Space, Sweepstakes and Sickness

Another late Monday update... my apologies, but I have been VERY preoccupied this week with my health and being damned busy besides. Still, this blog is important to me, so here we are...


Dec 1 - Overtime by the Dozen

Oi, what a day... and to think it was my day OFF too!

My first mistake was to volunteer to "help out for a few hours" at another branch in the morning. You know me, always willing to trade in my time for some O/T and help out my co-workers in the process - I hate having a day off knowing others are suffering for my lack of willingness to work.

So... that started the ball rolling. Things were going well, I worked from 10am to 2pm and decided to stay until 4pm to ensure the morning opener finished her shift on time.

Big mistake.

The computers went down at 3:55pm... hard. So hard that they were off for three hours... and this as the day suddenly got busier, which was totally unexpected.

So it was me and three other tellers, including the hapless opener, who had to deal with things. We had to do all of our transactions manually, while trying to ensure that the folks waiting to be served did not break into frenzies of impatience. Fortunately, only one customer of the whole lot had the smarm to remark "If your computers are down, why didn't you put a sign on the door?" ... at 4:30pm. I won't dignify his idiocy by recording my response here, as what I said summed up everyone's feelings remarkably well without being rude. Though it did cause the customer to roll his eyes.

After the horror show was said and done, I had worked 12 hours solid... on my day off. Most of it spent cursing our Internet provider, whose swiss-cheese service had taken even our helpdesk by surprise... and making it impossible to fix from their end of things. Yet after all that, the branch closed up and had no unusual errors in the transactions after all was said and done. Even the staff's attitude was positive, if exhausted - we'd all managed to keep each other smiling despite the stress.

Which is why I am still with this company - the people it hires are just incredible, most days, though all of us are human. Days like today show that we can all rise to the occasion by relying on each other. Though I relied on my bed to draw me quickly into a semi-coma as soon as I got home. Argh... as a sop to all those out there who hate tech support, I offer this questionnaire.

Dec 2 - Managing Things

I was rather bleary-eyed today for my 9-hour shift, no wonder given yesterday's excesses of energy-draining excitement( if you can call it that ). Still, some good news cometh:

Today I accepted the position of manager for my branch, which comes with a raise both in pay and responsibility. Given that the the corporate climate( ick, I feel dirty now )here in Victoria is MUCH more to my liking in several key ways compared to Niagara, I decided a few weeks ago to take the plunge. Our branch has been without a manager since late summer, so stepping into that role has been on my mind to take some of the stress off other managerial staff in the area. Considering that I have almost nine years experience with the company, it was an easier decision for me in some ways, though as always there is training to be done with any new position. I hope I can be as good a leader as I have been in other roles, but you can only find out these things by doing - like a weekly blog, fr'instance.

Once I fell onto the couch at home, I discovered a bit of good news: looks like the video game adaptation of Ghostbusters is finally a go! I have wanted to play a game-version of the movie ever since it game out, and have never been satisfied with all the low-budget pretenders that have shown up over the years. Considering that the entire original cast has signed on for the voice work, I have high hopes for this one to hit most of the marks... really. I do!

Dec 3 - Pick your Disease

After my usual 9-hour day, which went remarkably quickly, I headed out to another branch to help their newly-hired closer to, well, close the place up. Another few hours of O/T, which is always nice - seems to be a trend this week and for December in general. Once more thing I LOVE about B.C. is that after 8 hours of work, O/T is automatic - back in Niagara, O/T was only paid after jumping through flaming hoops while slathered in gasoline gel and while carrying road flares between your teeth. As in, not likely. Here, if the Need Is Dire, then people can actually HELP OUT and not leave their co-workers stranded knee-deep, especially during the double-whammy of busy December and Cold Season. Huzzah!

Towards the end of the evening, a middle-aged couple came in and began dealing with my co-worker. After a few minutes, she asked me to take over for her, as things got... complicated.

Turns out that the lady was in with her husband to set up an account for him again... as he was on disability for a mental condition I'd never heard of: frontio-temporal dementia, also referred to as 'Picks Disease' used to describe the common pathology.

Things like this scare the willies out of me, as they constitute some of the many blindside-horrors that life can toss at you, like cancer, car crashes or randomly falling meteorites. There is no way to prepare oneself against the random, so listening to this woman's tale sent some shivers down my back, especially the part about how her husband's friends had all abandoned him over the last few years, unable to cope with his changing personality. They could no longer see the man they knew when dealing with him, even when informed about the way the disease was affecting his brain.

