Two extremely important people in my life are in the hospital tonight. One of them my Great Uncle Frank is in Calgary and we're really not sure if he's going leave the hospital. The other, is one of our dearest family friends Mrs. C. She's in the hospital in Vernon.

Thinking of both of these people I can only hope and aspire to be like them in some way. Uncle Frank is the composite Gentleman. Everyone loves him and he's one of those people who never has a bad word to say about anyone. Mrs. C is part of one of the most dynamic duo's I've ever seen. She and her husband went out and bought another computer a few months ago so that they could "stay with it". One of the wisest women in my life. As I sit here tonight thinking of them and the future without them I can't help but feel sad yet, spurred on to be more like these two incredible people. You've both been incredible influences in my life.

My thoughts are with you, even though I can't be.

I just downloaded 'Introducing Joss Stone' on iTunes. What a phenomenal album. I highly recommend it. Soulful and powerful it's excellent listening.

People who have never spent time in the environment in which I work everyday cannot understand the sheer stupidity of some of the people that I come into contact with everyday.

A few days ago I had to turn a new employee around at the airport when I got a last minute call that he'd failed his drug test. Understandably he was pretty upset about the whole situation and with the fact that we sent him back to Vancouver, when he was expecting to come to work and make some money.

Two days later he called me in a state of, what can only be described as desperation. For the life of him he couldn't figure out how marijuana had gotten into his system as "I've never smoked it in my life!" When I half jokingly suggested that he'd been Ross Rebagliatied he didn't understand so I explained about second hand smoke etc. Well he didn't think that was it either. He then went on to tell me that he wouldn't even know what the stuff looked like if his wife didn't put it in her spaghetti sauce... Seriously, this conversation actually did happen. I ended the conversation by telling our friend that if he passed the drug test he'd be good to go for a job with our company. I suggested that he stay away from his wife's spaghetti for the next few months as well.

Story number two isn't necessarily as funny... oh hell who am I kidding, it is! I'm sitting at my desk when the phone rings. It's a Manager from one of the camps that we have our Craft people staying in. Turns out that this Gentleman had gotten drunk or high (we're still not sure which) and decided that his neighbour snored to loudly. So he left his room and proceeded down the hall kicking doors in. Did I mention that he was "balls assed naked"? The Camp Manager told me that in all his years in camp he'd never seen a naked man demolish doors like that. Reading the witness reports were pretty funny. One of them simply stated "I was sleeping. My door blew apart and a naked man was standing in the door screaming at me. I went back to sleep." By the time the Police arrived and hauled jay bird off to jail I think the whole camp knew about what happened. The next morning when buddy called his Foreman he conveiniently left out the fact that he was naked and had spent the night in jail.

My third and final story involved some of our European workers. These "Gentlemen" had just got back from their time at home and decided to get very drunk. While they decided that it would be a good idea to see how far they could get with one of the cleaning ladies. She of course went screaming to her Manager who called me to tell me these guys were out. I sent the calvary who raced out to the camp, made the guys shower, sober and pack up as much as they could then threw them into a truck to get them to a plane. As they headed off down the road the driver tells me he hears the distinctive "ppsssssssshhhhhhhhh" sound of a can being opened... The boy's had decided their experience had been so stressful they needed a drink...

These are just three examples of a day in my life. Enjoy.

Last night I was talked into going to the bar in Fort Mac by Sister and Peter. The rational was that it was their leaving ESS party. Can't argue with that. So we went, we drank, we danced, we drank, we danced a lot more, I woke up this morning drunk. The waking up drunk was a new experience... as was feeling like utter shit this morning. Remember why I pretty much stopped drinking in camp months ago. Over all everyone that attended agreed that it was a phenomenal time. Now if my calves would just stop throbbing...

After reading the Strata minutes last night the unease I've had in my gut increased. After being tormented by the decision today I officially retracted my offer for the condo. It's kind of upsetting to me in one sense but on the other hand I'm actually feeling pretty at ease with the decision.

There were two main factors that were bugging me. The first was obviously the price of the mortgage I would have to get. As I saw it by getting the mortgage I was essentially denying myself the right to tell the company to go F themselves if I ever really just had it. I'd be tying myself to this job and the big money for a long time. The second factor was that the strata was very hardline against rentals in any form. Even if I had a room-mate in the place with me being away all the time for work the strata could start to cause problems by claiming that I was renting, due to my low occupancy rate. In the meeting it was documented twice that people had bought and were asking the strata to rent, for good reasons, and the strata turned them down flat. In each of these cases the units sat empty for very long times and I don't really want to be paying for an extremely expensive "hotel".

Overall I made a logical decision and I suppose I'm pleased with that but my emotions aren't exactly feeling that right now.

I'm feeling low.

Honestly I didn't think that I'd be writing about mortgage woes before I even had one... Turns out that a certain Orange bank thinks I'm not necessarily a good credit risk. How are they basing this decision? Well because I'm new to my job they don't want to take the risk that I'm not excellent at it. So I had to get my Dad to guarantee it... at least until I've been with the company for 6 months.

So after we got that fixed up I anxiously awaited a call today telling me if they have been magnanimous enough to grant me the priviledge of paying them a great deal of money for many, many years. The call came and... the bastard at the other end told me that I have "significant debt"! Well let me tell you, that was a fucking shock to me.

The Money Monkey then asked me if I could pay any of it down. I asked him what the hell he was talking about. Turns out that my AMEX bill last month was $230 and my Visa was around $300. He didn't tell me that these numbers were from last month so I had a hell of a time figuring out what the hell he was talking about, as I pay my credit cards off every month. That and my line of credit balance of around $900 and the balance left to pay off my car (which is below $5,000) were enough for them to have to think seriously about my eligibility.

The fact that I have a $20,000 down payment and a flawless credit record seem to mean nothing. So as it stands now I'm going to see what happens on Monday before I go the alternate routes I was considering with either the bank or the credit union who have both been actively pursuing my business. I can tell you one thing the Orange bank should change it's advertising because they're not friendly or remotely helpful. I plan on doing my damnedest to let everyone I know about this experience. Likely won't make a big difference in the long run but it'll make me happy knowing that I may have cost them at least one customer.


PS - I'm closing my accounts with them on Tuesday regardless.

THEY ACCEPTED MY OFFER! KELOWNA HERE I COME!

Well I put an offer in on the apartment that I was looking at. After looking at 5 others, just for the sake of making sure there was nothing else out there I wanted, I put an offer in on the original one that I liked. The other's had a number of things wrong with them. In one you could hear the traffic through the walls, in a couple of others the floors were totally destroyed (new carpets and lino needed), in the other's I hated the location. So I put an offer in on the first one I looked at, to be honest it's the one I wanted in the first place, and they came back at $10,000 more than I offered.

This is actually a good thing because I offered them $20,000 less than their asking price. So I am planning on offering them another $5,000 tomorrow knowing full well that they're going to likely stick to their price. Then I'm going to tell them that I'll happily take their price but I want their living room furniture (including the flat screen TV). So we'll see. I'm excited. Stay tuned for updates...

After spending much of the day with Janet yesterday I decided that today I would look into this whole house buying business that seems to be the rage with the kids. So I went onto MLS and started to look around. Well wouldn't you know it but the condo I've been dreaming about was there.

The place is in the building in downtown Kelowna that I lived in once-upon-a-time and that I loved. The suite is bigger than the one I was in and is a corner suite so it's got tons of windows and natural light. The current owners were clever enough to put laminate and tile in throughout. The kitchen is huge, the ensuite is huge, the walk in closet is not so huge... but you can still walk into it. The coulours on the walls were perfect. The only thing not perfect about it would be the $1,400+ a month mortgage payment. Even though I can easily afford that now... it's the commitment that scares the living bejeezus out of me.

This is tough though. Frankly I don't think that it's going to get cheaper to buy a house anytime soon.

I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote. Work has been so psychotically busy it's just sick. Things are going good but I'm really looking forward to going home again. This time in I've been dealing with some sporadic sever depression that I think is a result of being exhausted a lot. Just to be sure though I've got an appointment with my naturalpath while I'm home.

Right now I'm procrastinating on packing. Can't figure out why because I really want to go home... but I pack so much I'm tired of it.

Today two things happend that are of some significance. The first is that I withdrew from my online course at Athabasca University. The new job is just not leaving enough time to focus on it and learn. While I'm chagrined at the money I've lost on it I'm somewhat happy that I won't have a WF on my transcrips in case I ever decide to take another course from there when I have more time.

