McKinley, Monsters and Madness

The word of the week is knackered...


UPDATE: The police have CAUGHT the robber who threatened my friend on Oct 1st!! He apparently was staying at a local hotel, where several people recognized his walk - you can't hide body language! He also was wearing similar clothes to a few of the robbery videos, so that made it all the easier. I'll be SURE to be at his arraignment, as soon as I find out who he is and when it will be... scumbag.

Oct 17 - Unexpected?

The week started on a positive note: I didn't have to work for 12 hours today  after all! My CSR who has been sick so often these last two weeks called back in the AM to say she would be able to take my downtown closing shift, so I finished up my morning stretch and went home, still in a state of semi-shock that things had worked out - on their own! I enjoyed almost an hour of just relaxing on the balcony in the sun( and somewhat chill air )just soaking in the quiet, still weather. It was a poor substitute for the weekend, but I'll take what I can get.

Remember my mentioning last week I'd be getting a replacement TV soon? Seems the fine print doesn't mean what I thought it did; new TV means 'comparable' TV, which means from the bottom-end of today's market. So I'm working with THAT diamond in the rough digging at me too. Frustration Shop does it again. Or was it Future Schlock? They're interchangeable to me of late.

Oct 18 - Dead Tired, but not of zombies...

The second season of The Walking Dead premieres this week on Sunday. I won't be watching it( yet )as I don't have AMC... but I'll likely pick up the season on DVD, or just watch it online when I can in a few week's time. Part of the fun of the 'survival horror' genre that Walking Dead inhabits is imagining yourself in those situations and what you'd do. TLC has taken this concept into a new series called The Colony which purports to do just that: take total strangers and put them to work in a fictional 'colony' to overcome tasks that survivors of a disaster / apocalypse would need to figure out. It looks like a good watch, to me. Also on the same note, have you ever wondered what would happen to the critical supplies of electrical power the world over if disaster struck, say a zombie outbreak? Having lived next to Niagara Falls all my life, this wondering came to the fore again during the big blackout of August 2003 on the East Coast of the continent. ZombieInitiative.org has a great article on how long the various forms of electrical power would remain operational; you'll be surprised to find out which ones would outlast which. Still, better pack some batteries for that flashlight... 

Oct 19 - Another loss of a friend...

Today is important for several reasons, but not the ones you think. I had a chat with my boss at work, but that's not the story I want to tell. It's about a beginning that almost ended, and an end that almost had no beginning. 

Instead, it starts with when I was woken very early by a call from my sister, who was trying to save her beloved pet of 12 years... and finding no success. 

McKinley was a cat I saved literally on the edge of death, while I was cycling home one night from Office Depot. I spotted a tiny kitten alone on the edge of a curb at a busy intersection in St. Catharines, with no sign of a momma cat anywhere. So I kept her safe until my mom arrived with a carrier and we took her home and into our lives. She and my sister quickly formed an inseparable bond and McKinley traveled out west with her a few years later, so that I never saw the kitten-turned cat again in-person, just in photos and in my memory. 

Today McKinley had to be put down, as she was no longer able to live with dignity on her own. She was a feisty, loving cat who came unexpectedly into our lives and changed them for the better with a lick and a playful paw. I was surprised to find her when and where I did, for as with all the best things in life, they happen when you least expect them. I know that McKinley brought joy into every day of my sister's life, and for that reason alone I am glad I stopped that night when I did, hearing a kitten's cry for help... and for love. 

Oct 20 - NO $%#! DAY OFF, AGAIN !?!?!

Will the madness never end? Again I was awoken early by a phone call; my CSR's car won't start and they're MUCH too far from work to bus or walk. So I dragged myself off to Cloverdale for 7am after 5 hours sleep to open the store. It was a rough day too; BC Hydro dropped by to say they'd be turning off the power soon since they haven't been able to read the meter in almost a year - news to me. So I searched the branch high and low for hidden unmarked keys, trying dozens in the basement door lock... and the LAST one I found fit! Call BC Hydro, arrange for a new meter read ASAP... as well as accommodate an ADT alarm tech trying to fix some wonky sensors today too. Insanity.

Did I mention it was my day off today? Yeah... 

Home in the LATE afternoon to snooze fitfully for an hour, then I spent the evening alternating between short naps and job searching. 

Yep. I'm aiming to leave early in the new year. Before tax season starts. 

That's about it for today. Still tired, still taking penicillin. Still employed.


Here's to happier times: a video taken at the Kilt & Clover, where I used to hang out all the time in Port Dalhousie. Look hard and you'll spot me in there:

Oct 21 - Infinite Focus?

All right, no talk of work today; go there, got home, that was it for that bit. 

Instead, we'll mention some COOL TECH that just came out: the Infinite Focus Camera... that you can hold in the palm of your hand - Lytro!! 

Okay, the name isn't that great, but the concept is: with conventional cameras, the picture is fixed-focus at the time it is taken. Take a blurry photo, and it's blurry forever. With Lytro, you can change the focus of the picture at any time after you taken it, years later, even while saved on your computer! The technology involved means that the camera reads ALL of the light info at the instant the picture is taken, so you can change the shot afterwards to focus or highlight any part - AMAZING!! I'll have to pick one of these up when I can... once I get a life outside of work again, that is. Too cool. 

Oct 22 - A break, but not a psychotic one( yet )

It was a minor break today, as I worked at our Mill Stream branch, which wasn't busy at all. I spent most of my day doing paperwork, including the inevitable schedule-balancing - I see the damn thing in my sleep of late. I'm here once or twice a week until they glass the place in, as again I won't let my CSR work here until it's totally secured. It's nice, in that it's a break from the crazy pace of the other stores some days... but it's still work, and I'm not snoozing in a chair like Homer Simpson until the beeping on my control panel wakes me up in time for a donut break. 

Of course, if you were watching your control panel at THIS particular plant on a planet far away, you weren't paying attention to what was coming to get you... 

Oct 23 - OMFG just put me away somewhere quiet...

Today I woke up around 8am, basking in the pleasure of having a day off. 

That feeling lasted 52 minutes, until my CSR called in sick. REALLY sick, as in "I have what the other girl had weeks ago that knocked her out for 2 weeks." Sounding like death itself, there's no way she could work today; she sounded like I feel lately, ironically. 

So I called a cab and dragged myself into work. I've no energy left, and after dealing with the usual crowds today I'd had enough after 2 hours; I sent an email to my DM-on-call and closed the store at 2pm and went home for 3pm. 

Where I couldn't fall asleep. I tried, so very hard... the pack of kids that decided today was the perfect afternoon to play Screamball for hours on the quad outside my window didn't help. Sleeping on the floor in the bathroom didn't make sleep happen either, so by dinnertime I was still wide-eyed and brain-dead... with another full 6-day week ahead of me. I consoled myself by watching Monsters Vs. Aliens, a surprisingly fun flick I never saw back in 2009 with some impressive CGI. I may pick it up on BluRay when I get my replacement TV this week, if all goes well. Blog and then to bed with some knockout pills as an assist - no choice, I'm afraid. 

Checking my calendar, I can't find the last day I had off; it was sometime in September, but I couldn't tell you when. I literally can't remember. That's bad...

Good news: My mom is doing well; she's visiting the hospital daily for checkups and they should have the clot filter out this week, once the doctors are certain they're all gone. She's doing remarkably well, though the dry air is causing other problems. Which are more easily solved than blood clots, thankfully.