I hope I never have to experience that sort of situation. What would it be like, seeing someone you've known all your life turn into someone else, and have no way of knowing if the original person was still in there somewhere? Horror, folks... it takes many forms, and that is one of them for me.

For those of you with a little time on your hands, this site is chock-full of quizzes. Perhaps you may find some in there that challenge your sense of reality, morals, or just your spelling skills. Go see.

Dec 4 - Space Sickness

I've been watching the original Star Blazers animated series this last week, one episode in the morning during breakfast before work. I have to say I am enjoying it almost as much as I did when I was a kid, back when I was six years old and would run home from school so I could catch the last ten minutes of Star Blazers... it was grossly unfair that it showed every day at 3:30pm, I thought; why couldn't they bump The Smurfs and make it so I could see ALL of this amazing program? This was in the days before VCR's, so I actually had my dad rig a cassette recorder to catch the show while leaving the TV on, just so I could hear what had happened.

I think this helped develop my imagination / mind's eye, as I would sit there and listen with my eyes closed, creating the images in my head of the episode as the tape played. I still have one or two tapes as keepsakes... that's how much I loved Star Blazers, and it has stayed with me ever since. Now that I have the series( just the first of three, and none of the movies )on DVD, I am experiencing the show in a whole new way: visually. It's been thrilling, and I catch the odd flashback from those after-school days as scenes from thirty years ago flash past my eyes...

Today started out all right physically, but by mid-afternoon I was feeling the effects of the week catching up to me: lethargy and slight dizziness crept up on me so that by shift-end I was ready to go home. You know that feeling you get after one too many beers, when you turn and it takes a half-second for the rest of the room to catch up to you? That was me by the end of today's normal 9-hour shift... ick. Not that it helped that I was feeling nauseous too... my malfunctioning gall bladder does interesting things to my digestion sometimes, enough so that things don't always go smoothly - 'nuff said on that, save that when things go awry, it makes me wish all over again that I didn't have to eat at all. Yeah.

While at home tonight, after a small dinner that thankfully decided to co-operated with the plumbing and move along quietly, I StumbledUpon a few online sweepstakes sites. While I am not one to promote what amounts to blatant advertising grabs, I am not above perusing a few search results to find the most "bang for the buck" contests out there. Seems there are plenty of places doling out prizes online, though most require you to play various time-wasting Flash-based games and the like. I'll be trying out the other variety, where you enter your info but once a day towards larger prizes of several thousand dollars( or more ). I figure in those cases, I can spend a few minutes a day typing towards a prize... and not have to spend money every week on lottery tickets at all. Not that I do anyway... and we shall see how long it takes for the first junk mail to reach my mailbox.

Dec 5 - ReBarf

I made myself a nice breakfast today: eggs, pancakes, bacon, toast. Not too much of each, but definitely a feel good meal before what promised to be another long day at work. Big mistake... as an hour after eating, things got confused in the plumbing and wanted out again, the wrong way. It was as bad as my reactions earlier in the year, but I managed to hang tough until the feeling passed, if you'll pardon the pun - considering how I felt, I wasn't laughing. I meandered through work, trying to fight the urge to go cross-eyed at various times as things... bubbled. The after-lunch nausea wasn't so bad, but I ate my meal slowly over the course of an hour, so it slipped past unnoticed perhaps. Not an easy thing, dealing with customers while trying not to turn green and run away. Which, I suppose, is not an uncommon reaction in customer service...

At home, I checked in at ReBoot.com to see how things are progressing; the latest WebComic was up, and it's tight - since the creators of ReBoot are taking a strong hand in bringing the show back, the site's production values are stellar. I am excited to see what current CGI technology can do for a new series set in the Reboot universe, given that huge value for production dollars can now be had by combining today's CGI systems with the ReBoot visual style.

Dec 6 - Immortal Puns

Up early, did my laundry before work, which was great... ate a small breakfast too, just some cereal. Which caused only a small amount of nausea, but enough things aren't working per my manual's specs that I am looking forward to a doctor's appointment on Monday. I have a feeling that it is related to my gallstone condition, I hope - I don't need news that my intestines have decided to throw me for another loop.

Home and hungry, but considering my nausea I settled for a PBJ and crackers. I watched the clock, paying attention to my internal mutterings, and was relieved that after a few discontented gurgles, my offering of food was grudgingly accepted.

