Wow! Did I feel old today! And it had nothing to do with the fact that I'll be hitting the "Big 4-0" at the end of this year, either! LOL!
Today, I attended the Grade 6 "Graduation" Ceremony for my youngest daughter, T. As I sat there, my oldest daughter had to remind me that soon I'll be the father of TWO teenagers! I was quick to point out that T won't be a teen until September NEXT year, but it still touched a bit of a nerve deep within me. My little girls are growing up way too fast! I've always said that kids should be allowed to grow up as fast as they will, and not be held back by their parents, but sometimes even I want to hit the brakes a bit! It seems like only yesterday they were just learning how to walk, talk and explore their world. Seeing some of my daughter's classmates tottering up to receive their certificates in impossibly high heels and filmy gowns made me realize that they are teetering on the edge of womanhood already! Where did the time go? (T wore a tan skirt and black "dressy" T-shirt with sparkle flowers on it. Not all that fancy, but a major concession for my daughter who HATES dresses!)
I will have to say that this whole idea of a "Grade 6 Graduation" has me a little off kilter as well! When I was in school, I had a Grade 8 grad, a high school grad and a college grad. My girls have already been through TWO graduations and they haven't even hit high school yet! Both had a Kindergarten graduation as well as the Grade 6 one. Next year my oldest will be graduating yet again from Grade 8, followed by her younger sister again the following year! Four graduations in as many years! I wonder if we aren't diminishing the importance and specialness of graduations for our kids by having all these "little" graduations prior to the "big ones". To see 11 and 12 year old girls dressed in filmy, frilly, slinky prom dresses and stiletto heels strikes me as just plain WRONG! Seeing these boys in tuxedos (worn baggy and without a tie, of course!) is silly to say the least! Not all the kids were dressed up though. The school is located in a lower class neighbourhood of my small city, so, right next to tuxedos and sexy dresses (my mind just shudders at that description, but that's the fashion stylists for you! Someone should drill into their collective heads that our daughters are NOT tramps and sluts!!!!) are kids in stained, everyday clothes and sandals! Some parents were all dressed up for the occasion, other parents looked like they had just crawled out of bed or some sleazy bar to attend. The total lack of respect for the occasion by most of the parents attending makes me wonder why they came in the first place! The kids themselves didn't seem to really care to be on their best behaviour and goofed off most of the time. Even the teachers were dressed casually, one male teacher presented an award dressed in a sloganed t-shirt, wrinkled cargo shorts and garish running shoes! I'm sure the kid who won that award will look back at that picture as an adult and wonder why his teacher was so disrespectful! All in all, the ceremony seemed like a farce and a lot of the parents were leaving as soon as the last kid got her certificate. I was very disturbed by this, and can only wonder how these kids will appreciate their more important graduations in the future. Familiarity has been known to breed contempt.
I'll get off my soapbox now. If I don't, I'll start ranting about some of the other things I came across today, and I'll REALLY start to come across like an old curmudgeon! LOL!
Adding to the psychological aged feeling was today's incredible heat! In the Toronto area, the temperature got as high as 35 Canadian degrees which translates to 95 American degrees. Now that may not seem like much to Burfica in Arizona, but when you factor in the humidity, the temperature felt more like 40 degrees (104 F). The humidity makes it impossible for your sweat to evaporate, makes it very hard to breathe and traps all that smoggy pollution right down around ground level for us to inhale with each laboured breath. Today was a good day for being inside with air conditioning! Unfortunately, thanks to many years of governments turning a blind eye to mismanagement at our electrical utilities, Ontario can hardly meet the demand on it's electrical system and now they are threatening rolling black-outs in Toronto and other cities in Southern Ontario. So, all you heard on the radio and TV today was, "Please turn your air conditioners down (meaning turn UP the temperature) to help save electricity!" I think we should just shut down the entire province during high heat days like today and REALLY save electricity! But I am digressing into another rant... back on topic I go! The oppressive air quality, heat and humidity made for a very exhausting day for a lot of people! One more way I felt old today! Tomorrow is forecasted to start out like today with even higher temps forecasted, but then, around mid-afternoon, a cold front is projected to arrive, bringing massive thunderstorms and radically cooler, dryer air behind them. Because of that, I'm also forecasting another nasty headache for myself tomorrow. And I have a PILE of work to do! I think I'm gonna have to start buying shares in Bayer, Advil and McNeil Labs (the makers of Tylenol)! This is when I really wish I had a pool in my backyard. Nothing beats the heat like total submersion in water that's 10-20 degrees cooler than the air! LOL! Oh, before any of you suggest I go to a local pool, I refuse to go swimming in city run public pools unless I'm with a group that has chartered the pool for a private swim. I've contracted far too many eye infections while swimming in a public pool to trust them very much! Maybe when my girls get home from school tomorrow (if the t-storms haven't started) I'll challenge them to a water gun fight in our backyard! LOL! Or maybe I'll just stay indoors and lie on the couch all day too! ;-) Notice the word "work" didn't appear in there? Something tells me I'm gonna be sadly disappointed tomorrow! Heh heh!
