A rather busy time

Our weekend up north was nice.
My Dad is feeling and looking good and has alot more energy. He's stopped drinking his 3 rum and diet cokes a night and my Mom is extremely happy for that.
Dad figures that he has saved about a thousand dollars already.
A mere 5 days after his angioplasty he was going for a walk with us.
He showed us a picture of his heart before and after. He showed us the blocked artery and how it looked now. Cool stuff. Sort of!

We had a lazy sports watching day on Sunday. Included was hockey, football, baseball and golf. No drinking though, which is fine with me, I don't drink that much.

On Monday we arrived home and my mil invited us over for dinner.
It's kind of funny that my mil's hubby can paint, wire a house and do basic carpentry, but can't cook.
He tries and thinks he does a good job, but....
The veggies were good, due to the season, but they just mangle the roast.
He's trying to tell my bil that he'll teach him how to cook a roast the proper way.
I'll teach him and I would help mil's hubby if he wasn't stubborn.
Anyways the roast was passable and we had a nice time.

The talk was who's doing Christmas dinner and they looked at us. We didn't tell them but I'm hoping to arrive at airport on Christmas eve or day from a tropical island.
Then we plan to go out for dinner on Christmas day. (Toronto has a large Jewish community)
Talk about anti-social.
Oh well!

Sense of humour

While reading Michelle's blog about jokes between her and her daughter, got me thinking.
My son and I prank each other all the time and my wife thinks we are childish, especially me. I am!
My son will walk by me and give me a wet willy.
I'll zing him with a bunch of elastics when he is reading.
He'll walk by and fart.
I'll burp when I go and give him a kiss.
Farting under the covers and then smothering one or the other is a favourite.
I could go on, but you get the idea....
We have a good time!

One of my favourites recently was to a guy I play hockey with.
His wife asked him to catch a mouse that was in his garage I believe. Put a trap up and then let the thing go in a field or something, that sort of thing. This 6'3" guy is afraid of rodents. Same guy who didn't stop playing hockey when going through chemotherapy treatments.
He didn't do what she asked.
Later that week he's getting changed into his hockey equipment and he is ready to put his skates on. He puts his foot in one skate and screams!
His wife put a fake mouse in one of his skates, much to all of our enjoyments.

Work,work, work and more work

35 hours in three days and tomorrow I have my furthest call.
At work they have their year end inventory and we have to have extra duties done by Thursday. I'm done!
Go on google, type the word failure and then hit I'm feeling lucky.
Good night all!

Sunday Evening

Quickly I'll go over my day;

1: Woke up and immediately made muffins
2: After coffee, started to re-organize kitchen
3: Made lunch for family
4: Built shelf for cupboard
5: Finished re-organizing
6: Made dinner for Sunday and Monday
7: Made bread pudding for dessert
8: Cleaned dishes
9: Swept floor
10: Made lunches for tomorrow
11: Got coffee maker ready for tomorrow
12: On computer at 930pm
13: Ice my back
14: Going to bed

At least my tv is in the same area as my kitchen. It was a great day for sports, as golf, football, junior hockey, baseball and auto racing was on.

Tired

I'm tired!
Yesterday due to the complete lack of knowledge my manager has for his job, I worked 14 hours.
He asked me when I returned to our depot, "how was my run?"
I told him it was one of the worse ones I ever had.
He thought I was joking. I wasn't!
I told him it wasn't a joke.
Today was better, but had to take my tractor in the shop for a new radiator. I get paid to take it, but it still takes time at the end of the day.

I watched this new show called "My name is Earl." I thought it was pure trailer trash and I love it.

Because of the impending hurricane, gas prices here are supposed to almost double tomorrow. There was huge line ups at every gas station this evening.
Talk about looters, these gas companies taking advantage of a dependent consumer. There is nothing we can do about it.
Time for bed and it's only 9pm.

Tuesday evening non hockey night

I'll be alittle less cheeky with this blog.

I have a slight hip pointer so I thought I would take the night off from playing hockey and watch the son start the fall session of karate.
Well isn't that wonderful!
Karate starts on Thursday and everyone left me here alone.
The kid went out to play with his buddy down the street and the lady went to the gym and then to a friends for an hour.
Hmmmmmmm............
What to do? Well I'll catch up on reading some blogs and I'll write this.
I have to have a bath so I can soak my hip and then stretch it. Then I'll ice it! I should just go to the chiropractor and get it massaged and adjusted, but I can't afford it just now.
Look what I'm writing about, I'm getting old. Hips!
When the kid comes home I'll hang with him and we'll read with either the tube on or some music playing in the background. He's a good kid!

