Double Trouble

Just for a bit of variety, here's a 2 weeks-in-one-blog entry, just like I used to do. Don't ask me why... laziness perhaps? Creating a sense of suspense? Just plain irresponsible? You decide... and as usual, don't let me know. :-)

March 31st - Bus and Breakfast

Worked an evening shift, nice and quiet. The bus route here is fairly straightforward, so that's nice - I just hop on at my front door and I'm at work in less than 15 minutes. As a bonus, the Subway across the road is open at 7am, so I can grab a bite before work if I catch an earlier bus... nice, as the sun's rising earlier now and I can enjoy a sunlit breakfast with a free paper to read. Of course it's no Sunrise Cafe, but my clothes don't smell nearly as heavily of fried food afterwards.

April 1st - Fooled you!

Opened the store today, April Fool's day! I had the itch to fool someone, and since I was wise to my own tricks I decided to fool both the old crew I worked with and the new ones here in B.C. So I sent a fax back to the St. Kitt's crew, telling them for the most part how nice things were in B.C. ... and how I'd managed to resurrect my old clown job out here. In fact, I was 'doing so well' that I might go full-time as BoBo. They ate it up and called back... so I had to break the news to them. *grin* It was good to hear everyone's voice though; miss you gals! I also wrote up an 'official' email for my new co-workers here, warning about a 'fraud group dressed as clowns' that were working the area trying to cash bad cheques( again with the clown theme, ha! ). Apparently I did a good job, as nobody said a peep until the next day when I came in and had to tell them... as they'd signed off on the memo. I love my job sometimes...

April 2nd - Don't say the S-word

Worked again in the AM, and I must say I do like these early shifts. Before it seemed a chore to come to work, but starting off with fresh air, sunshine and decently warm temperatures( with no white crunchy stuff underfoot... and I don't mean spilled sugar )makes all the difference. Plus, I'm on my own for most of the day, so it's not crowded at all. In the evenings, I can do as I wish, and I usually split the time between writing, reading, gaming and laundry. Well, as little laundry as I can manage to get away with... I still miss having in-suite laundry, as you don't have to fight for a machine. Politely of course, and without wet towels.

April 3rd - The Spiral Cafe

I took a morning shift today so that I'd have the evening free, as my neighbour Laurel had suggested an entertaining escapade at the Spiral Cafe west across the bridge over in Esquimalt. Playing tonight was one Annabelle Chvostek, whose melodious tunes and heartfelt charm made for a memorable night of choice. In particular, I liked her song entitled 'I left my Brain' from her album Resilience - it had a catchy foot-stomping tune and showed an excellent tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. So in other woods, a good time was had by all... and I hope more of the same again soon.

April 4th - Seals in the harbour

The first day of my three-day weekend dawned sunny and glorious here in Victoria. I had breakfast at Brannigan's with my mom, and then helped her with a few things at her condo, as well as filing her taxes( finally )after some delays from previous weeks.
After lunch, I met one of my co-workers at the Cook St. Village Starbucks for a coffee. The weather was nice, bright and sunny. Unfortunately, her daughter wasn't feeling too well and managed to be sick three times... all on the patio, thank goodness. Maybe I just have that effect on women? I felt bad, but other than that we all enjoyed the weather and the company. Later on, I met my parents for some shopping chores. We also visited Mount Tolmie Park later in the day, one of the highest points in the Victoria area. The hills that the roads wound around would have been impassible with any kind of snow, so I'm glad for the mild climate here. The view was amazingly clear( likely due to the cool air )and the clouds cleared just as we reached the summit( see the pic ). On the way home we stopped to see the famous harbour seals of Victoria( see the photo ). You can buy fresh fish at the marina to feed the wild seals, who hang around the docks looking for handouts. They're wild though, as the signs point out, so watch your hands whilst feeding them.