Where ever you are, I hope you stay cool too!
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
My Week in Review
What a frustrating week it's been! Of course there have been good points to it, but overall, it's been one of the more frustrating weeks I've had in a long time!
This week I've been working from home building the control panels for my friend's company. My friend's client is supplying the parts, another friend is mounting the wire channels and then I put the components on and wire them up. Sounds simple, right? WRONG! The client company has decided to "trickle" the parts to me, so I spent a lot of time this week waiting for parts to arrive. Thursday, when I got my box of parts for the next panel, when I went to assemble them, I found wrong parts and missing parts! I immediately called my friend and he said he would get me the parts as soon as possible. The client held him up until late Friday afternoon which meant that I couldn't work all Friday and now have to work Saturday to make up the time. The most frustrating part of it is, despite the client's delays in providing the parts, they are still expecting me to have one panel built in a day! So far, in five days, I've been able to finish three panels. Wednesday was another washout, waiting for parts. So.. Now I have to build two panels over the weekend, and to make matters almost completely unmanageable, I came down with one of my killer headaches late Friday evening.
I was supposed to get up early this morning (Saturday) and take my broken old computer monitor to a special IT equipment dump at 9:00 am, but thanks to my headache, woke up at 11:30! So, I've lost my entire morning and I still feel like someone hit me in the head with a crowbar or something equally as hard. What a week, I tell you!
But, like I said, there were some good points. I found out this week that I will be getting paid for these panels at a rate very close to what I made working for Grantek last year. That will help ease the financial crisis we are currently in. It seems as though my life these past few years can be described in three words: "Feast or Famine". Right now, we seem to be in Feast mode! It has been unfortunate that the Famines have outnumbered the Feasts these last few years, so we are "behind the 8-ball" so to speak! This job will really help us out. It's just too bad that it doesn't look like it will continue past the end of July, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
An online group of aspiring writers I belong to is hosting a summer writing contest this year. I don't know what the prize is yet, but we are planning to publish the best entries in a compilation book and see how it sells. I had the distinction of being the first entrant, but my story needs a lot of work to bring it into contention! The neat thing about this contest is, it's by invitation only, and the group is prepared to help each entrant to polish up the story with critiques, suggestions and support throughout the duration of the contest. In my view, the prize is less important than the successful entry itself. The real reward for entering this contest is the education I will get from having a group of my peers go over my story and point out, gently, of course, the many flaws and weaknesses in it. It has been my observation that most bloggers are also talented writers, even though they may not realize it! So, with that in mind, I'd like to invite any of my readers who would like to join a group dedicated to the cause of helping aspiring writers attain the ultimate goal of becoming published to click on this link: http://z14.invisionfree.com/B_and_N_Writers/index.php?] You'll need to register for the group (it's free!) and once you've done that, feel free to browse the entire site! One thing I must mention, though, is that the important parts of the site are protected from the public - meaning only registered members can see them. This protects our "first-published" rights and allows us to post our work on the site and still have it considered legally "not published". I understand that is important for when we DO want to finally publish our work.
Another good thing this week has been our weather! Wow! So nice and crisp and cool, yet bright and sunny! No complaints on the weather from me! Which reminds me, this headache I currently have can't be weather related then. I wonder what set this one off?
Well, I seem to have run out of steam on this post! LOL! Have a good weekend everybody!
This week I've been working from home building the control panels for my friend's company. My friend's client is supplying the parts, another friend is mounting the wire channels and then I put the components on and wire them up. Sounds simple, right? WRONG! The client company has decided to "trickle" the parts to me, so I spent a lot of time this week waiting for parts to arrive. Thursday, when I got my box of parts for the next panel, when I went to assemble them, I found wrong parts and missing parts! I immediately called my friend and he said he would get me the parts as soon as possible. The client held him up until late Friday afternoon which meant that I couldn't work all Friday and now have to work Saturday to make up the time. The most frustrating part of it is, despite the client's delays in providing the parts, they are still expecting me to have one panel built in a day! So far, in five days, I've been able to finish three panels. Wednesday was another washout, waiting for parts. So.. Now I have to build two panels over the weekend, and to make matters almost completely unmanageable, I came down with one of my killer headaches late Friday evening.
