Ah the downtown drunks.

I was sitting in my officle this afternoon, typing away on my computer and I hear one of the guys a few officles over yelling for me to look out the window. So I get up and have a look and there laying in the middle of the parking lot is this guy, facedown, spread eagle, absolutely motionless. We watch him for a few seconds and then we decide to call 911 to be safe. But I head down stairs with one of my other coworkers to see if this guy is alive. As we go outside and walk up to this guy he opens his eyes and looks right at us. Immediately I was sure he was just plastered. The smell of booze coming from him was my first clue, the second was the empty bottle of vodka laying a few feet away. I ask him how he is doing and he says not very fucking good. Asked him if he was drunk and he confirms that he is. At this point he is still laying on his belly in the middle of the parking lot alleyway, so we tell him he should get up and move to the near by wall. But before he gets up asks me “you can see I don’t have anything on me right?” I just say “ya, sure”, I hadn’t even think about that until he said it. But he gets up and he swaying back and forth like a sailor on rough seas. He starts to move to the wall, but turns around and goes for his smoke that is laying a few feet the other direction. There is a lighter about 6 feet to his left, a toonie about 6 feet to his right, and his jacket is over by the wall. He gets his smoke, I kick his lighter over to him, and he asks me for a ride home. My coworker responds that we don’t have cars. I have to say he was a very polite drunk, he even asks us if we wanted to come sit down beside him and have a drink. Haha. Then the guy who called 911 comes out and says the ambulance is coming, and it arrives pretty promptly. We explain that the guy is just drunk, but they ask if he will get it the trunk and he does, so now he is their problem and I returned to my desk, a little disappointed I didn’t get to do more.

Ah yes, good old downtown riffraff.

Am I allowed to make two post in one day… not sure of the proper blog etiquette.

How fit am I – about Average

So in preparation for my trip to Vermillion in early December for two days of evaluating to determine who gets in to the fire college, I am working on improving my physical fitness. While searching for ideas on the website of Men’s Health, I found the Men’s Health Challenge. It is 5 different categories that you measure yourself to see how fit you are. Basically you come in 4 different areas – Unfit – Average – Fit – and Men’s Health Fit, depending on how you do when you track your own performance. As it turns out the categories you are measured in – Pushup’s, Chin-up’s, Vertical, One-leg squats, and the 1 mile run – are similar to the areas I will be measured on in Vermillion. So for the next 5 weeks I cam going to dedicate myself to this work out.

On Sunday I tested myself to see how I measured up. As if to confirm my blog of a few weeks ago, this little test had confirmed that once again I am AVERAGE:
Chin-ups- I did 6 – Avg.
Vertical – 18 inches – Avg.
1 Leg squats – 1 (they are hard) – Avg.
1 mile run – 7:49 – Avg.
The only area I was above avg was push-ups, as I squeezed out 40, and that is just above avg.

So I take all these figures and log them in to the website, and in big, bold letters it says – YOU'RE AVERAGE! As if I didn’t know that already.

I scored 22/40, but I will follow this workout and test myself again in a week and see if I can improve.

Random

Sorry to all my faithful readers for the amount of time between posts, I guess I got lazy plus with thi- what’s that?... You didn’t notice. Alright then, never mind.

This weekend was the much anticipated Meet The Parents weekend when the Brody’s and the Zeddie’s got together, but there really isn’t any exciting story coming out of it…not fires, no injuries, no called off weddings…nothing exciting at all. We got muffins from Tim Horton’s, so that was cool.

Ever since my last post work had been rather hectic, I think the work gods are punishing me for considering this other career path. Going from a contributing member of society, just so I go back to being a bum student.

I just went and wrote my Air brakes written test…failed. But I get to write it again tomorrow for a fee of $10 bucks. If it was that way in university I never would have studied. Just write it, fail, remember what you did wrong, and go do it again the next day. But here’s to hoping the questions are the same.

I also stopped to get my criminal record check – I see they missed that stalking conviction that Sidney Crosby had against me. Nice.

I almost have everything in line to apply to college, just need this airbrakes thing and I am good to go. It’s pretty ridiculous all the things I have to get together… letter of reference, high school transcripts, university transcripts, first aid, CPR, air brakes, criminal record check, driver’s abstract, and on and on. Then it’s the interview and testing. Yikes.

