An Hour Post

Good morning all... coming to you in the printed form from the new office in Forest Lawn.



The view is less than spectacular, but the weather is nice and all is well this morning. I've got my Tim Horton's coffee with me already, my laptop is still in the car and I'm countin' down the hours until the weekend.

I was a pretty exhausted wreck yesterday, who couldn't post the stats of the hockey pool online, due to some software issues, so I wasn't really in the mood to post anything on the Tales yesterday either. Let's see what day is it today?? Oh yeah... Thursday.

Tuesday then... there was still bits and pieces to move over from the old office to the new one, but fortunately for me, I didn't find myself on any road trips. There was some stuff to do in the new EDGAR room, so I stayed behind and then helped carry things in when they arrived. The e-mail system was super-slow on our end as well on Tuesday. We were getting e-mails up to 3 hours late in some instances. That really sucks when you're supposed to disseminate news releasess in a "timely fashion."

I still had my TV in the back of the Cavalier since Monday and I decided against moving it into the office. I'm sure we can get a cheap TV for the World Cup from one of these stupendous pawn shops here in Forest Lawn. Someone is bound to steal one and sell to them... so we'll wait for a good deal to arrive.

Instead, after work, I tested the drive to Sunnyside from the office and shockingly, it took about 25 minutes to get myself through traffic and go 7 or 8 km. I was choked. It really shouldn't take that long. I can make it to Langdon, which is well over 30km in 25 minutes. I have come to the conclusion that I will get a new pair of rollerblades soon and start skating to and from work. It'll take probably close to an hour to get to work, but it'll be worth it to skate it most days.

At the house, I set up the TV, DVD player, stereo and such... watched the Ottawa/Tampa Bay game and quite a bit of the Flames/Ducks game before Jen actually came home from work. I'm glad I'm getting a lot of this moving done in smaller pieces. It'll make whatever I have to do on Saturday that much easier.

I had plans to meet up with Barb down at the Stetson on McLeod for the Battle of the Bands. She had told me that she'd be finishing up around 10pm, so I thought it'd be wise to show up sometime after then. I took off from the house and drove down south.

Calgary is not that big of a city when there is no traffic on the roads. You can make it anywhere in the city in reasonable time when traffic is next to none. It's fantastic. It would almost make me wish that I did evening shifts again and that I would drive to and from work in the middle of the night. But I don't... that would just put a serious dent in the social life.

I hung around the Stetson for a while, 'cuz Barb didn't actually show up until after the Flames game had finished... not that I was terribly surprised or anything. But then she finally showed up, almost an hour late, to find me sitting at a table to myself. But she stuck around for a while and we chatted in between breaks in the only band to play on Tuesday night. Shitty Battle of the Bands when you can only have one band show up. Anyways, as it turned out... it was Barb's older brother who was in the band that played. For some reason I think I've heard of them somewhere, Gunther... I don't remember why that band name is so familiar. They were actually really good... a 3-piece band which almost seemed like they were there as a classical arrangement of hard rock.

After the band had finished up, I wasn't staying too long. It was already 11:30pm and I couldn't stomach another beer that evening. Plus, sticking around like a bad odour wasn't really in my game plan anyways, so I gave her the basket that I had gotten her in Victoria, got a big hug and we made pencilled in plans to meet up for lunch on Friday (tomorrow).

Now I can't get her out of my head again. She's just there all the time... with her cute smile and all that fun & goodness in her. The good thing is that she seems a little more keen to work around her ultra-busy schedule, where she'll be working every night for the next week and a half.

Yesterday, I was somewhat exhausted getting home from the evening around midnight and staying awake thinking for a bit before passing out... 6am came around a tad too quickly in my opinion. There was a bit to do through the day, but not a great deal due for yesterday, so there wasn't any panic at all.

I had a true Forest Lawn experience yesterday at the Taco Bell next door to the office. It was quite the blend of tax brackets, family situations and ethnic diversities. It took probably about 20 minutes just to stand in line, wait for the less-than-stellar service to make up mine and everyone in front of me's order, which there were quite a few people in there waiting... for 3 chicken burritos. That's it. From the pretty boys in suits to the slower gentleman wearing a 1980's Flames jersey talking to them, to the white mother with a black eye and 3 black kids... it was like walking into a blender of culture.

By the end of the day at work, I was ready to just put my head down and fall asleep... until Kelly started e-mailing. The kicker e-mail being 'what's up after work?' Well, I knew that meant beer... and so I gave him a bell and we made plans to meet at the Bull & Finch down by his work and meet for a beer. Its great how I can perk up like that so easily. So, after work finished, I drove down to the south and met Kelly at his office in the Gunnar Furniture building, got the tour of the $9 million building. Quite the facility. Went for some beers, shot the shit a bit and then headed home. Not a bad plan if I do say so myself.

Got home just before 8pm... had a hot dog... was feeling a little tipsy. And phoned Barb to chat with her a while. Tipsy... the phone... Barb on my mind... it was bound to happen. Come on. We'll chat again today, to make plans for lunch tomorrow. I still don't think the green light is on, but it'll be good just to hang out with her a little bit more.

So, that's been the last couple days... we'll see what transpires today. I have my laptop up and running now, so I can update the playoff pool this morning. There were a few people looking for it updated yesterday... but meh... screw 'em! A little patience goes a long ways...