The second is happier in that I decided that it would likely be a good idea if I set up a, for lack of a better term at the moment, "program" in which our office will set personal and work goals, share and encourage each other on with them. The inspiration I got for this is from the Canadian Business series of articles entitled Canada's Best Workplaces. They had a feature article on one of my previous employer's 1-800-Got-Junk? that focused on the company's practice of encouraging employees to set goals for themselves in both their personal and work lives. I've borrowed the concept form Got Junk and expanded on it for my own purposes.

What I proposed to the girls looks like the following:

1. Goals
a. One Short-term Personal Goal (1 week)
b. One Short-term Professional Goal (1 week)
c. One Long-term Personal Goal (6 months - Year)
d. One Long-term Professional Goal (6 months - Year)
e. One Life Goal - Huge and Outlandish
2. Personal Development
a. Find one blog or web-site that you will devote a maximum of one half-hour a day that you believe applies in some way towards the acheivement of your goals (mine is going to be Canadian Business I think)
b. Meet every Wednesday at 2:00 for a quick informal meeting to discuss progress on goals for the week, set new ones and share one thing from the readings that you found interesting and would like to share
3. Encouragement
a. Each of the goals will be posted on a space on our bullitin board visible to everyone in order for each of us to maintain accountability towards our goals

I believe that I'm really not the only person who feels the way I do at times while I'm stuck up here. Of course I'm talking about those feelings of hopelessness and complacence that so many people all over the place feel all the time. I recognize that it's not just the people in my area of the country but many people in general. I digress, the purpose behind my deciding to presenting my "program" to my girls are I don't want them to feel as though they are stuck in a place in life that they're going to be forever. I want to help them acheive their goals both professionally and personally. I want them to help me reach my goals for the office and department. I want to grow as a Manager and a Leader.

One thing I have to say about my Boss is that he's shrewd. I just recently found out from some people that he's known company wide for coming in and turing operations around. He'll use whatever means necessary. I am proof of that.

Happily he's willing to stand behind me and what I feel needs to be done in the department. So in that light I'm working towards my first firing. I inherited three young ladies from the previous Manager and two of them are good, while the third is not. The problem with her overall is that she is infuriatingly slow and when I ask her about something she get's very defensive and snappy. The fact that she's making me crazy as well as making the other two resent that they're pulling all the weight means she's got to go. I'm going to be working on her written warning letter tomorrow.

I learned while working for HBC that when someone is not good in a job it's doing them no favours to keep them around. I wouldn't be in the position I am now had someone not made the observation that I didn't fit there. They were right and I'm happier for it. Of course it's taken a long time to come to that conclusion but it's there none-the-less.

Surprise, surprise...

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	High
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	High
Lust:	Low
Pride:	Very High

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

I've been back on site for a few days now and while it took me a day or two to get into the swing of things I'm doing well. Everyday my department has another minor sucess and that's where I'm getting my motivation from (I'd be lying if I didn't say that the pay-check I got this week didn't make it so much more worth it though). I came back to a spotlessly clean office, well as spotless as a construction site can be, and found the girls had made a few other minor improvements. Made me happy that things didn't go to hell while I was gone like my last two jobs.

Today I put together, hosted and moderated a very sucessful meeting between our company, the site owner and the support companies (housing, and bussing) on site. Everyone left the meeting surprised at how much was accomplished in the one hour that I had alloted for it. That of course left me feeling pretty proud of myself. Working with a group of people who were all significantly older than myself and had many years experience working in the kind of environment we work in.

While I would count today as a pretty good one career wise there was still the reminder of what I'm missing in the outside world. The friend I was going to the Gwen Stefani concert with, actually the person that I bought the tickets because she promised to go with me, backed out. I'm absolutely incredulous and somewhat depressed at how hard it is to find people to go to a concert with... especially when I paid for the tickets! So yes, my social life has degenerated to the point where I can't get people to come to a free big name concert with me.

I guess the point o f life at this point, for me, is to work and get as much experience and make as much money as I can. Living is for turnarounds and later in life.

I'm spending money like a rock star! Yesterday my Dad and I went on a wine buying trip through the South Okanagan and came back with a trunk full of wine, 20 bottles to be exact. We then stopped and had dinner at Sumac Ridge and I won't hesitate to state it was probably one of the most exquisite meals I've ever had. I started with an appatizer of mixed olives and Steller's Jay Brut! A combination I NEVER would have though of but it was oh, so good. So yes, yesterday was a very nice and very expensive day.

It's not my imagination... the air does smell sweeter in the Okanagan. It's good to be home, even though the heat is killing me.

The last few days at site were really long and I'm so completely exhausted right now it's sad. Yesterday on my way back from work to camp I was going to walk (there's a great backroad that's been closed to vehicle traffic that helps me get SOME exercise) but I was just so tired I couldn't get my butt out of the seat of the van. Well as we drove up to camp one of the local residents came wandering out of the woods, stared at the van then ran back into the woods. When I say local residents I am, of course, talking about a black bear. So I'm thinking that I'm going to go to a hunting supply store and buy a rather large can of bear spray before I go back.

As soon as I got off the plane today and headed back to Vernon my first stop was the bank. First I went to see my broker; who informed me that I would need to stop contributing to my RRSP's in about three months because I've already almost maxed them out. Secondly, I'm excited to annouce that I was able to get a bank draft for $4,000 that I am going to send to Ford tomorrow to help pay off my car! So as much as I bitch and complain about the, at times, futile feeling of working where the bears and the moron's roam free there are some major benefits.

The next few days look like they're going to be leisurely and relaxing. Tomorrow I've got some appointments, Thursday I'm driving my beautiful, almost fully paid for car, down to the Penticton area to sample and likely buy a case of wine and Friday we're going to Nakusp to seriously get away from it all. Yes, life is good.

Two more get ups and I'm out of here. I'm really looking forward to going home... not so much because I'm looking forward to going home but rather because I'm really tired and am looking forward to a break. Things in the office are running so smoothly I don't think anyone can believe it. I had document control come in to clean up our files at the beginning of the week and they took not two, not three but EIGHT bankers boxes of old useless files out of my filing cabinets. Originally we had thought we were going to have to get another filing cabinet, until I started questioning what we actually needed to keep. Making some other major changes as well, spent some time today cleaning out the hard-drive, which was cluttered with multiple copies of the same documents in many different files. Took a long time and I was stunned at how much crap was in there but it's all gone now or in a file I called Donna's File of Mysteries (we also have a bankers box that is sitting in the office getting fuller and fuller that I call Donna's Box of Mysteries) that is only in existance in case we get audited or something bizarre like that.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good about things at work right now. Of course I'm a little bit anxious about leaving for my eight days but... there's no way I'm not going. Things will look after themselves.

G-L-A-M-O-U-R-O-U-S! For some reason that's how I'm feeling tonight. For no other reason than I had a pretty darn good day and I've been listening to Fregie's song 'Glamourous' off and on all day. I think I'm going to be heading to Vancouver again this turnaround as Marcie and Frank are having a going away party and I really, really want to party again. These periods of stress and bordome in between just drive me to it. That and the thought of visiting my friend MC at Harry Rosen and possibly buying a suit's got me pretty pumped. Yep, glamourous that me! *Rolling eyes*

I've been super busy hence the lack of updates for the past while. Seriously my day involves getting up at 5 to be at work for 630. I work until 530 or like tonight until 7 then I come back to my room, watch an episode of Nip/Tuck (a fantastic show I just found out about) then I go to bed. I've just finished watching the show, so now it's time for bed.

There are a lot of times when I fall into one of those funks where I start to question everything I'm doing. I think these situations are somewhat valuable because they get me to think and question what I'm doing. I think about the fact that I'm up here and that I'm very much alone. I think about the money that I'm making and I ask myself what do I have to show for it? Then I think about the experience I'm getting and I ask myself what the hell are you going to do with the type of experience you're getting right now? I suppose I'm being hard on myself as usual but the future is a scary place to be when you're in the present. It's even harder to be there when you're alone.

Check this interesting little thing out.

Hello all you Happy People! Well things are still going along well. I'm starting to get the rythym of how things in this new company work. Overall I'm enjoying it and I have to say that even at this early juncture that I think it was a good move. I'm busy, the girls in my department (yeah, I am in charge of a department of women, what a surprise) are a lot of fun. Management is supportive, if not somewhat overbearing at times but overall they leave us alone. Yes, I'm rather pleased with things at the moment. Although there's a huge amount of work to done I know it's only a matter of time before I get things working.