The leafs lost again last night, this time to Atlanta, who had only won 1 game this year. It seems the leafs can’t keep the opposition to less than 4 goals. It tough to win that way, even with Mats and Antropov putting up impressive offensive umbers thus far.

My co-worker in the nest officle over is going up to see Ozzie tonight in Saskatoon. He is going with 3 other 50 year olds. I’m sure they will be up to no good. I didn’t even know this guy still toured. He can’t even talk, how can he sing. Mind you I have never likes his music, it seems the Wolf always has Ozzie on and thus my radio is usually tuned into NewsTalk 980.

I am off to the dentist this afternoon. It will be my first filling in – gosh – 7 years. Looking forward to it. Truth is am a scared of the dentist, even at the age of 25. But for those of you who haven’t been in a while, they now have TV’s in the ceiling…Ingenious! I should have picked a day when there was some afternoon playoff baseball on.

I ordered my Rider playoff ticket yesterday. Hard to believe this is the first time Regina citizens have been able to do this in 20 years. Someone needs to do one of the articles about what was happening back then, like who was in power, how much a loaf of bread was etc.

Well I hope it won’t be so long until my next post. Take care, comb your hair.

My Big News

I am taking this opportunity to announce to all my bloging comrades (those of you that don’t already know) that I am looking at making a pretty big change in my life. It is something I have been thinking about for years, but I have finally worked up the courage to do it.

What could it be?
Am I returning to work for the bank, as I just missed it too much?
Am I moving to Tibet to become a monk?
Am I pursuing a career as a beat writer for my beloved blue Jays?
Have Michelle and I broke up as I am in love with the old lady from the cafeteria?

Nope, it’s none of those…this time.


Caution! Before you read any further I need you to promise me something. You must promise not tell anyone from my office what I am about to tell you. This could seriously jeopardize by ability to not get fired. Promise?
.
.
.
.
.
Ok, I believe you.


I am in fact making a real attempt to become a firefighter.

Some of you may know that this has been my calling for some time. For about 4 years I have constantly said this is the career I think I belong in. Up until know I have told myself that I need to give my business degree a chance, see how the corporate world treats me. And while I have a job that pays me well, allows flexibility and interaction with many people, some travel, and great benefits… it’s not what I really want to do.

For the past several months I have been seriously investigating this, speaking to many people involved in the schools and the profession, plus hours of research on the internet and talking with my family and most importantly my bride to be. I will be submitting my application soon and will be going for the physical test and interview on Dec 6&7th. Nothing is guaranteed, as I am just applying, but I am excited nonetheless.

I consider myself pretty lucky; I don’t think many people have the chance to pursue a career they believe they will love. It is a long road until I actually land a job, but the thought of it really excites me. It is going to mean at least a year without a salary, and at least a year of Miss Brody supporting me (good thing I already bought those golf clubs), and the biggest issue, a year living away from the her (Peewee, don’t get any ideas) and everyone else in Regina. But if it was easy I would have done it a long time ago.

So why do I think I will love this? Well I look forward to actually working in a TRUE team environment. In the corporate world we often refer to our groups as teams… “ good win team”, “let’s work as a team”…”welcome to the team” I call BS to all of that. Everyone is still just looking out for themselves, maybe working hard, maybe not, but not overly concerned with the success of the others on their “team”. In the fire hall, I believe I will actually be a part of a team. A team that will go in together and come out together. If one man runs out of air, we all move to get him out. On top of that, I am sick…SICK… of people treating shit in the office like it is life or death. ‘I need that computer running right now or else there will be hell to pay”, “It’s critical that we get the project done by October 5th or else heads will roll” I find I can’t take it anymore- people crying wolf. Everything is an emergency, urgent, or critical, and what difference does it make??? Who knows! The world never comes to an end, no one looses a limb or a loved one, no one even loses their jobs. And if it gets done the next item on this list is now an emergency, urgent, or critical. I can’t say I look forward to people loosing their lives, but I will relish the fact that many of problems in the world as a firefighter will be life or death and should get the appropriate attention. I don’t expect it all to be roses, I am sure there is political BS, and I have never wanted to be part of a union, but once you go out on a call that shit won’t matter.