I was supposed to get up early this morning (Saturday) and take my broken old computer monitor to a special IT equipment dump at 9:00 am, but thanks to my headache, woke up at 11:30! So, I've lost my entire morning and I still feel like someone hit me in the head with a crowbar or something equally as hard. What a week, I tell you!
But, like I said, there were some good points. I found out this week that I will be getting paid for these panels at a rate very close to what I made working for Grantek last year. That will help ease the financial crisis we are currently in. It seems as though my life these past few years can be described in three words: "Feast or Famine". Right now, we seem to be in Feast mode! It has been unfortunate that the Famines have outnumbered the Feasts these last few years, so we are "behind the 8-ball" so to speak! This job will really help us out. It's just too bad that it doesn't look like it will continue past the end of July, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
An online group of aspiring writers I belong to is hosting a summer writing contest this year. I don't know what the prize is yet, but we are planning to publish the best entries in a compilation book and see how it sells. I had the distinction of being the first entrant, but my story needs a lot of work to bring it into contention! The neat thing about this contest is, it's by invitation only, and the group is prepared to help each entrant to polish up the story with critiques, suggestions and support throughout the duration of the contest. In my view, the prize is less important than the successful entry itself. The real reward for entering this contest is the education I will get from having a group of my peers go over my story and point out, gently, of course, the many flaws and weaknesses in it. It has been my observation that most bloggers are also talented writers, even though they may not realize it! So, with that in mind, I'd like to invite any of my readers who would like to join a group dedicated to the cause of helping aspiring writers attain the ultimate goal of becoming published to click on this link: http://z14.invisionfree.com/B_and_N_Writers/index.php?] You'll need to register for the group (it's free!) and once you've done that, feel free to browse the entire site! One thing I must mention, though, is that the important parts of the site are protected from the public - meaning only registered members can see them. This protects our "first-published" rights and allows us to post our work on the site and still have it considered legally "not published". I understand that is important for when we DO want to finally publish our work.
Another good thing this week has been our weather! Wow! So nice and crisp and cool, yet bright and sunny! No complaints on the weather from me! Which reminds me, this headache I currently have can't be weather related then. I wonder what set this one off?
Well, I seem to have run out of steam on this post! LOL! Have a good weekend everybody!
Friday, June 15, 2007
Phoenix, The Irregular Blogger
Ok, Ok! I admit it! So I'm not the most consistent blogger in blogland! LOL! I just don't have the humourous, crazy life that others have! My life is "normal", whatever "normal" might mean. Sure we have fun, but nothing so wild and wacky as my friend Burfica does! I really don't know how she manages to have so many wild adventures just going about her everyday life! Maybe it's a mind set, if you're looking for the funny side of life, you find it everywhere?
Well, I promised to keep my blog friends updated on my situation, so here it is!
My shoulder is healing slowly. YAY! Early this week I noticed that I had almost all my range of motion back and was able to do most of the things I was having trouble with only a few days earlier. The only problem I have now is that the shoulder is still quite weak. I still have to think about what I'm about to do with my right hand to make sure I don't strain it too soon. A few times this week I caught myself over extending my right arm and feeling pain for a few hours afterwards. Fortunately, the pain is much less intense and lasts for a shorter duration each time I do that. Yep! It IS healing... however slowly.
I finished the "modified" duties assigned to me by the temp agency this past Wednesday. (June 13) I was wondering what kind of work assignment I was going to get next when a good friend of mine called me up. He owns an Industrial Maintenance business and had a job he needed help with. Turns out this job entails building 21 panels for a local auto parts manufacturer! He's no electrician, so really didn't know how to go about getting these panels built. Then he remembered that's what I used to do, so called me! I started building the first panel onsite yesterday and finished it off this morning. The plant was very noisy, hot and incredibly dirty, but at least the area I was working was air-conditioned! Now that I've built one panel there and proved my "expertise", I will now be able to build the rest of them in the comfort of my home! WHOO HOO! We estimate that it should take about 2 weeks to build them all, then I get to go back to the plant and help install them! The plant will be shut-down for two weeks, so hopefully it won't be as hot there. It definitely won't be as noisy! That's for sure!
This job will last approximately 1 month, and it looks like I'll get paid almost the same as I was when I was working at the panel shop last year, which will be nice! After that month, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. There are a few different options I can follow and I'm going to have to choose one of them soon. I can't stay a temp worker for the rest of my career! One option is getting my Electrician's License and hiring out to some custom home builders in the area, another option is getting my AZ licence and becoming a truck driver (I've actually thought about doing this for years, but with young children, never pursued it. Now that my children are reaching their teens...) and another option would be to resurrect my graphic design company. The problem with the last option is that I'd also have to become a sales person, and for some reason, I just royally suck at sales! Anyways, as you can see, I have some serious contemplating to do here!