I relaxed before zzzz-time by re-reading part of an old favourite series by Piers Anthony, a favourite author of mine from.... well, as far back as I can recall. He wrote the many wonderful Xanth novels, which are famous for the puns included in each book that are sent in by fans; Anthony keeps careful track of each usage and credits them in the back of the book they appear in. How cool is that? So, back to what I was reading: Wielding A Red Sword, part of the Incarnations of Immortality series that Anthony wrote, which included the more famous On A Pale Horse, which of course dealt with Death - who had really only ever been looked at originally at the time by Terry Pratchett... but I digress.

The reason I bring up Wielding A Red Sword is that in the back of the book, Piers Anthony uses quite a few pages to catch up his fans on what has happened to him, the author, since his last book... and since this is in the days before even BBS systems, long before websites, I found it fascinating. Because really, what is it other than a blog? That thought really spun my brain, because twenty years ago there was nothing really available about authors save autobiographies... but here was an author who willingly took the time to catch his readers up on events in his and his family's life in every book! Amazing!

Dec 7 - Still Sickening Sunday

Damn.... I was hoping today would track close to the forecast, but the dratted clouds skittered away to leave a bright, sunny day. Not warm by any stretch of the imagination, but still lovely as long as one did not tarry in the shade. I saw several folk who were waiting for the bus just outside the branch window think better of doing it in the building's shadow and quickly walk back into the light. Sun-day!

Dinner was a larger one, as an experiment to tell the doctor about tomorrow: turkey with gravy, squash, peas and Brussels sprouts. Not too much of each, but the largest meal I have had this week. Sure enough, about 1.6 hours after I had eaten, I got the awful feeling that things were not progressing smoothly downstairs... and that things wanted to come back up for a second opinion. After another hour of will-vs-body, the feeling of nausea went away... but I'm still quite worried. It doesn't feeling like what I am used to concerning my usual digestive ticks, especially since I pay close attention to what my body tells me after the gallstone incident four years ago.

We will see what the doctor has to say in the morning; hopefully his diagnosis is that it is not a major problem... and that he actually knows WHAT the problem IS. And that it does not require any sort of medical treatment requiring a look inside; I hate the thought of sharp skin-slicing thingies.

Just to leave things on a not-so-dreary note, we have: the Elvish Name Generator... go on, give it a try. Apparently my name is 'Golradir Fëfalas' which means nothing to me, as I do not speak Tolkien's Sindarin. Which according to the site's FAQ, this isn't really based on. Which makes me like it all the more... in addition to the fact you can generate your Hobbit Name on the site too. Cute, t'is. Indeed.


I was saddened this week to learn that Jen has put her real estate career on hold; I hope it's a temporary thing. What with all the doom and gloom nowadays, I know I am tightening my own belt while looking towards the future... not that my RRSP's will be in any decent shape anytime soon FOR that future, but one has to hope. Comments?

Entertainment, Economics and Existence

This week finds me dragging a little, as some small foibles start to add up to become bothersome interludes. Still. If you didn't see last week's photo slideshow( Nov. 16th entry ) about Fall here in Victoria, go have a look.

Nov 17th - The Business of Existing

The phrase "There's never enough time in a day" seems to mean many different things to many different people, to use another well-worn cliche.

For some, getting through each day is a small miracle, a wonder that they made it through to another sunset and live in hope of seeing another sunrise, that their illness or poverty or other problems will relent for another day, giving them some peace from their personal burdens.

Choice is there too: choosing to live as you will, the decisions adding up over years to dig your path through the dark woods of the unknown future. Some choose family, marrying their first sweethearts and defining their lives by the creation and rearing of new ones, hopefully in ways that turn children into stable, wonderful people that are a credit to their parents. Others choose careers, perhaps with family as a stable influence on their never-ending climb to the top of their profession. Still more, many more, deal with life as it comes, often getting lost in the blizzard of bills, commitments, accidents, joys and sorrows that fly at us from all directions as we try to make sense of it all.

Daily life, all the little things that pass us by, large and small, are the ticks of the clock. Ever-forward, with fond glances back at what was, things remembered with a golden glow seen through the ever-more opague window of the past.

Yet what does it all mean?

Bhuddist monks spend their lives contemplating existence. Military personnel give their lives in the performance of their duty. Politicians spend their lives getting others to believe what they say, for good or ill. Doctors heal wounds physical, while lawyers bandage other wounds with words and money. All professions, all choices made, even the choice of not resisting what life pushes in front of you.

Meaning is what we bring to our lives, the interpretations we put on what we experience. As the expression goes, sometimes the glass is half-full, other times half-empty... and sometimes the glass breaks. How you deal with your own interpretations gives meaning to them, and shows your mettle to others... for some, this is important, but for other people, what other people think is the last thing they care about, sometimes for unselfish and purely personal reasons.