Maybe there is a corporate job out there that would make me happy, maybe there isn’t, but I know that to be happy I have to feel engaged and appreciated, and I don’t feel that now. I think in my posts of late you could see that I felt like a change. I also feel to be successful I will have to climb the corporate ladder, and not to sound arrogant, but I think with time I could do that. However, when I look around at the executives in our company, and some of our partner companies I just don’t want to be like them. They all seem over stressed and over worked and whatever drives them to keep going and to succeed - well, I don’t think that is in me, at least not in the long term.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a bitch session about my job, as this is supposed to be a celebratory post. It sounds cheesy, but I feel life I am pursuing a dream, and it feels good. This is more about wanting to pursue this new career than it is about not likely my current, but the fact that I am not satisfied will make it easier to walk away. I don’t mean for it to sound like we should all quit our jobs, just because it is at times a piss off, but I just had to get all that out. Plus it’s my blog and I will write what I want.

Again, I am taking a bit of a risk putting this information on the world wide web, because at this point I still haven’t told anyone at work, so please if anyone sees my boss pretend like you don’t know anything. I need to hold this job in case I am not accepted, and I need the money wither way.

Kind of a weird day

Yesterday was progressing by as a fairly normal day in the life of your’s truly, but once I headed out the doors after work a couple of strange things happened.

The first and I suppose most exciting was when I stopped by the liquor store at the Normanview Mall to apply for a liquor permit for the wedding reception in February (I know, on the ball or what?!?). Anyway, I was at the till going through the details with the nice lady helping me out. Several other customers walked up to the till, but as we were going to be a while she directed them to another clerk.

About 10 minutes in another guy walked up, and I never really thought much of it, he put down a 24 of Lady’s light, and a bottle of some orange stuff. Without looking the lady said, “You should go the other till; we are going to be a while”. The guy, with a certain “inner city” look to him said something like “Oh really?.” The lady, who is about 55 years old, and not much more than 110 pounds, looks up and immediately goes off. She yells at him, “HEY BUDDY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!” She runs out from behind the till in front of this guy and right beside me. I have no idea what is going on, but obviously this guy has done something wrong. He immediately gets a deer in the headlights look on his face and starts for the door. She keeps yelling at him “ SHOW ME YOUR POCKETS – WHAT DO YOU HAVE!” He responds with – “What are you talking about?” and makes a move to get by her. This little lady then starts pushing this guy, blocking him like an offensive lineman and preventing him from getting out the door. By his point she is yelling for her manager and this alleged thief looks pretty scared. But this was no small guy- at least my height, and at least 50 pounds heavier than me. He continues for the door, pushing her out of the way and telling her to get off him. She makes another move and pins him up against the wall. All the while I am standing about 5 feet away still not sure exactly what the problem is, but starting to understand that this guy has stolen something and put it in his pants. I did mange to say something like, ‘you should just let him go”, as even though this guy looked more scared than aggressive, I certainly didn’t think a stolen micky or whatever he had was worth her getting stabbed or punched or something. But this little lady won’t back down, she is latched onto his arm, and he is pulling her right out of the building. Her manager, another lady, comes running out, also yelling, but this guy breaks free and stats to jog, not run, across the parking lot to an waiting “getaway car” parked over by the CIBC.Eventually the ladies come back into the store. I am thinking they will call the cops, but instead they all just go back to work! The manager tells the lady at my till that she is never to try and stop a customer like that ever again, but the little lady says “That guy bugs me”. Apparently.

I got to talking to the both of them, and apparently this guy is a repeat offender, usually he comes up to the till with some booze, then says he forgot his wallet and that he will get it from his car, but then just takes off with whatever it is he had in his pockets. Another gentleman came back in and gave the license plate of the car the guy left in, the lady says thanks, but then tells me that the cops can’t do anything, at worst they just get a slap on the wrist. They tell me some other stories, like on time a guy came in with a bandanna across his chest and over his shoulder, with a huge knife in it, right out in the open. They tell me in that situation, they just ignore they guy, let him take what he wants and hope he leaves without creating a scene. They have seen guns and all sort of stuff. They apologize to me for that all happening right in front of me, but I am just happy I have a good story for my blog.

So I went home, had a quick bite and went to the gym, it was chest day so after a short warm up I headed to bench press and threw on two 45’s and did quick set. I sat up, just waiting to for the next, then out of the corner of my eye I see this little kid, about 10 years old, maybe younger, putting the safety pins on the barbell for me. He puts one on then goes away gets another one and goes to hand it to me, I tell him that he can just put it on, so he does and the runs off in the other direction. What is this kid doing I the weight area anyway? Just watching out for everyone's safety? Maybe was he my guardian angle!?!