April 5th - A Saturday off, with Lego( sorta )

For a day with nothing planned, I sure did a lot. But i won't bore you with it. Of note though was that I discovered there's a writers group on Vancouver Island, so that may be someplace that I'll pop in for a look-see soon. Along with the archery club, the runner's club, and the cyclists club... there's probably a Lego club too. I should mention, on the subject of Lego, that I was at the Sidney Museum Lego Exhibition last week on March 27th. There was a TON of new and old to see in All Things Lego... including a Lego Millennium Falcon. That would be so cool sitting on display here... but it'd take too long to build.

April 6th - Brunch at Samuel's

I took my parents to the 11am( PST )brunch at Samuel's, located near where we first stayed after arriving here in Victoria. The service was as excellent as I recall, with my cup no sooner being empty than it was filled once more, and plates whisked away almost before the last crumbs had fallen. The food was perfect, with the highlights being the juicy bacon and the incredible scalloped potatoes. Mmmmm! Too bad it costs as much as it does, or we'd go more often... then again, it's more of a treat the LESS often we go.
Plus the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is amazing: across the road is Thunderbird Park, with some amazing totem poles and more native wonders. Just beyond that is the Royal BC Museum, somewhere else I've yet to step foot. Heck, there's so many places I'd like to explore here I'll be busy doing JUST that for years - which is great! I took a walking tour of my neighbourhood and took some great pictures of the cherry trees that blanket the area - literally, with all those pink blossoms. Moss St is lined with them from the edge of the ocean all the way north to Fairfield - blocks of cherry trees in bloom. Plus, many of the gardens in the area are in bloom; it's quite lovely to behold.

April 7th - B5 vs BSG

Back to work today, dang it, n the evening. I did order some more things from Amazon.ca, including a few that my neighbour Ben told me about: the 1st and 2nd seasons of Babylon 5 finally went on sale for what I was willing to pay. Considering that the series went off-air in late 1998, that's saying something for continuous high prices... I've seen various seasons as high as $99.99 in Canada, which made me wince and be a little more patient, which finally paid off. For those of you who haven't seen B5 and like SciFi, I highly recomemned it; the only series that IMHO that has reached the same level of excellence in all aspects is the more recent Battlestar Galactica. Go check out the Lurker's Guide to B5, which is an incredible resource for the series made all the more amazing by the fact that the series creator, J. Michael Straczynski, put a lot of his own time into answering questions and the like for fans in those early halcyon days of the internet - long before creator-fan webchats and such became common. In any case, I love both shows for different reasons... and apparently a lot of other folk do too.
Did I ever mention that I'm a voice in a B5 game? The folks over at Space Dream Factory decided to create their own game back in 2002, after Sierra canceled the 95% complete B5 flight sim in 1999 entitled B5: Into the Fire - typical corporate stupidity. SDF called their fan game I've Found Her, after a particular plot thread involving a lost love of former B5 Commander J. Sinclair - something nobody but a fan would understand. Anyway, I have the part of Alpha 4 and was thrilled to be part of the project, which has since produced a 'prequel' sequel called Danger and Opportunity. It stands as a testament to what fans( of any genre )can accomplish and the skills they can muster... IFH remains one of the top fan-created video games to this day, by anyone's standards, including big studios like Sierra. SDF is smarter though. :)

April 8th - The Camino

Just a quiet night at home. I read through most of Shirley MacLaine's recent novel The Camino, which documents her journey along an ancient pilgrim's trail in Spain that took her nearly 500 miles by foot in a month. My neighbour Laurel loaned it to me and though I found it a fascinating read in terms of what the human spirit can accomplish, I didn't find any revelations within its pages. Maybe if I re-read it backwards...? Fascinating story though, and impressive that a Hollywood star would undertake such a grueling pilgrimage for all the right reasons, at her age. My good friend Mike H. called, and we chatted for almost 2 hours. He had some great news about some projects he's involved in, and it was just great to hear his voice again. He had some other news, not so great, but that kind of goes hand in hand with good news now doesn't it? Still, it wasn't earth-shattering and I don't think it will be of import after only a little time has passed. Thanks for calling, Mike!