What you do, how you exist, how you find your place in the puzzle of life, is your business. Judging others by your own standards may help you find your place, but you should always keep in mind that your standards often cannot apply to others - they have their own path to make through the woods.

This brings me back to my own situation, far away from my other existence in Niagara. It is startlingly similar in some ways though, as I have come to realize. The loss of friends, of family, of places, of pets and jobs and things all tumble one around in life, nudging or tossing you in new directions. The same applies to new jobs, new friends, new places... the old fades and the new glides into the empty space of loss. Friends who are no longer in touch, old loves lost, old jobs remembered for the funny and not the frustration of the day to day grind. People who have changed, grown distant with time and other commitments, taking us away from each other though we try, failingly, to stay in touch.

I suppose that is what bothers me, that things cannot stay the same, no matter how much we want them to. When friends become aquiantances, then just names on cards sent at christmas or birthdays... that saddens me sometimes. To know that our choices have separated us after long years together, for good or bad, and that to see each other again is to see in their eyes the distance that those choices have put between us. A distance bridged, for a time, with shared stories and laughter, to bring with us when we must part once more to return to the separate lives that our choices have become.

Nov 18th - Sleepless Near Seattle

I was awake tonight, far into the morning, for no reason I could disern. The quiet hours ticked on, while I lay sleepless, the red glow of the clock shouting silently that I should be dreaming.

It was as through I was a spectator to my own thoughts, watching them chase each other around the room in the dark but unable to see them clearly. My subconscious mind was obviously in high gear, but my conscious mind would not just shut it out and sleep. Damned annoying, to know that there are things bothering me on some level, but that I cannot bring to the fore... and so lose sleep over them.

Plus, it didn't help that the garbage truck made its usual early arrival at 7:10am... or that an hour before that, I received yet another "Uknown Call" to my 935-Niagara line. Which is frustrating, since you'd think that with all of today's modern CID tech, you could trace most every call... but when it shows up as all 0000's there is little anyone can do, especially on a VOIP line. Apart from trying to initiate a police trace, I cannot think of anything I can do to find out who's trying to sell me shoes at 6am PST... likely from a 9am autodialer in Ontario, or somewhere out east. Since I am on the National DoNotCall list, and the jerks don't leave a msg, I am just going to have to wait and see... and lose
sleep.

Ah well. At times like these, I think about how cool it would be to have a TARDIS... here's a look at the 45 Coolest Moments in Doctor Who history.

Nov 19th - Snappy TV

A long, long day... I ended up working 10 hours, due to two last-minute customers with large, complicated transactions. I really hate the part of human nature that makes people wait until just the last moment to really screw up someone else's day - combined with the other after-closing tasks that I had to get done, I was really tired by the time I cycled home in the cool mist.

Safely at home once more, I watched S:AAB ep 'Hostile Visit' which had a moment in it. On the eve of a suicide mission, one of the characters mentions the date... November 19th, today! I guess it's a 1 in 365 chance, or similar odds, but it still snapped me to hear it. The character talked about how she had fallen in love with Autumn, all the romance of the slight chill in the air, and how she would never see it again.

I was reading some of the SG: Atlantis production blogs, which are rather interesting for the insight( if slight )they give into the world of TV production. All the more interesting for that it takes place in Vancouver, which is not as far away as it was from Niagara - day-trip distant, in fact. Again, too bad both series are now over with, although SG: Universe is in the works, showing that the franchise has life left in it yet.

Nov 20th - Um, your hat...!

A promised windstorm never materialized today, despite some nasty-looking dark clouds that swooped in from the west. The rain was heavy, on an off, in that peculiar passing way that happens here in Victoria: pours for ten minutes, then light sprinkles for the same, then repeat. Nothing like the hours-long soakings I am used to from Niagara, or even the brief deluges that soaked me in Florida. I still remember a vast, dark cloud crossing the sky when I was living in Fonthill, a black wedge that reminded me of nothing other than a Star Destroyer moving against the lighter clouds around it. Yeesh.

One of the last customers of the day provided some entertainment: a solid construction worker, he came in shaking the rain from his jacket... and trailing smoke from his hat! I waited a beat, then said with a straight face a phrase I never thought I would utter: "Umm... you know your hat is on fire, right?" He said something colourful and then reached up to swat at his right ear... dislodging a still-burning cigarette and crushing down his briefly-smouldering ballcap. Apparently he had not quite pinched-out his cigarette before tucking it behind his ear and entering the store, so it had started to burn his hat! Luckily only a few seconds had passed, and his hat was wet from the rain... otherwise, he might have had a really bad evening. I'd not want to be the first person in MMart history to lose a customer due to a flaming hat...