Then at the same time, just as I turn around, and old man, like really old, wearing the grandpa sweater and everything, is standing right in front of me. He is about a day away from needing a walker, in no shape for any sort of weight training. He says, “90 pounds! You can life that much?” I just sort of laugh and said I guess. He said something else I didn’t understand as I laid down and got ready to start my next set, but I could feel him watching me. This guy sort of reminded me of the old guy from Family Guy, as he was sort of just walking around the free weights areas looking at everyone. Kinda creepy, but definitely weird. I just shook my head and laughed to myself.

What a weird couple of hours..

Sports

It’s certainly no secret that I am a big sports fan. I am certainly not the minority in this as millions of people around the world are huge sports fans, and many much larger than I. But some of you might wonder why it is that I get so much enjoyment out of sports.

Where do I start? Well not many other things in life will get me jumping off the couch in anger ,or in jubilation, like that game winning goal, homerun ,or touchdown. But the deeper questions is why am I so vested in this that I jump off the couch, throw inanimate objects, and/or hug grown men, depending on the gravity of the situation.

Well I think it partially comes down to emotion. Sports are the true reality TV. You are seeing people giving their hart and soul to win for there cities, their fans, their teammates and themselves. These athletes, through blood, sweat, and tears, give their all to achieve the ultimate goal in their respective sport. Yes, there are a few overpaid bums that only play for the money, but I like to think they are few and far between.

Maybe it is that I am just living vicariously through these athletes. When I cheer for Sidney Crosby, maybe it is because I want to feel what it must be like to have his kind of success. Maybe it’s that I wish I could be these guys for just a few days; do see what it is like to do what they do. These athletes are the best of the best; they can do things on the field, ice, or court that I and most others simply can not. The fact that I play most of these sports, even recreationally, makes me appreciate the extraordinary things they can do. That one time slap shot to the top corner, that 97mph fast ball, or the guy that can hit that fast ball over the fence, the receiver that can run full speed and lay our for a football and catch it with one hand, the centre fielder that can climb the wall and pull back a sure home run, or the forward that can deke through three guys and the goalie and slide it home, even the tennis player who can play a five hour match and still stand at the end. They can do things that I can’t, but at least I can watch it and share in the glory by cheering them on.

When there is a good game on, with a team I care about, I almost feel like I am part of the team. I will wear the team colors at the stadium, at the bar, or even alone on my couch, just to show my support, and for some reason I believe it makes a difference. If I watch a game at BP’s and the riders get pumped, I won’t watch it there again. A few years ago when watching the leafs in the playoff’s, I would hold my breath anything the puck was in the Leafs zone, and do my best not to exhale until the puck went back out over the blue line. One year during the baseball playoff’s me and two buddies would lay on our stomachs in front of the TV, drumming the floor for good luck…what happened, Luis Gonzalez hit a World Series winning single to beat the hated Yankees. This is blamed on sheer superstition.

A large part about sports is the camaraderie it brings with friends and family. Not much else brings together a group of friends than a great sporting event. I remember being 7 and watching the riders win the Grey Cup in 89 at a family friend’s house. I might not have totoally understood why everyone was cheering when Dave Ridgway kicked that ball through the uprights, but I know that everyone in the room was happy I remember sitting down with my whole family back in 92 and 93 to watch the Blue Jays win the world series, and all cheering together when Joe Carter hit that walk off home run, and jumping around until I knocked my brother into the corner of the couch. I remember sitting with about 20 of my best friends watching Joe Sakic score the clinching goal in the 2002 Olympics and high five-ing everyone in the room. I remember several world junior tournaments during Christmas time, with so many people home that you haven’t seen in months, getting together to see the boys beat the Russians. It gives me goose bumps even to think about it.

Have I made it clear enough, can you now understand the excitement that sports provide? If not then I have failed. But I will not give up! I will continue to put the TV on SportsCentre when I get the remote, I will start conversations on the games from the night before, and I will promote trips to live events, and with a little luck, and a lot of channel surfing, I will turn all of you into the sports nut that I am.

Go Team GO!