One other bit of good news, with the summer finally in full swing here in the Great White North, my headaches have reduced in intensity to manageable levels and I can at least function like a normal human being again! That isn't to say I don't have any headaches, but at least I can keep them to a dull throb with Aspirin, Advil or Tylenol. Gotta love drugs! LOL!
Here's hoping everyone has a great weekend! I'll TRY to post more frequently in the future! (I know, I say that a lot these days! LOL!)
Well, I promised to keep my blog friends updated on my situation, so here it is!
My shoulder is healing slowly. YAY! Early this week I noticed that I had almost all my range of motion back and was able to do most of the things I was having trouble with only a few days earlier. The only problem I have now is that the shoulder is still quite weak. I still have to think about what I'm about to do with my right hand to make sure I don't strain it too soon. A few times this week I caught myself over extending my right arm and feeling pain for a few hours afterwards. Fortunately, the pain is much less intense and lasts for a shorter duration each time I do that. Yep! It IS healing... however slowly.
I finished the "modified" duties assigned to me by the temp agency this past Wednesday. (June 13) I was wondering what kind of work assignment I was going to get next when a good friend of mine called me up. He owns an Industrial Maintenance business and had a job he needed help with. Turns out this job entails building 21 panels for a local auto parts manufacturer! He's no electrician, so really didn't know how to go about getting these panels built. Then he remembered that's what I used to do, so called me! I started building the first panel onsite yesterday and finished it off this morning. The plant was very noisy, hot and incredibly dirty, but at least the area I was working was air-conditioned! Now that I've built one panel there and proved my "expertise", I will now be able to build the rest of them in the comfort of my home! WHOO HOO! We estimate that it should take about 2 weeks to build them all, then I get to go back to the plant and help install them! The plant will be shut-down for two weeks, so hopefully it won't be as hot there. It definitely won't be as noisy! That's for sure!
This job will last approximately 1 month, and it looks like I'll get paid almost the same as I was when I was working at the panel shop last year, which will be nice! After that month, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. There are a few different options I can follow and I'm going to have to choose one of them soon. I can't stay a temp worker for the rest of my career! One option is getting my Electrician's License and hiring out to some custom home builders in the area, another option is getting my AZ licence and becoming a truck driver (I've actually thought about doing this for years, but with young children, never pursued it. Now that my children are reaching their teens...) and another option would be to resurrect my graphic design company. The problem with the last option is that I'd also have to become a sales person, and for some reason, I just royally suck at sales! Anyways, as you can see, I have some serious contemplating to do here!
One other bit of good news, with the summer finally in full swing here in the Great White North, my headaches have reduced in intensity to manageable levels and I can at least function like a normal human being again! That isn't to say I don't have any headaches, but at least I can keep them to a dull throb with Aspirin, Advil or Tylenol. Gotta love drugs! LOL!
Here's hoping everyone has a great weekend! I'll TRY to post more frequently in the future! (I know, I say that a lot these days! LOL!)
Monday, June 04, 2007
What a weekend!
Oooof! I'm bushed! I had a very good, but very busy weekend!
My wife and I have been wanting to have a yard sale for some time now, but every year we tried to have one, something always got in the way. This year, we finally succeeded in getting everything lined up! Both my wife and I had Friday off, so we got to work late in the morning getting everything organized. I had no idea we had so much junk! It's a good thing that "one man's junk is another man's treasure!" LOL! We spent the entire morning cleaning out the garage so we could store the "merchandise" overnight and then spent the afternoon and evening pulling junk out of the basement into the living room so we could price them, and in some cases, clean them! The biggest item we wanted to sell was our old washing machine. I had refurbished it several years ago so I was hoping to get a few bucks out of it. (A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law and her husband sold their house and moved into a condominium, which forced them to downsize their washer and dryer to apartment size units. We had just bought a brand new dryer a few months earlier so didn't need the dryer, but we thought a newer washer would be welcome, so we bought theirs and put our, still-working, older model into storage.) I had forgotten how heavy that washer was and I ended up having to ask my next-door neighbour for help to get it out of the basement. Not a good thing when you have an injured shoulder! Needless to say, I spent most of the weekend suffering through the pain re-awakened in my shoulder! It was a disappointment that the washer didn't sell, but there is no way I plan on trying to get it back downstairs! I'll just call one of the local charities that picks up used furniture and appliances and have them take it away from my garage! LOL!