Had a very good day today. Things are going along swimmingly. I do have one hell of a headache though so I'm going to bed. Like now.

I'm sure you may have heard about the fatalities up here. Apparently a roof collapsed on one of the giant boilers and two people were killed immediately, 4 were rushed to hospital where one died today, and there are rumours that 14 are still missing. I think the site was where the Chinese Nationals were working so can you imagine the reaction when the full story gets out?

I've been with the new company since Monday and yesterday was my first full day. Right now I'm in that phase that you get when you begin a big project or something like that. You know the one when it's the first day of class and the instructor is finished going through the course and your sitting there thinking 'how in hell am I going to get this done?" That's pretty much me right now. The difference is that I know that I'll be able to do it and that it's not really all that big of a problem. Doesn't make me feel all that much better though in the short term.

The fact that I've moved out of the camp I was in for a year and had lots of friends at and moved to another camp is kind of magnifying the problem too because I don't have any friends at this camp and I don't really know any of the people that I work with yet. Combined with the fact that they have their own little cliques and groups with their own schedules doesn't help because I can never seem to find them. Makes the loneliness that much more pronounced.

I am LOVING the suite that I'm in though. My own bathroom never seemed like such a big deal before but once you've got one it's great!

My new schedule is going to take some getting used to...

It's been a really exhausting week since I posted last. Tuesday I returned to site to finish off my last three days with the last company. Finishing those three days involved things like making sure that my replacement had the information that he needed and some other final administraitive details (my replacement has already called me once this morning... I didn't answer though). Friday I cleaned out my room and moved over to my suite at my new camp. All I have to say is this new room puts just about ALL of the hotel rooms I've stayed at over the years to absolute shame. I have my own washroom, the floors are carpeted and the bed is a double! YAY!

Late Friday night I touched down in YEG and The Baron and Raph were at the terminal to pick me up. After cajouling them into stopping at McDonalds to get me some junk food we went to Raph and Wifey's where I proceeded to eat my McDonalds AND the left over cornbread and soup from their dinner. After I'd finished eating everything in sight it was time for bed.

Saturday was lots of fun! In the morning I argued with Wifey about a number of topics. Then I got to go for lunch with Mr. G and T where we sat around, ate and generally enjoyed life. After lunch Mr. G took me back to Raph's and he and I went for coffee at The Second Cup. Well let me tell you, there'll be no seconds from that place! Terrible coffee and the brownie was a dried out brick. If it wouldn't have been for Raph's excellent company I would have been really upset. Once we'd returned home I waited for L and her boyfriend to come pick me up for dinner. We went to a place called 'New Asian Village' for Indian food which was delicious (the next morning I was having some issues with it though) then L and I started to work our way around town looking for Martini's. We started off at Earl's Tin Palace where the drinks were okay but way to pricey. Next walked down the street to Suede Martini bar which had pretty good drinks for a decent price then moved on down to Caelyes (sp?) Irish Pub to finish the night with some good ol' shots and dancing. I for one had a great time! Had I been able to figure out how to get into the condo faster upon being dropped off though that would have been nice.

Sunday was another excellent, albeit much more low keyed day, we tried to get The Baron to make us a cake (he wouldn't) so Raph and I went for tea. The tea place was closing down for a special event or something so we walked on down to a place called Vi's Pies (or something like that) where I had one of the most fantastic pieces of cheese cake I've had in years. White Chocolate Raspberry! Tres Bien. To top the day off we went to 'The Sugerbowl' for dinner where I had one of their incredible lamb burgers with goat cheese and garlic mushrooms. Truly a day of gastronomical sucesses.

This morning I left my hotel and went to my new companies works yard where I pee'ed in a cup and went over a bunch of administraitive things. Then because I was finished there WAY earlier than I thought I would be I get myself transported to the airport where I'm now sitting killing time. Mr. G was supposed to get in touch with me and we were going to hang out for a while but I'm not sure if that's going to happen now as I can't seem to get a hold of him.

Still not really sure what's happening tomorrow, work wise, but I guess we'll see. I'll keep you all updated when I have time.

It's probably bad that when the other team scored the winning goal with 30 seconds left in the third that I almost cheered. The mere thought of overtime just about made me sick.

Well I'm off to do my least favourite thing. Hockey playoff game. I really wish Dad would just listen to me when I tell him I'm bored out of my ever loving mind sitting there watching a game. I'm thinking of taking my iPod and a magazine tonight.

Vancouver was a blast! I spent WAY to much money but it was oh, so worth it. I drove down on Friday and Marcie and I went shopping on 4th for a few hours before we headed over to Commercial for dinner at Marcello's. We hit Lulu Lemon pretty hard and even went to the "Hidden" outlet store where I got a good deal on some pants. Marcello's saw us goarging ourselves on amazing food and some good wine all served to us by the 'highest' waitress we'd ever seen. Amazingly though her service was awesome!

After dinner we were to meet up with one of Marcie's friends at a club downtown. Well we went and the club was, perhaps, the most tragic club I'd ever been in. It just sucked. So I called up my friend The Russian and requested that he save us from the aweful straight club. He very happily obliged and swung by to pick us up on his way to a houseparty. Well we walked into the houseparty with no forwarning that it was a "Cops and Robbers" theme party so Marcie and I were somewhat taken aback that everyone was dressed in costume. Didn't stop us from having an interesting time as most of the people were really nice. There was this one gay that kept "shushing" me everytime I said something (he was a cat burgler and you had to be quiet) that I wanted to punch but it was no big deal. An hour or so after we got to the point where the partiers were drunk enough that they didn't care if we left so we did and went to 1181 on Davie St. which is a very "swank gay martini bar" as The Russian said. I think it was the Martini at 1181 that pushed us over the edge because my Lord the next thing I remember is doing Zoolander poses on Davie St. with The Russian and Marcie. The night finished off as per our usual dancing on a stage at The O. The theme song of the weekend was Pink's - 'U & UR Hand' which when Marcie and I read the lyrics online were somewhat scandalized by but it's still a great song.

So after waking up Saturday morning Marcie and I went to meet my friend Chris for brunch and Matthew came in from Coquitlam and spent the day with us. Poor guy ended up getting dragged around downtown Vancouver shopping all day. I felt kind of bad for him but he kept insisting it was ok so I'm going to belive him.

Our original plan had been to party our asses off on Saturday night too but as luck would have it all of my friends ended up with some sort of drama so they couldn't come. The fact that Marcie and I were still somewhat exhausted from the night before ment that when the opportunity came up to go to Coquitlam for dinner with Matthew and his Fiance it was more than welcome. So that's how we ended our night. A fabulous Greek dinner with awesome company. I really couldn't have asked for more.

I've been home for two days now and I have to say it's been nice. Yesterday after I got off the plane my Mother dragged me around Kelowna for a few hours. The experience wasn't completely painful but I was exhausted already and she just would not go home, so I comprimised and we went to Quail's Gate for lunch. All I have to say about that is... don't. Don't get me wrong the food was good and the restaurant is beautiful but the cost was completely unreasonable for the amount of food you actually got. I'm talking outrageous. Cost me $40 not including tip for a sandwhich and salad. We didn't even have any wine! I did end up buying a case of Gwerts though :)

I'm getting super excited about my trip to Vancouver this weekend. We've decided that we're getting a hotel room for Saturday night because we figure that we don't want to face the wrath of Frank when we stumble in drunk in the middle of the night. I'm hoping to see a good number of friends while I'm there and expecting to spend some time with Matthew.

Hey Wifey! We got 87% on our first assignment! Great work!

I GOT THE JOB! April 20th is my last day with the current company.

I'm depressed. It's Easter weekend and I'm sitting here in Camp doing NOTHING! I'd much rather be with my family. Today I didn't even leave my room more than twice. I went to the gym and went for a run this morning (new insoles make running capable once again) and I went for dinner this evening.

I've been contemplating withdrawing from the course I'm taking for a while now. I think it's the fact that I'm so stressed out but I just have zero motivation to work on it right now. I was chatting with Janet this morning and mentioned my thoughts of withdrawing to her. Her response was "that's not like you". So of course that made me realize that, no, that was not like me so I wrote up a works-cited page for my first assignment and submitted it. Thanks to Wifey's amazing editing skills I shouldn't have to much problem with spelling, flow or comma issues. Now I just cross my fingers and hope the damned thing makes sense and I get a decent mark. I forgot how much I disliked writing essays throughout school.

