Surprisingly Long Post

I'm starting my post a little bit later this morning... I decided to update the hockey pool first this morning and then move on to do the one filing that came in, file the two that were outstanding from yesterday and now... make myself readily available to do my post.

So... the news of the day yesterday... Troy gave his notice to Fred yesterday and he was pretty much done here about 2pm yesterday afternoon. It's been slow in the office, so he pretty much was let go for the remainder of the week. So the checklist of turnover grows one name at a time. Since starting at the company in September, fired or quit have been:

• Ashley: let go of.
• Tyrone (Meathead): fired.
• Troy: quit.

Next time around, I will get the opportunity to have some say in who we hire next... you know, being Team Leader in the EDGAR department has it's perks. It was quite funny, 'cuz yesterday Fred asked me what I would want in a person for the EDGAR department... besides wearing skirts. That was worth a giggle. Fred isn't too comfortable hiring women... and there are reasons why... he's not very good around them, especially if he has to let them go. He generally wants to avoid walking on eggshells in the litigation society we live in and just wants to avoid any such problems.

I can tell ya that Lee and I are hoping for some sort of female candidate to apply... but really, the answer to Fred's question was, let's have someone with some basic HTML knowledge... 'cuz with Meathead and Troy, I was teaching them more HTML than I was actually the job itself. The job is fairly straightforward in procedures and what not... it would just be a great help to have someone know what they are doing and maybe... just maybe... have a good idea of how to use Windows efficiently. I mean, keyboard shortcuts people... very useful and easy to use!!

So, in light of the quitting... I do feel that I had quite a bit to do with the fact that he took another job... and therefore, can probably notch that one up as another "driven away." So saying that, that was one of my light jokes with Barbara... we were both kinda laughing about driving away people we didn't like at work and she had a project on the go as well. So, once Troy had sorta left, I made this my opportunity to send her a text to see what she's been up to. But before I left the office, I hadn't heard from her.

The plan for the afternoon before floor hockey was to meet Benny, Jeff & Kelly (or any combination thereof) at Joey Tomatos in Eau Claire. Well... before the day had ended, Jeff was getting a suit altered... Benny didn't dress to work for a trip down to Eau Claire and therefore wasn't gonna be making the trip from Langdon into town... and Kelly, was still playing catch-up at work. The initial plan was pretty much shot to hell.

So... to the backup mobile. I gave Amber a call... I did invite her to be a part of the group with the lads, but didn't really put much stock into her being interested in that, so I left her a voice mail message around 4pm... didn't hear anything back from her by the time I left. In the car, I gave Julie a call... but she was ill, still in class and had to work the Flames/Canadiens game that night as well. Barbara still hadn't gotten back to me... so was wondering if she was even still talking to me... and Carrie, I decided not to call as I told her in a message that I wouldn't be free again until today. So in lieu of all of this... I went down into the core by myself with no plans other than to find somewhere that I can have a pint or two and watch some hockey.

I did have the inclination to go see if any of the SunLife group was kicking about some of the old watering holes in the core... like Malcolm's in Fifth Avenue Place... so I took the +15's all the way from TD Square to there and found no one recognizable. So... off to Joey's I went. On the way, I looked at my phone and found that Barbara had left me a text saying that she hasn't shaken off her illness at all and had been a hermit for the last little while, hence the reason why I hadn't heard from her at all. Once I had sat down at the bar at Joey's, I gave her a text back, replying that I'd risk my immune system to get a chance to see her. She was good enough to respond again with a 'LOL,' and a comment or two... and I left it with another text.

At Joey's... I had a bite to eat, a couple pints and watched the first two periods of the Flyers/Bruins game, which was pretty good by the way. Amber called me around 6ish and said that she got caught up at work and left her phone at home, hence the late call. She wouldn't be able to meet me before I'd leave for floor hockey, so I said I'd give her a ring on the weekend. I might try and see her to meet up for lunch or something. She said she had a birthday party to go to in the evening and well, I'm sure I could find something to do in town during the day.

After the phone call, I finished up my pint (the 2nd intermission in the hockey game had just begun), paid for my bill and headed back to the mall. There I went looking for the new NME magazine... but all I could find was last week's with the review of the new Arctic Monkey's CD... man, I can't wait 'til that arrives here. And I looked for some sort of music purchase, but alas, found none. I also looked for a new water bottle... and I wasn't gonna pay $12 for one at Sport Mart... so I didn't get one of those either. Oh well. On the train I went and back to the car, which I parked at the Rec Centre where we play.

Floor hockey was quite good last night... the teams were fairly even. We played four 20-minute games, all of which were one-goal games, all four, I lost. I was playing quite well... having two beers was probably a major key to my success. My glove was pretty decent and my blocker was surprisingly good... reflexes were on and sharp and there was only one numpty goal on me, but that's because we play with such a light ball that bounces if you just touch it a bit. I went to go pick up the ball from the floor but only hit it with the end of my glove, causing it to bounce around on me and then one of the opponents came in and tapped it through my legs. Crap! That was the only real miscue... all the other goals that were scored on me were quite good goals.

I can't wait for the street hockey tournament now...

On the way home, I first called up Benny to see if he was at the Wildfire... of course he was! Why wouldn't he be there?? Then it was a little Nine Inch Nails for the ride home... I do like that 'With Teeth' album... it's quite a good driving disc. Once I made it onto 16th Ave/Trans-Canada, I decided to give Barbara a call and try to actually chat with her. Eureka! She actually had picked up the phone. She did sound awfully rough though and she was finally gonna go see a doctor today, she said. By the sound of her voice, it sounded like she needed some sort of anti-biotic medicine... I can't believe she's still deciding to go to work.

So, I sort of put it straight to her... 'what am I gonna have to do to see you again?' I asked her. She does keep a pretty packed schedule, and I do realize that... how many posts have I said that in now? So, I did made it rather clear that I did want to see her again... and that I would make some time for her, so I'm sort of hoping for a Saturday meeting... but even that seems to be somewhat of a longshot. So, I'll keep my fingers crossed for Saturday night then.

I finally made it through the thick fog on the highway and into Langdon, where I stopped for a few beers and some good laughs with the lads in the bar. Poor ol' Benny and JC were taking a pretty good ribbing for the 'alleged' naughtiness with the extra-large women of Langdon. Man, all I did was kept my mouth shut. If you poked your head out in that conversation, someone was looking to take it off with a good burn. Greg was sort of an idiot though... 'you guys got nothing on me... nothing, I tell you.' He was barking that for a while... but as true as it is, it only is gonna make these guys find something out about him that much more. I mean, why would you say that unless you wanted to get burned??

Surprisingly, I was in the bar until after midnight. I only had like 3 beers... I didn't think I stayed quite that long. Apparently, I did. So, it ended up being a little bit of late night last night.

Again, this morning... I didn't want to get up. I started to run the water for my shower, since it takes ages to get hot, at about 6:30am... out the door just after 7am... and at the office just before 7:30am. No Troy this morning... Lee was in a little later than normal... chatted with Baz on MSN for a bit, did the hockey pool... and still there hasn't been any more work coming in since I started writing this Blog at 8:37am and now it's been almost 2 hours. Granted, I've been chatting and focussing my attention elsewhere from time to time, but still, this is a pretty big entry.

Just gonna play the rest of the day and evening by ear... nothing really planned... just hoping for a little more work to make the day a tad easier to digest.