Friday...

Good morning. It's Monday and well, I'm eagerly anticipating a phone call or two today. I'll go through my weekend's events after not giving an update since Friday morning and then I'll go through thoughts and concerns as I go along. Yeah, that sounds mighty fine to me. First things first... did ya miss me? Ha ha!

Friday

Well, after I left the Tales of the Opiated Sherpa I had to get myself to Dallas & Kirby's house to get on their bus into town. Dallas and Kirby are friends of the neighbourhood and they play for the ball team that I played for over the weekend and a few times before. They don't live exceptionally far from the house here in Langdon and they own and operate the local shuttle service from Langdon to Calgary. Well, Dallas (the Mrs.) told me she had to do a couple runs during the Friday and that I should be there by 9am. My 2nd interview wasn't until 1pm, but my only other option was 1:40pm from Langdon and that just wouldn't do. I was over at the house by about ten to and watched the madness of Dallas getting her three girls organized to get out and in the bus in time. That was quite the spectacle. The little girls aren't really that old and they weren't ready, Dallas wasn't ready and still, she barely managed to get out on time. I was perfectly relaxed, since I had several hours to wait before my interview and I was planning to go into town anyways and go find myself a coffee. The pickup at 9am was the local kids daycamp and their leaders.

I wasn't really filled in to where exactly they were going, nor did I ask. All I remember Dallas saying was that she had to go to Banff at some time during the day. I don't think I would have minded a trip, but it would have been mildly inconvenient to my plans for a coffee and a newspaper during the morning.

Anyways, they only had to stop at the Science Centre downtown. That wasn't too bad. After the drop-off, Dallas started to freak out as barely making it out on time was actually gotten her to be a tad late in picking up another group for Banff and she thought she had to drop me off in the Northeast, as that was where my interview was. Well, I Said to her that I wanted to stay in the downtown core and that she should just drop me off wherever. So she did. Geez, what an excursion that was…

I finally had a chance to hit a Tim Horton's for some of the best coffee in the world. There's a pretty good chance that it is the best coffee in the world. I had called Julie and she was to come meet me at the Tim Horton's at Gulf Canada Square on 9th Avenue. I grabbed both the Calgary Sun and Calgary Herald papers with the idea that I would search for another job, while I was gonna go up for the 2nd interview in the afternoon. I know, it sounds a tad odd, but Dad said that would be a good idea. Whatever! I bought my coffee (black, two sugars), a French vanilla coffee (for Julie) and a couple honey dip donuts and found myself a seat. The line-up at the Tim's was exceptionally huge, just as I remember. I sat down with my super-hot coffee and started flipping through the papers. I didn't really have the drive to go straight to the job section, so I flipped through from page 1 and moved my way through.

Julie came and joined me eventually and we flipped through the papers for a while, until we finished our coffees. Afterwards, we walked our way through the +15 walkways in Calgary, chatting and just generally browsing around. That actually was good enough to kill quite a bit of time. Bankers Hall, TD Square and the Eaton Centre were all mall stops that killed a couple hours before I climbed on the train to head up to the NE.

I wasn't quite sure how long it would take me to walk from the train lines over to the offices of Millennium Systems. I had a feeling that it would take about 15-20 minutes to get all the way over there, it was a fair old jaunt. I made it up to the Whitehorn station, the furthest in the NE, and started my hike to 31st Ave and 19th Street. I think I started from 35th Ave and 26th Street, which doesn't sound long, but the NE city blocks are a lot bigger than the downtown core's. Well, it took me about 20 minutes to walk to Joey Tomato's, where I would stay after the interview and wait for Dad until he finished work.

The other point of note was that I was hoping that this 2nd interview would take too long, so I could rush back to Joey's and watch the TV in the bar for the NHL Draft Lottery, if the NHL GM's and Board of Governors ratified the new CBA.

I got to the office in pretty good time. I think it took me about 30 minutes in total on the walk over, so that wasn't too bad. At least I had timed it right. I was there about 15 minutes early, so with the extra time I went and grabbed a Pepsi. Might as well, right?