I feel sick. I'm shaking and my lunch is having a hard times staying down. Everything's kind of gone to shit but theres a good chance at salvage. This morning the other company called again wondering what the hell had happened to me and this time I just couldn't not answer. So after telling them that I still couldn't give them an answer they told me they were sorry but they guessed they'd have to start looking elsewhere.

I decided to stay calm and wait for Big Bosses reply as he'd promised me an answer today. Well he called about an hour ago and told me that he was sorry but despite his best efforts there was nothing he could do as his Vice-President couldn't grasp what he was talking about. He then told me that I would probably do well at the other company and that he knew where to find me in a year or so if I'd still be interested at that time.

My blood ran cold.

I stood in my room in shock trying to figure out what my next move would be. I called my friend at the other company and asked her if she thought it was to late to still go for the job. She said that she didn't think so but that the Boss who was to do the hiring had just left to get on a plane. I called his cell and he said that they were just closing the door and that he couldn't meet with me until Monday now. So thank God he was still willing to talk to me.

This game of playing companies against each other is very dangerous and the stakes are high. I seriously don't recommend it to anyone... unless they're going to come out with a much higher paying job that is!

Pray for me!

Really, really weird how two years ago on this day I got the job with 1-800-Got-Junk, the next year on this day I was just starting my time up here with my current job and now I'm waiting to hear about another job. April must be new job month!

Called Big Boss just before 5 and he said that he needed one more day and that he would have something for me before dinner time tomorrow. We're waiting... Problem is I'm dodging phone calls from the other company. Feels like the title of that Garth Brooks song "If tomorrow never comes"

Big Boss is back unexpectedly! As soon as I found out this morning I marched into his office and told him we needed to talk. Then he worked on convincing me that staying would be a better option than going. He laid out all of his points, I aired my concerns with him, and he made some promises. I gave him to the end of the day to give me an answer before I called the other company back and accepted or declined.

The clock is ticking...

The tension and stress of the situation is just about making me sick. There's a whole lot riding on this job move right now and while everything looks good so far it's a day late already. I was promised an answer yesterday and was supposed to give the new company my response at that time. This morning I left a message with Big Boss who still hasn't returned any of my e-mail's or voice messages. I'm not sure if it's because he's pissed off about the whole situation or if it's because he's so busy. Likely a combination of both.

So this morning the other company (sounds like I'm having an affiar!) called wanting my response and I had to put them off another day. I hate that I had to do that because I totally and completely want the job but I'm waiting on the current company to give me the final sign-off. So one of my many bosses at the current company told me he'd give me his word that he'd have an answer for me tomorrow.

So as far as I'm concerned I'm giving my notice tomorrow.

I've found a replacement show for 'The OC' I recently started downloading Brothers & Sisters and I'm LOVING it. Great show with an incredible cast, although Sally Fields character drives me crazy, so I highly recommend it to anyone desiring to get caught up in the lives of some fictional television characters.

Well I got a hold of one of my Bosses by phone and told him of the opportunity that had come my way and that I would really like to pursue it. He sounded positive about the whole thing and I'm somewhat optimistic.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I talked to the other company again and damn do I want that job. Let's just say the salary is well over $20,000 more than my current rate. Not to mention an executive room at one of the other lodges off site which means I would have a private bathroom and sitting area. Now all I have to do is talk to Big Boss and get his blessing. There's a stupid site rule here that people can't go from one company to another within 90 days, but if the Labour Relations department doesn't hear about it, in other words no one bitches, they don't care. I originally wanted to wait until Big Boss was back on site to talk to him but time is of the essence so I've sent him an e-mail requesting that he call me tonight. Here's hopeing things go well.

I sent my resume to the other company last night at around 7pm. This morning at 715am they called. Because of a site rule forbidding companies from stealing other company's workers I'm going to have to go to the Big Boss and ask him for a release in order to persue this other position. That actually works out really well for me as I figure that I hold a lot of cards in this situation. Issues that I'll bring up are things such as: being paid marginally more than the people I direct to do very little, still not having a letter of offer or employment contract of any kind, insane hours, trying to do a job with no supplies, getting sent home for doing my job, having to pay for my own benefits, and there are other things I'm sure I'll think about by the time Big Boss get's back on site. Wish me luck, if things go well, things will get better or I'll be working for the other company soon. If things don't go well nothing will change.

Maybe it's time for a change. Today was extremely rough, I'm trying to hold a fairly large scale operation together without the right people or tools. I'm frusterated and feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I forwarded my resume to the company that asked me to the other night. It'll all likely be more of the same but I believe the pay will be better...

I can't sleep. So what am I doing? I'm moving around my room trying to make as much noise as I can in order to wake the moron in the room next door up. Every friggin morning he wakes me up around 5AM by moving around slamming drawers, dropping his boots, doing whatever it is that moron's do in the morning. Hell this guy probably shaves loud! Unfortunately as far as I can tell he's not waking up from my loudness. Sometimes life is just so unfair.

The weather up here is turning for the better. Today it's 11C which is really quite nice. Today I slept through both of my alarms and didn't wake up until the cleaning lady was knocking on the door at 10! Happily I didn't have anything that I had to do so everythings good.

One of my new co-workers is from New Zealand and is a really nice guy. Trouble is I'm feeling somewhat threatened by him. He's extremely quick and quite smart as well. I'm his direct Supervisor and it's good to finally have someone with an ounce of sense to work with. Unfotunately this feeling that I have that he could walk in and take over all that I've worked so hard at building this past year is somewhat disconcerting. I'm trying to use his skills and knowledge to our advantage to make the operation run better and so far its freed up a lot of my time which is nice. Now it's just a matter of keeping him busy and productive so he doesn't get board.

Essentially I'm procrastinating right now because I should be working on my first assignment for my Human Resources course but it's been somewhat tough to get into. The course itself is very interesting it's the Essay's that I'll have to get used to writing again.

After a somewhat tough week, my ego got a real boost today. I was approached by a lady, that I talk to every once in a while, from one of the large companies on site and she asked me to apply for a job. The job is essentially what I was doing with my last company only for a hell of a lot more money. Pretty exciting I think. Even though I'm thinking about applying for it I don't think that I'd leave my present situation. Big Boss has been so good to me and has promised me he'd get me in with the oil company eventually that I think it would be prudent to stay where I am for a while. I know it's going to take Big Boss a while to get me on because of politics in the oil company so by passing on this new opportunity I could be waiting for quite a while but I think it would be worth it. Considering the fact that I want my resume to stop reflecting the insane amounts of company jumping that I've been doing lately staying put is probably a good idea.

Well I'm back at Horizon and it was total mayhem tonight! So glad to be back where I belong :) It sounds like a bunch of things that should have happend... didn't, while I was gone. So it's going to be interesting to see what's actually been happening here.

I ended up talking to my Counsellor last night for a while. I called him because of the depression etc, I'd been feeling while home and while I had thoughts on it I couldn't figure out what was causing it. Essentially we figure that it all boils down to the fact that my life is no longer in Vernon at all so when I'm there it's really hard to feel good about myself. Essentially it's things like the fact that here at site I'm always busy and I'm on a career path. When I go home I meet people and they ask where I live and I say "with my parents". The fact that home never really changes significantly makes it easy to slip back into all those destructive patterns and ways of thinking that we had growning up. So next time before I head home I'm going to try and prepare myself for it more. I'm exactly sure what that looks like or means but I'm going to try and figure it out.

I don't think I remembered to mention it but next turnaround I'm planning on going to Vancouver for the weekend. I believe the date I'll be heading down is the 13th which is a Friday and staying with Marcie and Frank for the weekend leaving Sunday or Monday. Hope to see everyone down there if possible.

Anyway it's off to bed for me.

Night!

I went to Kelowna tonight and went to a wrap up for one of Janet's sports teams. Her company puts on sports events and at the end of every season (?) she does an event. Well this event happened to be at 'Yuk Yuks' comedy club. Wish I could say the comedians were funny...

Had a good time overall but for some reason I'm just not doing well. Just down in the dumps. Hopefully it'll get better once I get back to work. I'm not sure if the issue is mental, emotional, or physical. Usually I can tell right away but this time I can't seem to put my finger on it. Hopefully it'll clear itself up soon.