April 9th - Bus tunes and Beauty

My new cell is great, and I use it with the nice Jabra headset that I won at Katie's fund-raiser a few years ago - bluetooth is a fickle beast sometimes but great when it works. So great, that I ordered a Motorola S9 bluetooth stereo headset a few weeks ago that I've been testing out. So far, so good: the tunes are nice and loud even on the bus. Speaking of which, I know I've mentioned before that I enjoy taking the bus here, but I don't think I've mentioned the fact that it always seems that whatever one I ride, there's a bevvy of beauties aboard. I'm not sure about the statistics here, but some days I feel like I'm on a bus of pirates( yaarrr! )as they loved to kidnap the most beautiful womenfolk and spirit them away to their safe havens. Not that I feel kinship with any of those scurvy peg-legged puritanical pirates, but mine eye do spy quite a few lovelies on them thar' buses. Which is a surprise, as I thought most of them jogged and didn't take transit. Who knew?

April 10th - Tom Petty

Just a normal day, really. Closed the branch today, and it wasn't all that busy. Perhaps the blah weather might have something to do with it... I've noticed a correlation between busy times and sunny days, so perhaps the blah skies are keeping people indoors, huddled around videos of sunny beach paradises from vacation ads on TV.
One nice thing about Victoria is that the radio stations seem to play a LOT of Tom Petty. I mean, I'd be lucky to hear one of his songs a a week back in Niagara.. yet at least twice a day the radio here blasts out a great tune of his. Now does that say 'Welcome to Victoria!' or what?
Ironically, Tom Petty will be here in B.C. this summer, and I'm actually considering going to go see the show. It's in Pemberton, so it's quite the haul - we'll see. I'll comfort myself with all the blooming flowers here, which have been growing steadily all the winter season and have really started to burst out in the last month or so.

April 11th - Double Duty

I opened the branch today... and would up closing another one. Boy, was that dumb. From the minute I walked in, the place was a zoo. I stood at the counter and served folks at a blistering pace for close to five hours... not easy when you've been working since 8am. In any case, things thinned out and I had someone come in to help close the place, which was nice, as I was feeling rather burned out by that point. Still, given the circumstances that led to my last-minute shift at this other branch, I can't complain too much... being a little tired can't hold a candle to the things that my co-worker at this branch is going through right now. So I'll sleep on that, and be thankful.

April 12th - Double Duty Deja-Vu

I did some writing this morning, working on a few concepts that occured to me in the shower this week. As many authors have noted, shower-time seems to be a cornucopia for generating ideas... be it the heat, the soothing effect of the water or even getting soap up your nose, whatever makes the ideas flow is most welcome in my world. Good clean creativity!
Yet it seems the same things happen here as elsewhere in the company: people don't show up for their shifts and there just aren't enough staff to cover. So I volunteered( for some O/T of course )to help out, as they were really in a bind and well, I didn't have plans to speak of and they'd asked me earlier in the week about this particular shift. Of course, given the craziness of last night at the same store, I wasn't so thrilled to go in tonight... but it was the polar opposite of the night before. Quiet and sedate, I barely moved to the counter after the dinner hour, which was a blessing as I was still beat from the day before. Lovely, in some ways. Oh, and this branch is the only one in the area that's actually close to a Tim Horton's - ironic, as every single branch I'd ever worked at in Niagara was but a stone's throw away from a Timmy's.

All for now. In some ways, this blog is similar to my old answering machine messages back in my university days. Before cell phones, I'd always be missing peoples calls whilst at work or away at class, so I came up with a solution: leave an itinerary on my machine. That way, people would know when I'd be home. Worked well enough for a few years, until the dawn of cells made such things like answering machine tapes obsolete. Still, it was fun... and my friends hated it. :) And thanks for the comment Jen!