Bosses

So I found out today that I am getting a new boss. It will be my first male boss since I joined my current company. He already works for us, but is coming over from the operations side to work on sales. I know him a little, pretty nice guy, and I think – think- he will be good to work for. I will likely loose a little freedom, reason being that since the last VP sales was let go in Feb, I have been reporting to the Executive VP of our area, and while a great boss, she didn’t really have time to worry about my day to day activities. I pretty much did whatever I thought was necessary each day. With new guy – we’ll call him Barry, coming in, I assume that he will have a little more say in what we do. Barry works out of Calgary, so once again my boss will not be in the same location as I am.
Counting back the last couple of years, I have worked for two organizations in a little over 2 and half years, and Barry will be my 6th boss, and only 3 of those bosses have been in the same city/town that I am. I have also changed locations/offices 7 times. Keeps things interesting I guess.
I think I would have to put my last boss as my favorite. She was very blunt, very open, and I didn’t feel like there was any BS with her. It was nice being so close to that top line of decision making. But Barry should have more time to assist us in Sales, so it will be nice to have that backup when struggling to get results from internal resources.
It interesting how different bosses can be, and how as their employee you have to alter your style to mesh with theirs. My first at the bank was an old school, worked hard in his office, first in, last to leave, didn’t interact with the employees much. My next one was a lot like Michael Scott from The Office. He wanted to be everyone’s friend, but no one really liked him…or respected him. Next boss was in a different city, but he was very supportive, would dive out if I needed help, complimented good work, I would say a pretty good boss and a pretty good guy. Next was my first boss in my current company, she was the smoke-oholic, stressed out, always doing 6 things at once, little ball of energy. She always look sort of tired and sort of overwhelmed, often expressed how much she had to do and how busy she was. I kind of felt sorry for her, and eventually she was let go. Then there was my current boss, very open, very well respected by her employees, very supportive, very smart executive type. When she talks everyone listens. Like I said before- probably the best of the bunch.

But now there is another one to bring in and train. I’ll have him whipped into shape in now time.

Fun and games…fun .and . games.

Anybody else have any interesting bosses over the years?

I wonder...

When I travel to and from work with so many other people on the roadway and I often wonder how there can be that many other people in this city that are in the same dull 9-5 job that I am. That many people that get up 5 days a week and go to work waiting for the opportunity to go back home again. I wonder what percentage of those people actually enjoy the work they do. What percentage only work to get that pay check. What is most important to this people. Is it their job, their family, their friends… themselves perhaps? What do these people rush home too, how many of them are happy. Do they feel their job is important, that they accomplish something when they leave for the day? Or do they work simply to provide for themselves and their own family, and maybe that is enough. We can’t all walk the streets like hippies after all. We have to eat, we have to drink, and we have to have fun. Is that why we work? Just so we can do all those things outside of work. I hope this isn’t depressing, but if there are lots of people out there that get up in the morning and actually look forward to the job, I am seriously jealous. Truth is every morning I think about how much I don’t want to go to work. I don’t know if I have ever had a job that I looked forward to going to. Except maybe Dairy Queen, and that could just be because I had a crush on the girl I worked with.

So will there be a job out there that I will look forward to going to. I think there is, and I need to find it. I will find it. That is my promise to myself.

Royally Drunk

So it was another Saturday night to remember on the weekend when Bankers from across the province gather to celebrate another year of record profits, of staff once again some how meeting the ridiculous sales targets in front of them, allowing the bank to increase the goals even more for next year. And once again, I and many others got royally drunk.
The night started when we walked in and the first people we saw were JAM. Up to that point I wasn’t sure how the night was going to go, but when I saw they were both already happily tipsy, I got all excited and knew it was time to get my drink on.
So into the wine, rye, vodka, champagne…basically whatever I could get my hands on. The rest of the evening turns into a bit of a blur, the awards last hours, resulting in dozens of empty glasses in front of us on the table, drunken conversations with my one time colleagues, multiple identities due to a stack of unused name tags I found, 5000 awards points to Mrs. Jam, drinking wine directly from the bottle, a smuggled bottle of red under my suit jacket and into our awaiting limo, a rather short appearance at the pump, and many PDA’s by JAM. But even with all the making out done by my good friends, Mrs. Jam saved her best kiss for the payment outside subway, when the combination of an unlit curb, and arms tucked deep in her pockets resulted in a pretty nasty lip stand. But even though I fully expected some pretty extensive damage, up she came relatively unharmed, and after we tracked down her shoes that we’re lost in the fall we were on our way. And after getting some wraps at subway (they had no bread – how does that happen) it was back in a cab, some drunken cabbie talk and another royally drunk performance was complete.