Well I'm bored. Because I'm bored I'm a little bit depressed. I really should be working on my first assignment for my course but I just can't seem to get up the desire to do that, or anything for that matter. It's kind of sick but I'm ready to go back to work now.

You are looking at my latest impulse purchase. Yep, today I decided while walking out to the Focus that he would look really good with a new pair of shoes. The following is what I came up with. While yes, this was an impulse purchase in some respects I have been searching for a set of rims since before Christmas. Today I just happened to decide that something actually had to be done about it. I'm really excited about these rims. They're 17 inchers and they're called Hyper Black, which means that in direct sunlight or light they're silver, in the dark they're black. Much like my blue car is blue during the day and black at night! They're going to look SO SWEET!

Other than that I've been home for a while hemorahging money as usual. Everytime I leave the house it costs me $400 (or in the case of today substantially more) but hey, that's what I'm working for right...

After reviewing the housing prices around here I've decided to hold off slightly till I have at least $20,000 to use as a down payment. That's what you're allowed to take our of your RRSP's tax free to use for the first time home buyers plan. So another few months and I could do it. Now it's just a matter of finding something that I can acceptably call home. I'm kind of picky you know!

What a wild day. I'm completely exhausted. I had a wicked headache all day that finally went away when I had a 20 minute nap earlier. We have over 500 people go through the airport today which involved about 9 different planes. Trying to keep them all straight was wild. Here's hoping everyone got to where they were supposed to!

Working on week four up here and I'm starting to lose it. I've started to lose the proper perspective that's needed to susvive up here. All the little things are starting to get to me as opposed to just rolling off my back like they should be. Unfortunately the big things are starting to get to me to. The animals (the workers) are starting to get to me with their vileness. One of my staff members is extremely difficult to deal with and becoming increasingly more so as the days go on and I lose more of my patience. Finally I just don't have the time to deal with what I need to or to take care of myself properly. The count-down is on 7 more days to go!

I just finished watching the last episode of The OC and I have to say that even though this last season hasn't been all that great I am seriously going to miss the show. Sad as that is. Throughout the last four years I've watched all the insanity and crazyness the show had to offer and I loved it. Here's hoping that I'll either find another show I enjoy as much or get a life!

I'm terribly excited! Big Boss outlined some of his thoughts on what he is "grooming" me for today and I'm very happy with where I see things going for me up here. Sooner or later I'll be out of the stupid companies grasp and working as an actual employee of the oil company. Things are looking bright and I'm happy with it.

On another subject I've started looking at real estate in the Valley. At this point I figure that it'd be the smartest investment for me. We'll see though...

My Dad mentioned that I should start thinking about buying a place soon. Not that I haven't been thinking about this forever but it's somewhat difficult. Where do I look? The Okanagan, Calgary, Edmonton? Who knows. I can't believe how insanely expensive condo's are! There's seriously something wrong with the market. When a two bedroom condo in Vernon is listed for $240,000. Sure Vernon is a retirement center but people other than retiree's have to live there too. I just don't get the whole situation. When I'm home next I'll have to start seriously looking into some of this stuff.

Sometimes a person just needs a drink. Even though after last Friday night I promised myself that I wasn't going to drink for the rest of this rotation that just didn't happen. Went out tonight with friends because one of them decided he owed me. So I went and drank Ceasars at the bar. Good times had by all.

Did I mention that Big Boss found out about my application for the other job and asked me twice the other day if it was in my plans to stay on because he had plans for me...? Things are going along well.

I GOT TO GO FOR A HELICOPTER RIDE! It was GREAT! I was just working today and some people from a department of the oil company came out to meet their helicopter to go and take pictures for the annual report or something. Well I got to tag along! Most exciting thing that I've done in a long time. Totally cool!

Little Boss seems to be buying into his own lunacy. Today he was telling people that he was going to be taking over Big Bosses job! I don't think Big Boss is aware of this and I know that he has no plans on going anywhere anytime soon. Other than that things are... ok. Not great but ok. Big Boss did find out about my application for the job in Calgary though and called me on Saturday telling me that my job would be expanded AGAIN and that he really doesn't want to lose me. I'm really quite happy to hear that. I was also quite happy to hear him tell me that I'd be reporting directly to him with this new change. That's going to piss Little Boss off so much more.

I will admit that I am running flat out. The past few days I've been working well over 10 hours a day. Once things calm down and start to make sense around here I'll be able to slow down a bit but at this point I just have to get stuff done.

Last night I decided to have a party. These parties in my room keep getting bigger and bigger. Originally it was just Mr. G and I drinking together; last night I had 6 friends in here and some random guy named Kevin from Newfoundland. Kevin and his stick walked in around 1130. He had a drink, talked about his wife who he'd been married to for 30 odd years and left. A situation that can only truly be experienced in camp! And yes the girls were drinking out of a Starbucks mug and a Tim Horton's cup. Class means nothing here!

I have been super busy since coming back here. Most of it has to do with being tossed into a situation and being told to fix it. That and having to figure out what's going on in general while my phone's ringing a million times a day! Seriously I was ready to march out onto the tarmac tonight and pitch the ringing bastard into the nearest jet turbine. However after thinking about it for a few moments, smiling at the thought of the *poof* and little dust like cell phone particles being blown out the other end, I just pushed the ignore button and let voice mail take the call. Now the problem is that I have to clear out my voice mail constantly and it's making me crazy.

The Megalomanic is back tomorrow night and his first day is Saturday. Happily I have enough things to do on Saturday to keep me busy and away from him. Although I am mostly planning on being EXTRA sweet to him as hes so clearly lost this one. But that would be vindictive...

Have you ever been suspended for two weeks without pay, then asked to come back after four days and given a promotion? I have! After all the trauma of the last week there's a lot more that could be done to make me happy but I'll settle for this for now. So now I'm in charge of a corner of the world up here and it's kind of scary because I have three people that I'm responsible for and this NEEDS to go right. Last night one of them fucked up majorly and it was SO not good. I'm just glad that I had only just taken over so no one could really say to much about it to me.

I spent today in Edmonton (well at the airport actually) working. Quite honestly I didn't really need to be there but I just had to get off site to organize my thoughts and not have my new charges asking me questions constantly. I was able to get quite a lot done even though I was putting out fires for a long time.

Then I spent the end of the evening in the bar at site with a co-worker and two of the airline employee's. Great time had by all.

Damn... and here I was hoping it would be Catwoman!

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 85% Superman 80% Catwoman 75% Spider-Man 75% Iron Man 70% Supergirl 60% Wonder Woman 55% Green Lantern 55% Batman 55% The Flash 45% Robin 42%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

For the first time in the year that I've been working up North I'm not looking forward to going back to site. The circumstances of my leaving have tainted my thoughts towards my job and life in the North in general. Now I'm just feeling unsure, unsure of everything that's going on in my life.

And now for your Sunday morning reading pleasure...
Your results:
You are Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor 84% Dr. Doom 74% Magneto 63% Apocalypse 62% Green Goblin 56% Catwoman 52% Kingpin 48% The Joker 46% Venom 42% Mr. Freeze 40% Mystique 40% Juggernaut 40% Two-Face 40% Dark Phoenix 33% Poison Ivy 30% Riddler 25%

A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain are you?" quiz...

I'm really not feeling all that great today. Mentally I think the past few days have just taken a toll on me and I've just had it. I applied for a job with our airline today that is based out of Calgary. Essentially the job is very similar to what I'm doing now but is working for the other side of the project. As expected the money is really not all that good but it may be negotiable because of my experience with the project. Now I just have to wait and see as to whether or not I get a call.

Well the "President" of my company just called and left a message (I was otherwise engaged). Apparently he needs me back ASAP and there's been a lot of changes and restructuring since I've been gone! Apparently I report directly to him and the Big Boss now and Little Boss has been clipped up side the head. I've written down my list of things that I want done before I come back and they include:

1. Being paid for this time off
2. An actual letter of offer that is acceptable to both of us
3. My turnaround is next week so I expect that I'll be getting time off in lieu of
4. A letter of Apology from Little Boss for the humiliation he caused
5. No record of this incident on my employee file (not that I really give much credence to the thought that they even keep employee files but it's worth mentioning)
   

I'll update once I've had my conversation with him.

So now I'm starting to question whether I do want to go back to camp or not. Aside from the desperate pleas of my co-workers calling and e-mailing to make sure that I am coming back I'm starting to question whether it'd be worth it or not. All the things that happen in the real world while your gone really make you wonder...






