

Oh did I mention that I caught another variation of the flu when I got back that kept me in bed all day yesterday.  So much fun.

I have a headache. I hate headaches. Otherwise it's been an ok day. I'm going to bed.

Campy Madonna

YAY!  I’m back home, well camp anyway.  It’s really kind of scary how quickly this place has turned into home for me.  What’s even scarier is that I was looking forward to getting back here while I was away.  Mostly I believe the reason for this is because here I have a purpose and some friends.  While at home I drift aimlessly doing nothing and have few to no friends to do it with.

I’m trying to figure out how I can go to see Madonna.  Her only Canadian date is in Montreal and I’m frantically trying to win the contest to go and see her that Telus is putting on.  Such and amazing prize package.  If my plan to win my way to see her doesn’t pan out I suppose I’ll have to go and see her in Vegas or something.

Oh so here's something else I've been thinking about. I've got an appointment with my broker tomorrow. As I'm making decent money I really want to start working on investing and saving. Currently my savings are almost nil, as I had a good long stint of living beyond my means and I'm still paying that off. As the debts of yesteryear have slowly been getting smaller and smaller I'm trying to figure out what my next step is going to be. My Dad thinks that doubeling up on my car payments and getting rid of my car debt would be a better use of the money. I don't think I agree though because I have a 0% interest rate on the car so it doesn't make much sense to me to do that when I could be shovelling the money into investments that will be earning me a return. Frankly I don't want to be coming home to my parents house much longer. I want a place of my own, or a business of my own, and paying off my car faster isn't going to help expediate that process very quickly. So at this point I'm thinking I'm going to start shovelling the money into some form of investment where I can't touch it (curbing my own frivolity) and maybe upping the amount of my car payment as well. Hell, at this point I'll start putting money away like I'm paying rent again and shouldn't even miss it.

OMG Grey's Anatomy was FANTASTIC! Can't wait for part II tomorrow!

Sweet, sweet, candy!

I’m sitting here listening to my Parents kvetch at each other for opening a bag of liquorice candies.  Apparently neither of them has any self control and they both keep eating the candy, yet neither of them wants to take the blame for providing the candies.  Dad bought them… but Mom opened them.  This is SO typical!

ARGH!

Argh!  I am seriously feeling frustrated tonight.

Today I hated being here. It was one of those days where I nothing to do and no one to do it with. Sometimes I just hate coming back here. On top of that I did something really dumb last night that really makes me mad because it shouldn't have happend.

I walked around today thinking to myself I wish I was back at camp. Shocking even to myself. I couldn't believe that but that's how much the place has become like home already. That and the fact that I feel comfortable there already. I'm looking forward to my next turnaround though because it's only going to be 3 days I'm just going to go to Edmonton and relax and visit with Raph and Wifey. It'll be nice to visit with them and catch up.

Two more days to go...

Haemorrhaging!

HELP!  I’m haemorrhaging cash.  The fact that I need to get a whole lot of things done in one week that I can’t do in the three that I’m gone for means that all the expenses pile up and beat the shit out of my bank account in that one week.  Today my rough estimate of my spending would be upward of $350!  Maybe I should have stayed sick.

The joy's of advanced age and driving.

It pains me to say it but there really is one major flaw with the Okanagan.  Fortunately it has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with the people.  People in this valley, particularly Vernon, couldn’t drive the rats out of a shit house.  

Today on the few trips out that I made I was cut off by a Terasen Gas truck, an old man, two old ladies, and another old man.  Three times that I went through an intersection near my parents house people almost drove into me because they didn’t have a clue how to follow basic road signs.  On the highway people were careening all over the place with nary a signal light to be seen.  It’s seriously enough to make me really glad that I don’t go near a vehicle for 21 days straight.  It was while I was driving behind an old man in a very large pickup truck that I realized how dangerous most of these people are.  The double solid line was cutting straight through the center of his truck all the way down the road.  I was absolutely stunned when he didn’t even get out of the way of an on-coming car.


I think tomorrow I’m going to stay home.

I can't believe that I go on my days off and I get SICK! This frigging sucks. The one saving grace about the whole situation though is that I'm not sick at camp, which would be intolerable. As it is I fell asleep twice on the bathroom floor yesterday. Probably would have been there all night had my Mom not come home and opened the door, hitting my head in the process. So now I've got a sore head, I bit my tongue at some point in my sleep and I can't go farther than 100 feet from a bathroom. Happy Turnaround!

I'm in Calgary and I think that I've come down with the flu. Started feeling shitty yesterday and still do. Had a nice dinner with S but had to cut it pretty short cause I'm just not feeling well. Hopefully this won't last the entire time I'm home.

Just about there.

Two more days ‘till home time!  VERY excited.  Things are good here but it’s time for a break.  

Thursday Night

One of my co-workers were laid off today because the company is behind in some of it’s commitments to our client which means that we’re over-staffed.  We’ve all been expecting this for some time but that doesn’t make the fact that she is leaving any easier.  Working in the office has been a lot of fun because of the awesome people that we’ve got in there right now.  True the expected outcome of this is that she will be brought back on in a month or two but the chances of her waiting around to get back on are, in my opinion, slim.  

The uncertainty of this whole venture reminds me of HBC and the whole horrible experience that I went through there.  Everyday it seems that no matter how hard you work someone is trying to get rid of you for some reason.

At this point I’m not worried about my job because I’m the only one filling my position and I’ve been getting rave reviews from our clients, one of them actually went up to our HR Manager in the dinning hall and told her how happy they are with me, but the feeling of uncertainty still remains and still really sucks.

In other happier news I talked to MC today, for the first time since I was in Vancouver, and solidified some of our plans for Marcie and Frank’s wedding in July.  MC is going to be my date.  As she works at one of Canada’s most pretigious men’s wear retailers she is going to look into seeing what kind of a deal she can swing me on a BOSS suit for the wedding.  I’m very excited about this wedding as I don’t think I’ll ever be to another one like it.  The whole thing is very movie wedding because of the huge lengths Marcie and her family are going to for it.  Just about counting the days.

Crack Music

Oh, I keep forgetting to tell ya’ll about our Crack experience.  Buddy comes up to the window one day yelling about how there are spider webs all over his room and him.  As he’s standing there he’s pulling off spider webs (that we can’t see) yelling look at them!  I was in the shower forever and couldn’t get them off!  His hands were totally wrinkled and looked like he’d been in the shower for hours.  Essentially we laughed it off but it really is a sad situation.  So kids, make sure you say NO to Crack!

Music

Things have been pretty busy as usual.  I’m looking for music because I can’t find anything to listen to.  Bizarre when I have over 900 songs on my iPod.  Just can’t find anything I want to download.