We did have a very successful sale Saturday morning, despite the oppressive heat and humidity! All of our "big ticket" items sold (except the washer, of course) and we ended up making almost $430! It is so nice to walk through some areas of our house and see empty space where something we rarely, if ever, used!
I had planned to take my wife out to a nice restaurant Saturday evening for our 17th Anniversary, but we were both so tired, we ended up sleeping from mid afternoon to early evening and were just too groggy to really enjoy a meal! So I took the family out for Sunday Brunch instead. YUM-MY! Gotta love those all-you-can-eat buffets! I was amazed that my two daughters each ate as much as I did, if not more! I had no idea my youngest could pack away so much food at one sitting! LOL! I guess, at 11 years old, she is starting to enter that pre-teen growth-spurt! Scary, though!
Sunday afternoon I took my wife to a large nursery close to our city and we had a blast browsing through the flowers and trees. We ended up buying a bunch of annual flowers for our front gardens (yes, I know, rather late for that, but it's the way it worked out this year!) and then we headed home to plant them in the rain! If we hadn't stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home for some ice cream, we might have finished the planting before the rain came, but, it was worth it!
After the planting, we cleaned up and, after the girls went to bed, watched TV (well, I did, my wife fell asleep again not too long after) until bedtime.
The only downside to the weekend? I woke up this morning with a very sore shoulder and a numb right hand once again. I guess I aggravated the torn muscle a little too much with all that work. So, it was back to the chiropractor first thing this morning which meant I lost yet another day of work, thanks to this injury! I just wish it would heal already! I want my life back!
Hopefully everybody reading this has a good week! Take care! Phoenix out!
My wife and I have been wanting to have a yard sale for some time now, but every year we tried to have one, something always got in the way. This year, we finally succeeded in getting everything lined up! Both my wife and I had Friday off, so we got to work late in the morning getting everything organized. I had no idea we had so much junk! It's a good thing that "one man's junk is another man's treasure!" LOL! We spent the entire morning cleaning out the garage so we could store the "merchandise" overnight and then spent the afternoon and evening pulling junk out of the basement into the living room so we could price them, and in some cases, clean them! The biggest item we wanted to sell was our old washing machine. I had refurbished it several years ago so I was hoping to get a few bucks out of it. (A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law and her husband sold their house and moved into a condominium, which forced them to downsize their washer and dryer to apartment size units. We had just bought a brand new dryer a few months earlier so didn't need the dryer, but we thought a newer washer would be welcome, so we bought theirs and put our, still-working, older model into storage.) I had forgotten how heavy that washer was and I ended up having to ask my next-door neighbour for help to get it out of the basement. Not a good thing when you have an injured shoulder! Needless to say, I spent most of the weekend suffering through the pain re-awakened in my shoulder! It was a disappointment that the washer didn't sell, but there is no way I plan on trying to get it back downstairs! I'll just call one of the local charities that picks up used furniture and appliances and have them take it away from my garage! LOL!
We did have a very successful sale Saturday morning, despite the oppressive heat and humidity! All of our "big ticket" items sold (except the washer, of course) and we ended up making almost $430! It is so nice to walk through some areas of our house and see empty space where something we rarely, if ever, used!
I had planned to take my wife out to a nice restaurant Saturday evening for our 17th Anniversary, but we were both so tired, we ended up sleeping from mid afternoon to early evening and were just too groggy to really enjoy a meal! So I took the family out for Sunday Brunch instead. YUM-MY! Gotta love those all-you-can-eat buffets! I was amazed that my two daughters each ate as much as I did, if not more! I had no idea my youngest could pack away so much food at one sitting! LOL! I guess, at 11 years old, she is starting to enter that pre-teen growth-spurt! Scary, though!
Sunday afternoon I took my wife to a large nursery close to our city and we had a blast browsing through the flowers and trees. We ended up buying a bunch of annual flowers for our front gardens (yes, I know, rather late for that, but it's the way it worked out this year!) and then we headed home to plant them in the rain! If we hadn't stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home for some ice cream, we might have finished the planting before the rain came, but, it was worth it!
After the planting, we cleaned up and, after the girls went to bed, watched TV (well, I did, my wife fell asleep again not too long after) until bedtime.
The only downside to the weekend? I woke up this morning with a very sore shoulder and a numb right hand once again. I guess I aggravated the torn muscle a little too much with all that work. So, it was back to the chiropractor first thing this morning which meant I lost yet another day of work, thanks to this injury! I just wish it would heal already! I want my life back!
Hopefully everybody reading this has a good week! Take care! Phoenix out!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