But then the bank acount really makes you consider going back too...

So I may have been a bit hasty yesterday by proclaiming that Little Boss had been fired... I am happy to announce that his Wife's quit! Apparently the situation stands that Big Boss has told the company that they have to call me and tell me that I'm supposed to be back on site by next week. Considering that they've fucked up royally and are very proud people I think I may be waiting on the phone call for a while. How much would that suck, suspend someone for two weeks, without any real cause, then have to call them back four days later and tell them to come back to work! I'm glad I'm not in their shoes.

I am feeling incredibly optimistic, I just heard from one of my co-workers at camp and she intimated that Little Boss has lost his job. I'm waiting on someone to call and tell me what's going on at the moment but things are looking super good. I will be vindicated!

So what's next? That's the question that's been bugging me today. Strangely I'm not at all upset about not being up at site or the big paycheck. What's bugging me now is if things don't work out at site and I don't end up going back where am I going to live? Calgary or Edmonton seem the natural choices because of the job market. In Calgary I have relatives and two friends, Edmonton I have a whole bunch of friends but I just don't want to live there. As Raph very comfortingly pointed out today though, I always seem to land on my feet... now it's just a matter of waiting to see what happens.

By now I'd like to think that things in my little corner of the site has blown all to hell. I'm pretty sure this isn't the case but my ego needs to feel that it has. I'm writing this from Vernon.

Yesterday in a completely surprise move Little Boss suspended me for two weeks without pay, gave me an hour to clean out the room that I've been living in for the past year and put me on a plane for home.

So now I'm waiting on the Big Boss (who's in Edmonton and was not consulted on the situation at all) to see what his move is going to be. Little Manager even diabled my work e-mail account, which he is absolutely not authorized to do, so I'm really dead in the water.

Essentially this all boils down to Little Manager's Megalomania. He craves and desires absolute control which I won't give him. Well I'm going to work on my resume now.

To borrow the words of some famous person - "Overall I guess you could say we have a theological disagreement... he thinks he's God... I disagree".

I've had quite a busy week. We had reps from the Airline come up and do training sessions on their new online booking program on Wednesday and Thursday. Quite frankly I was rather disappointed with their performance as it seemed they were not ready for the training sessions and believe it or not a lot of effort went into getting our contractors to show up for it. I will admit having them around was fun and we overall had a good time but I don't feel the aim of our objective was met. As a result of having our guests here my days were stretched a little bit so I ended up working 12 hour days for the past two days. Needless to say I've made being under my quilt, when I'm not working, my natural environment lately.

Looking forward to going home in 11 more days!

I've got two Bosses. One is the Boss of the other Boss and I'll call him the Big Boss. I answer to the Big Boss most of the time (he's the one I sent the e-mail to the other night) but the Little Boss is the one that I actually have more contact with. Weird I know.

So Little Boss has his Wife working here as well and Little Bosses wife, who is actually quite a nice lady when she's not working, seems to think that she's a Boss to. Unfortunately Little Bosses Wife is not a Boss and in fact she's resigned her position a few times but just seems to hang around. I don't know how she can do that because I'd love to resign my position and still get paid and keep my room and a whole bunch of other things but I guess you have to be married to a Little Boss!

So anyway Little Bosses Wife is starting to push my buttons because it seems that she thinks she's in charge of me. You can imagine how well this is going over. Unfortunately and yet rather forseeably Little Boss is towing the line for her. Now because I don't usually answer to Little Boss I'm not really paying attention to either of them all that much and this is starting to cause a little bit of friction. Frankly I don't care and I fully intend to come out on top of this one but Big Boss is the type of guy that wants to keep everyone happy and have a meeting about everything all the time. Well a meeting isn't going to tell Little Bosses Wife to take a trip and not come back (although I'd love to do that in a meeting) so we'll just end up where we are now. I'm super frusterated and I don't know what to do about it. Any suggestions?

On Friday night I sent a real flamer of an e-mail to one of my Bosses. I went on for paragraph after paragraph bitching and complaining about a situation and some people at work that have been making me really mad lately. Well needless to say that after I sent it and started to think about it the next day I got very ansy because I realized just how stupid it was. Janet pointed out, after reading it, that I didn't offer any solutions to the problems that I was whining about. As usual she was right. So Sunday afternoon I had to write another e-mail apologizing for the first e-mail. I kept it short Apologizing because I realized that all the problems that I had been whining about could very easily be fixed. I then told him it wouldn't happen again. I got his reply this morning "Do not worry about it, we all need to vent sometimes!" Two things... I am very lucky and I have a really great Boss.

You Are 8% Nerdy

You are definitely not nerdy - in fact, you probably don't know any nerds. You probably care a little too much about your image. No one will know if you secretly watch Star Trek reruns!

How Nerdy Are You?

Well I did it! I applied for University and signed up for my course in two online credit transactions which left me holding my American Express somewhat breathlessly having spent $600 some dollars in a matter of moments. I can't believe how expensive it was for one course! Talk about insane.

I'm glad that I finished my formal schooling already and I'm just doing this on a lark. Who signs up and pays for a $600 course on a lark? I must be loosing it. Apparently this place is getting to me more than I thought it was.

Unfortunately my new course doesn't begin until March 1 which leaves me a month to pay the bill but also means that I'll have all sorts of things to distract me and add to my life before that time comes. It's going to be hard to stay dilligent but I'm committed... at this point anyway.

I HAVE A QUILT! Isn't it beautiful? Thanks to Wifey for hooking me up with such a wonderful peice of quiltmanship! Your Gram's got a gift!

I got back from Edmonton at 130AM on Tuesday night. That's what I get for booking myself on the late flight. We couldn't land at site so we had to go into Fort McMurray and then wait for the busses to pick us up. Unfortunately the busses travelled so slow because of the ice that it took us about 2 hours to do a trip that usually takes a little over an hour. I was completely exhausted the next day which belied how rested I'd been during the break.

While Sask was good but dull, Edmonton was anything but. I had the most fabulous time with Mr. G and friends. True to all his bragging Mr. G is an incredible cook and he proved with with Chicken Kiev with Portabello white wine sauce, rosemary carrots, and some kind of rice extravaganza and specially for me a chocolate torte with Sumac Ridge Pipe! I contributed 5 bottles of wine!

After we ate we drank, then we drank some more, then some more... then we went to a bar and drank, etc. The evening was Super Fantastic, now if only Mr. G could remember it all! Yes, the next morning while we were driving around looking for breakfast I asked him if he'd enjoyed the bar? All I got in response was a confused look. It seems Mr. G doesn't remember a thing about his evening after a certain point very early on. He's claiming that he was possessed!

After spending some time with Mr. G I went to Raph and Wifey's new place which is an absolutely fantastic condo in the downtown area. I was absolutely thrilled to be their first overnight guest and claim MY room. I'm looking forward to many, many visits!

Now I'm back at camp and things are well. Work has picked up dramatically and I feel like I have a purpose again which is quite nice. Today my Manager lost his liscense for speeding on site, so I'll have a vehicle for the next two weeks which is also quite nice.

Tonight I looked into a course at Athabaska U and I'll be making some calls tomorrow to find out a little more information then I'm fully intending on signing up. I'm pretty nervous about the whole prospect but it's not like it's anything I haven't done before!

What does the word Casino bring to mind for you when you hear it? I'm pretty sure that most people instantly think of Vegas in all of it's glamour. I know the last thing I think about is where I went yesterday. The Painted Hand Casino in Yorkton, like most other casino's I've been in, is absolutely depressing and completely disgusting.

The disgusting comes from the fact that smoking is still allowed in this backwards province. My eye's were literally burning from all the smoke in the place. I had to go and stand outside in the -15C weather (that my Grandmother keeps insisting on calling a "Heat Wave!") just to soothe my eyes.

The depressing comes from the sight of all the Seniors in there mindlessly plugging their money into the VLT's. My Grandparents seem to enjoy going and playing the penny machines. I don't really have any problem with that because at worst they may blow $20. It's the other ones that you know are just lonely and bored sitting there plunking Loonies into a machine that bothers me. I'm making the assumption that most of these people are on some kind of fixed income or meager pension, which may be wrong of me, but I don't think I'm all that far off. These people don't have the money to support the local Native band with taxes so why on earth would they do it this way?