Nov 21st - Economics

Mulling over the current economic downturn, I was perusing the 'net for opinions, articles and general thoughts about how things are going to go for the next six months. With the downturn affecting consumer spending, retailers are holding their breath for the next thirty days to see if wallets will open.

DollarStretcher.com recently posted an article about how the market downturn is affecting people's retirement plans. The article is interesting as it looks at various life stages of investors, from people just starting out fresh from university, to middle-career folk, to those already retired and watching their plans being jumbled by the economic uncertainty. Though it is not nearly as bad as the Great Depression( what was so great about it, anyway? )... from the people I have talked to who lived through it, the gist is that if you haven't lost everything and need to stand in line for days to apply for a job, then things aren't as bad as they were back then. At least every guy wore a decent hat and shoes.

Myself, I have migrated to a low-key holiday season... the days of ripping open presents under a tree are long past for me, save reminiscing over old and faded photos. I enjoy the holidays now more for their good cheer than anything else, though that's hard to muster when shoulder-to-shoulder with crowds in a shopping mall - hence my plan to avoid most such places evenings and weekends in December. I might enjoy the holiday music piped in as well, with less exposure to it; one can only hear "Jingle Bells" so many times before it becomes grating on the ear with false cheer.

Nov 22 - Overtime Saturday

The morning dawn'd bright and clear, though clouds lurking on the horizon shook their fists at the sun as they blurred across that firey disk from time to time. Much better than a gray, flat ceiling of clouds, glowing in one spot as the sun tries to burn its way through to smile on the earth below. Yep.

I worked an extra shift today at our Colwood store, which brought back some memories of Welland Ave in Niagara, where most every store, including Welland Ave, had a Timmy's nearby. In matter of fact, Colwood has the best setup I have seen: literally steps from the door, there is a Tim Horton's, and a few steps the other way is a Wendy's. Not that I eat out all that much anymore, but it pained me, almost literally, to see that the Bacon Mushroom Melt was back at Wendy's after a two-year absence... must be that time of year again - loved that sandwich. Though my coworkers back at Office Place asked me NOT to have it for lunch when I was working, as it tended to... disagree... with my digestion. But it tasted so GOOD. *sigh* Now that I have the gallbladder issues, beef has been off the menu for some years now, so I have made do with Chicken Grills, as well as enjoying soups from Timmy's such as Potato Bacon: now THAT is a satisfying meal.

Nov 23 - Cow Bay

Took a road trip today up to Cowichan Bay to celebrate my dad's upcoming birthday, he's turning sixty one... glad to see he has been retired for ten years already, and not the other way around, to be still waiting for retirement.

It was a scenic ride, as the weather cooperated and the clouds stayed away. We traveled up the Malahat Drive, hugging the mountainsides and taking in the great views across the Saanich Inlet - there are a few scenic outlooks along the way that are simply breathtaking; mere words cannot describe the sweep of the forested hills, the deep blue of the waters or the pearlescent snow-topped glow of Mt. Baker far to the east. The smell of dead fish when we passed Goldstream park was very strong, even with the vents off... I am not sure when that will end; hopefully after Christmas.

We had lunch at the Oceanfront Grand Resort & Marina, which is renowned on the island for its amazing Sunday buffet. It reminded me in a way of the Beacon Harbourside Hotel in Jordan, which my family used to head to on occasion for their Sunday buffet... which I recall as being rather limited, but they had lots of pancakes. We used to travel all over to check out new places for Sunday buffets, even up to Hamilton a few times, though most of the restaurants we went to are long since gone - anyone remember the old Julio's on Ontario St., where Jack Astor's is now?

The evening vanished in the usual blur of catch-up, as I juggled laundry loads with cleaning, to get things done so I can enjoy my total day-off tomorrow. Supposed to be bright and sunny, albeit chilly, so I may decide to take a walk around the block or to Cook St. Village, though doing so by myself really stinks sometimes... I can think just as well at home here, where it is warmer and less likely to rain on me indoors. MUCH less likely. Not that I mind the rain, when it could be snow... *smiles*


No spiders this week; the closed windows and scattered chestnuts around the apartment seem to have put paid to their nocturnal ramblings. Which is nice, as they don't pay any portion of the rent, the sods.