I walked into the office with a few minutes to spare and had a seat. I was introduced to the head technician, Chad, and for the second interview, I was to go up to the assembly spot and watch him put a PC together and he was gonna ask me about my familiarity with all the parts and stuff. Well, that went alright... I wasn't out to ace that interview or anything, but I don't think I was too awful in his questions. I think I was just asked how much of a nerd I actually am for the most part. Ha ha. Well, I am a bit of a nerd and watching the PC being built from scratch was kind of interesting. It would be nothing that I couldn't figure out on my own, but I didn't really know part names and types of connections and chipsets that are now being used in PCs today. So, afterwards, Justin, Chris and Chad sat me in the office where I had my interview before and they asked me a couple more questions, wanted to know if I had any questions and that was pretty much about it. They'd tell me before the end of Tuesday whether or not that they'd take me on, which was pretty fair.

I have a feeling that I have a good phone call coming soon. Their poker faces hadn't gotten much better and I think that they probably didn't interview very many more people, so it is probably a matter of how much they'd need to train me if I was to work there. But I don't think that's gonna be a big deal. So, my guess that it all went well.

On the other hand, they are pretty plain geeks. They don't seem to have much personality as a whole. I do wonder if I'm gonna be the offensive loud guy in the office. I also have a hard time believing that they like to have good times in their social life. That's sort of a big concern for me, because well, I'm pretty loud and social... and I think I could rub some of these guys the wrong way.

I'll take the job, but I will sort of listen for some of the other Graphic Design jobs, because at least they'd possibly have a better crew to work with and I think the job would be a bit more fun than sales.

Guess what? I was out within an hour! I was out in time to rush over to Joey's and catch the Draft Lottery! Everyone is a winner! I got out, made a couple phone calls and then sat myself down at the bar at Joey's for the NHL, commercial-ridden spectacle of announcing the order of the Draft which goes this Saturday. There were quite a few guys hovering around the TVs at the bar at Joey's so, it gave me a good idea of how much hockey was missed in the city. Even some of the hotties working were getting quite interested. I chatted with a couple of them about hockey and stuff. Talk about something that would make you want to come back... hotties who bring beer and talk about hockey. Fantastic! There was one of the hostesses who was chatting to me for a while and she grew up as a Edmonton Oilers fan and she made good hockey conversation. Awesome! It's a wonderful place... almost a paradise!

I sat beside one guy at the bar, who was a shipper/receiver for cookies, I think he said. He was quite the lecherous drunk. Awfully outgoing and loud... coming on to everything that walked and I quite often found myself laughing to myself how dumb he looked. He's not exactly a looker himself. A short, stalky man... but he was quite funny overall. He was also packing the Long Island Ice Teas in and was getting really drunk, really fast. If it wasn't afternoons with Kelly, I probably would have been somewhat offended for the male species, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. He did make me roll my eyes a couple times with some of the groaner lines he was using.

So, hockey wise... the NHL was officially back! YAY! Drop the puck! Drop the puck! Sidney Crosby was a Penguin and the Canucks got the 10th pick in the draft, which was alright. I'm okay with all of that. The NHL announced their rule changes including a shootout to decide games if nothing is decided through overtime. Okay. There were also a few other rules, but the shootout will be the tool that should make the game a little more exciting for those fans who need that sort of encouragement to come back. I, personally, kind of wish the game stayed the same... but it had me coming back regardless of time and negotiations. The new NHL logo also looks pretty neat. It hadn't changed a great deal, but the silver looks really sharp and it certainly won't hurt the eyes checking that out. I just can't wait to get the hockey pool going again. Woo hoo!

Dad finally finished up work and met me for one at Joey's by about 5:30pm... he didn't want to stay for one, but since I had a new one on the bar when he came in, he was resigned to getting one as well. But we finished up and he wanted to get to the Wildfire for a Friday drink, that way he wouldn't have to drive through Calgary to get home after a couple beers.

We headed off, picked Mom up from the house and headed to the Wildfire for a couple and a bite to eat. Wasn't a lot going on there. I was rambling on like the chatty drunk that I am and a couple drinks later, we headed home. I had a 7:30am start for the ball tournament in the morning, so I think I passed out at a reasonable time for the morning.