I told my Grandparents that I'm going to get them a Nintendo if all they go for is to sit in front of a screen and watch images flash over it while obnoxious buzzers go off. If they want the real experience then Grandma could even stop pretending she doesn't smoke and light up in the living room. Win/Win for all!

As it is I'm going to see if I can download a slots game onto Grandpa's computer...

I am pleased to annouce the Yorkton Terriers trounced the Wayburn Red Wings 7 to 1 last night. The game was not terribly interesting though as it seemed very one sided. Either that or my complete lack of interest in hockey was showing through.

Going to the game with Grandpa last night was mildly amusing though. Just watching him and his friends interact was comical enough. Of course I was following him around all night like some over protective minder and you would think that he'd introduce me to some of his friends. Apparently he didn't think that it was worth introducing me to anyone though. So for all his friends knew I really was an overprotective minder from a home.

Watching my Grandparents and the way the interact with each other is really comical though. They've been married for 56 years, Grandpa's 81 and Grandma's 76 (I think). No one's told Grandpa that at his age he's supposed to be old so he's not. I'm sure he's going to be like his father who lived to 92 (we think, no one ever could find his birth certificate) and was in his own home until he was 90. Thankfully he's a little easier to deal with than his Dad was and he's still sufficiently up with the times to have an internet connection and computer in his house. Every morning he goes down to the basement to do his 'eye exercises' which entails watching some images flash across his screen. Then he check's his e-mail, complains about all the crap he gets on it and turns the computer off. If only I'll be as with it at his age.

Today I slept till almost 11, then Grandma and I went shopping. We went to the fabulous Yorkton mall where she bought four cans of Habitat Soup, for a dollar a can, and bought us both some scrath tickets. We then had some root beer at A&W and then I bought some new razor blades a magazine and a bottle of Armani Code cologne. I'd been thinking about getting some new cologne for a while now and figured that since I obviously had the time I may as well. So whenever I use my new cologne I'll be sure to think of Yorkton... which when you think about it is really bizarre because I'm sure the majority of the populace here don't have a clue what Armani is let alone buy the fragrance.

Tonight Grandma continued on her quest to "fatten me up" and fed me home made cabbage rolls, shrimp ceasar salad, smokies, clamato, and... Sumac Ridge Pipe wine. Completely random and bizarre meal but it sure was tasty. The Pipe was a complete surprise and was very exciting for me. Tomorrow I told them that I'm buying pizza from Pizza Hut, as is my regular routine when I'm out of camp, so we'll see how they like it.

Now I'm off to the hockey game with Grandpa.

So I'm very seriously thinking about taking a course or two. I talked to my Manager the other day and he has no problem with me spending down time on some course work. Now I'm trying to figure out what would be the most beneficial thing to take. It's to early to start on an MBA because I haven't been in a management position and most programs want a certain amount of time in one. Also I don't really think that I'd want to devote the time required. That said though I want to have the option of getting a certificate or some sort of designation from what I'm doing. Should I take a course from Athabaska Online or from OC or UBC-O or what! I need some advise. I'm kind of leaning towards taking some HR courses mostly because of the shitty way that most companies treat their employees at site. There's one from Athabaska that deals with employment law that looks interesting and would be very good for my own knowledge. I don't know what to do! Tell me would you!

Saskatchewan is really a very interesting place. Not really interesting in the "oh my god, that's fascinating" way of putting it but rather interesting in the "gee, this place sure is flat!" As I was walking out of the arrivals area of the Regina Airport today I happened to look out the window. Now as I was on the second floor I had a great view and I'll show you what I saw _______________________________________________ as far as the eye could see. I'd completely forgotten how insanely flat it is out here.

Getting into my Uncle's Van he asked if there was anything in particular I wanted before we headed out to Yorkton. I didn't even hesitate to demade a Starbucks run. Increadibly he was very excited about the idea and enthused how lucky it was that they lived not even two blocks from the only Starbucks in Regina. Lucky indeed! At this point I was thinking that the trip may not be half bad.

It's a damned good thing that I've been watching Corner Gas for the past few weeks trying to prepare myself for my visit. I swear that I ate lunch in a gas staition today! Well ok maybe it was a "restaurant" attached to a gas staition but none-the-less it was there and I ate. I was somewhat perterbed by the whole experience as soon as I walked in. As soon as I sat down I was all out disturbed. I think it was the waitresses coke fingernail (you know how coke heads grow their little finger's nail out to provide a mess free way of snorting) that really creeped me out. Either that or it was how her massive belly hung over her apron. Or it could have been the fact that aside from my 80 year old Grandfather I was the smallest guy in the place. They sure do grow 'em big out here! So there I sat in my gap jeans, Banana Republic sweater and leather boots eating a "Toonie Buger" at what may as well have been the seriously down market version of Corner Gas, and yes the locals stared at me.

I arrived in Yorkton and we went straight to the house. I was amazed that in the five years since I've been here NOTHING has changed. I'm not kidding NOTHING has changed. Come to think of it thought I don't think this place has changed at all since the first time I was here about 20 years ago. Yes, Yorkton is a time warp. Mom and Dad always say it's like going back to the 80's when you're here but I think it just may have moved into the 90's... early 90's it may be but things are moving!

Carrying on with my series of firsts for the day I did something that I've never done tonight. I watched American Idol for the very first time. It just so happens that it was the 2 hour season premier tonight and Grandma and I watched it together. I have to say I was very entertained by the whole thing and just can't believe how completely deluded so many Americans are (I'm sure Canadians are just as deluded) when it comes to their singing abilities.

Tomorrow brings more adventure as I'm going shopping with Grandma and will be attending a Yorkton Terrier's Hockey Game with Grandpa in the evening. I'll be sure to update on which is going to be more fun. Frankly I'm going with the shopping but the Hockey may surprise the hell out of me.

Quite honestly I've seriously been considering sneaking off and buying a mickey of Vodka to help me cope with the rest of this week. You just don't know when you're going to prefer to be drunk. So far since arriving here I've already bought one new sweater online from L.L. Bean and that's a coping mechanism that isn't cheap (although I've been haunting their web site waiting for them to get more in stock of this particular sweater and as luck would have it they had mediums in it in only one size left tonight, happily it was just the colour that I wanted!).



Maybe I will find a liquor store tomorrow...

Well after a reasonably good weekend I'm packing my green duffel bag (as opposed to the black crappy one my last company gave me (not that I'm ungrateful...)) to leave camp for my eight precious days off. Tonight I head to Calgary where I'm overnighting at some cousins place. Tomorrow morning I find myself in the airport again on my way to... wait for it... REGINA! I know I'm insane to go to Sask. in January but I figured I may as well do it now as opposed to waiting for a time that I'd rather be soaking up the sun and drinking wine at home in the Okanagan. So after a few (6) days in Sask. with the Grandparents I'm off to Edmonton to hang out with Mr. G and see Raph and Wifey's new place. Overall I'm sure it's going to be a good few days off.

Saturdays just seem to suck the desire to be productive right out of me. It's incredible actually, I'll tell myself I'm going to bed early Friday and that I'll get up at the regular time and get some work done in the morning. Then that morning comes around and there's nothing short of our cleaning lady kicking down my door and ripping off my sheets that would make me want to get out of the warmth of my bed. I usually feel guilty about this for a few hours in the morning but by mid-afternoon I tell myself to savour the fact that I'm the only one not working up here. Now I'm going into McMurray to have lunch with an old friend who's in town visiting her boyfriend.

Past few days have been really quite good. I have decided that having the weekends off is not a good thing. Turns out that I get WAY to bored and that bodes well for no one.

Rather than have any New Year's Resolutions this year I have decided instead that I'm going to try and start some new good habits. The main one that I have chosen to work on is flossing my teeth twice daily. Now I've done this in the past and been quite succesful at it over a reasonable course of time but I always end up quitting for some reason. I'm really not sure why it is that I can't seem to stay faithful to oral care but it just doesn't seem to happen for me.

The other habit that I'm trying to cultivate is dragging my ass out of bed every morning around 625 and being down in the gym before 640. This really shouldn't be a hard thing to do because of the fact that all I have to do is put my clothes on, attach my iPod to my arm and go. I am happy to say that once I arrive at the gym and start doing my stretches I'm fully awake and actually enjoy this new ritual. By starting at that time I can work out, eat breakfast, clean myself up for the day and be waiting for my ride to work by 900. For the past week and a bit it's been working for me so I'm planning on continueing the struggle to set the habit. The real test of this one is going to be on my turnarounds where I have 8 full days for the habit to die a slow exhausted death. We'll just have to wait and see.

Now I'm going to work on the final habit I'm developing and go to bed early.

Good night.

"This Place Is A Prison"

This place is a prison
And these people aren't your friends
Inhaling thrills through $20 bills
And the tumblers are drained and then flooded again
And again

Ther're guards at the on ramps armed to the teeth
And you may case the grounds from the cascades to puget sound,
But you are not permitted to leave

I know there's a big world out there like the one i saw on the screen
In my living room late last night,
It was almost too bright to see
And i know that it's not a party if it happens every night
Pretending there's glamour and candelabra
When you're drinking by candlelight

What does it take to get a drink in this place?

What does it take, how long must i wait?

- The Postal Service


Aside from the glamour and candlelight bits this song really sums up this camp!

There are times every few weeks, hell it's oftener than that, that I feel quite lonely up here. I really miss Mr. G and wish he was still here. Having Sister here is good but she's got a new girlfriend that works with her so they spend much of their time in the girls dorm. I think I'm just tired so all of this is just weighing on my mind more than it usually would. Time for bed

I'm thinking about keeping a list that I'll call 'KS's "You've got to be kiddings!"' In the line of work I'm in we've got lost of those moments. Yesterday I had a great one to start the list off with. *Phone rings* - 'Mr. VP of Such and Such would like to be switched from the small plane to the big plane please*.' For some reason I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more of these to come.






*BTW I told Mr. VP's Admin Assistant that there was no way that was going to happen.

Well after a horrendous New Year's, that was horrendous because a 12 hour virus of some sort decided to celebrate in my body, I dragged myself onto a plane early in the morning on the 1st and made my way back up to camp. Happily I managed to sleep much of the way back in the plane as well as the truck. I arrived in time for dinner then promply went back to bed. Woke up the next morning feeling much better and managed to carry on about my business.

Things here haven't really changed all that much. The guys are all starting to make their way back from their respective holiday's and for the most part they're actually somewhat pleasant, I guess many of them, just like me, needed a vacation.

My turnaround in January is going to see me heading to Saskatchewan taking the trip that I missed out on in November. I'm looking forward to it as much as anyone can look forward to going to Saskatchewan. I am staying there for about 5 days then will be spending the rest of my time off with the Fabulous Mr. G and hopefully Raph and the Wifey in Edmonton.

New Year! New Template! Whooooo hooooooooo!

Another year of Christmas revelry has come and gone. This year's Christmas was very good, aside from Sister having to stay at camp, and went really quickly. Tomorrow night is New Years Eve and I'm looking forward to a bit of fun. I'll be spending the first bit of the evening with J and a number of her friends then moving on over to The Baron's place of residence where I will ring in the New Year with my friends.

Sadly I have to be on a plane headed back to camp at 1030 on Jan 1 (which I'm really not happy about) but I am looking forward to getting back to work. It will be nice to get back into the swing of things. It always amazes me that after just a few days off I'm ready to go back to work again. I think this may be a seriouse psychological problem...

Finally I got a wicked digital camera for Christmas this year and I've been spending some time learning how to use it; so I am excited to say that I will likely be incorporating more pictures into my blog.

Until 2007 (unless I decide to post something tomorrow)!

Yet again I find myself working up the the very bitter end of the Holidays. When I was in Retail this made sense and unfortunately I had to work Boxing Day and a bunch of the days in between as well. Now that I'm in the aviation industry I again find that I'm in the middle of a crazy busy time of year.

Yesterday the crew out here moved over 500 people. This was no small accomplishment but I'm proud to say that everything went really well. Aside from the fact that I woke up this morning feeling like I've been hit by a truck everything's good.

I'm really looking forward to getting out of here now. As things are finally starting to wind down I'm looking forward to the chance to just collapse for a while. Considering I'm flying out of here on Christmas Eve and going directly from the airport in Calgary to the first of three family dinners over the course of three days I don't think I'm going to be able relax until I get back to Vernon. Vernon's looking to be quite enjoyable as well as Raph and Wifey are going to be there and I'm really looking forward to some 'do nothing' time with them.

New Years this year has been somewhat subdued for me already because of the fact that I'm flying back to this lovely place on Jan. 1st at 10:30 in the morning. That means I get to spend my Birthday in camp this year to :(

All in all I should count myself lucky that I don't have to spend both Christmas and New Years here like Sister does.

Well until I get a chance to post again, Merry Christmas Everyone!

I ate so much chocolate today that I was practically vibrating by the time I left work. That's one nice thing about Christmas is all the great chocolate that people just give away... now if I can only convince them to give away red wine to go with it...

The past week or so has been excruciating and I didn't know why. It was just about all I could do to drag myself back to my room every night without wanting to cry. Then once I was back in my room the extreme weight of depression hit me and I just wanted to cease to exist. As this hasn't happened to me in quite a long time I was very unhappy and couldn't figure out what was going on. Then while talking to my Mother the other day I complained that I suspected the new naturopathic medicines I was taking may have something to do with it. Mom suggested that I stop taking them for a while and see what happened. Well I stopped taking them today and while I woke up feeling terrible around 2PM something switched and suddenly I was back to my normal self. It's really scary to me how these kinds of things can effect me so strongly but what's even more scary is the people out there who don't know that they are succeptible to this kind of thing and carry on as best they can every single day. I guess this is a good reminder for me to be more sensitive to the people around me and to keep remembering that as incredibly stupid as many of them are... some of them may not be able to help parts of their stupidity or crankiness.

I can hardly believe it but Blogger tells me that this is my 700th post! It's really hard to believe that 700 posts ago I started this blog as a class project. Since then it's followed my life through some extream highs and some seriously low, low's. In school I'd never really taken a major interest in writing and I think that's mostly because of the whole pen and paper thing. When I'm typing things are just so much easier. Here's to Blogger! Thanks for making this such an easy process and never telling me to stop writing.

This is Hilarious! I'm off to evade my army of screaming lovers now! Thanks Wifey great diversion for a Saturday.

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire

This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night

I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame

You know I believed it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

-U2

No matter what path in life one takes they're bound to find some aspect of their being that doesn't match up with how they'd like to see it. What is an ideal life? Is there such thing as a balanced life?

As my Dad drove me to the airport yesterday we were discussing how some of the concerns and issues that my current living and working situation was bringing about. Concerns like 'Am I missing out on life?', 'Are other people moving furthur ahead in their careers by being in a city?', 'I don't "like" living where I do right now so will the sacrifice payoff?', 'When will I be able to live the lifestyle that I want to at some point in life?'

I suppose that when I look at these questions the answer really boils down to time. How long am I willing to put in up here? At what point do I just decide that the money isn't worth what I'm missing out on. When do I decide that I've got enough "experience" to move on to another career somewhere else? Will I be able to move to another career once I leave here or will this place have left an indellible mark on my psyche that follows me around haunting me for the rest of my life.

I deposited the largest paycheck of my life today. I wish I could report that it felt great and all those things that people are supposed to say but overall I felt... not so much. It's really weird but the old saying is true, "Money isn't important until you don't have any". I just never thought I'd be saying that...

An ideal life is really measured by the thoughts of the person looking for it. As for whether an ideal life is balanced... I think that's a pipe dream. There's no such thing as in ideal life let alone a balanced life.

I've been home for seven days now and I leave to go back to camp tomorrow. Overall I have to say that I'm already looking forward to going back as there's just not much to do here when I'm home. I've managed to take some inspiration from Raph and Wifey this time though and I spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday doing nothing. The fact that I've picked up a cold while home has likely helped in curbing my need to do anything as well.

As usual I've been hemorraghing money since I got back. There are just so many things to do in a couple days that people with 'normal' lives can spread out over the course of a month or more that I have to do in a compressed time. Things like servicing and gettting the car ready for winter (even though I'll likely only drive it for 3 weeks of actual winter driving), going to the chiropracters, stocking up on toiletries (this is stunningly quite expensive) and other such things have kept me quite busy. Trying to see the few friends that I still have here also takes up a bit of time.

All in all this has been a good, if not somewhat boring, time at home. After being at camp for 34 days though I think it's just what the Doctor ordered. Actually it almost is, I went to the Naturalpath two days ago and he told me my body was at the point of exhaustion. Nervous system friend and all that, of course the road to recovery cost a disgusting amount of money but I paid it and hopefully I'll start to feel a little peppier soon.