My son and his friend were asking me about rock bands from when I was a kid. Seems that they are into the bands from the 70s and they are downloading some songs. Rush was the one most asked about.
Rush is a Toronto band and anyone who liked rock and is around my age, probably has a Rush story.
The first concert I ever saw was Rush when I was I think 13 years old. Up until I was in my early 20s, I have seen them around 4, maybe 5 times.
If I wasn't so broke and tickets weren't so bloody expensive, I might go see them or someone else.
This week U2 and then Pearl Jam played Toronto. Your looking at a few hundred dollars per concert.
My son asked if I would ever take him. I said sure, but I would have to take his mother first. He asked why? I said she would feel excluded and this way she would realize she hates loud concerts and after that she wouldn't care if she wouldn't go.

We picked up the travel magazines for our tropical winter vacation on Sunday. It looks like Mexico and probably just a week.
We have to determine a date and then we will book it. This has to be booked by some date in December for payment plans purposes.
I have a week off in December, the week before Christmas. My wife would like to go away that week, but I tell her that there is alot of winter after that.
My preference is late March, because I think we could pull off two weeks. My plan would be if we are going then for two weeks, then I would work through my vacation in December and leave my holiday pay alone for four months.
Four extra months to pay off a two week vacation, an extra weeks pay and more money to come home to after two weeks.
Sounds good to me!
I'll take a week anytime to be honest with you.

Butts

While waiting in line for that hamburger on Saturday(the one that the politicians ran out of) I was talking to a elderly couple, around late 70s. Nice couple, friendly and with an accent.
They told me they have been in town since the mid 70s, and raised their two grown daughters here.
They asked me if I knew either one of them. They said their names and nothing clicked. They spelled the last names and then it clicked. They were from the tiny Dutch community that settled on the east side of town.
I knew their younger daughter, as we were in quite a few classes together.
Why after all these years did I remember her?
I used to sit behind her so I could look at her butt. And she had a nice one from what I could remember.
Forgive me, I was a horny teenager then, and not blind.
I kind of felt guilty talking to this nice couple.
Oh well!

Anyways it got me thinking about friends who lives close by. They have 6 kids, 5 of which are girls, 3 of those teenagers.
My buddy has to deal with guys like I was at that age. I feel for him, I really do. I'm really glad I have a son.
I have other friends with daughters and they will have to deal with this soon.
I am really glad I have a son.

Getting back to butts!
When I was growing up, I used to get teased about the size of my butt. Picture this, a skinny 5'10" teenager with a bubble butt.
I've since grown into it, thankfully!
Now when I'm at best weight, I think my butt looks porportional to the rest of my body.
I think it actually looks good to some.(to me)
I think I was before my time!

A question. Do you notice when a man checks you out?
Today I was going in for a coffee and this lady was ahead of me about 20 feet. She had a nice butt with painted on jeans. There were guys outside having a smoke and they stopped everything when she went by.
She must have notice, as I did and I thought it was obvious and funny.
Would it bother you? It didn't seem to bother her.

Tonight I watched this Canadian show called "Corner Gas." It's the best Canadian show out there. It stars a guy named Brent Butt, honestly.

One of the best Seinfeld shows was the one where Kramer got licence plates with the letters "assman." There was a mix up with a proctoligist and the dmv.

Today I see on my work travels, young ladies who wear their pants to the point where their butt cracks are exposed. It seems to be like the newfound clevage. I call it a plumbers butt. Then there are the ladies who do this and have a rather large tattoo to show off. Wait till they get older, they will being wearing too many clothes on a hot summer day to cover up. They just don't believe in gravity.
One thing I do know, you don't see many men showing off their butt cheeks. Not intentionally anyways.
I generally like the look, but some aren't meant to show off butt clevage.
We have this friend a half hour east of here. Mid 40s, female and overweight and she wears these leather pants that she bought around 40 pounds ago. Plumbers butt city there! I like this lady, but please.....At least wait until dinner is finished.

A second thought, definitely not

More rock trivia from my head.
I'm listening to a ZZtop cd on my way to work and it got me thinking. Remember this was the band with the two guitarist with those really long beards and the drummer with no beard and short hair.
Well the drummer's name is ironically Frank Beard.
More useless rock trivia, but this time the music is good.
Their best cd's in my opinion are Deguallo and Fandango.(excuse the spelling)

This evening we went to "meet the teacher night" and there was a bbq as well. Nice man and I'm glad my son has a male teacher this year. He has had mainly women teachers up to now and this provides a slightly different prospective.
He was commenting on how our son answers and thinks differently than most of the others in his class.(in a good way)

A thought, maybe not!

While writing this, Whitesnake is playing in the background. What ever happen to these guys? Remember the video with the chick slithering all over the car? Tawney Kitaan(I think) was her name and she was charged with assault for beating up her husband. His name ws Chuck Finley, this huge baseball pitcher. That's way too much useless information in my head.
I could use that wasted space for something useful!

All that new hockey equipment and I can't use it tomorrow. Meet the teacher night and I miss these too much, apparently. There's always next week.

We just finished watching Sahara. Not bad and I'm glad I didn't go to the theatre.

my money

I received my quarterly safety bonus on Friday. Yeah!!!!!!
I decided to spend MY money on some hockey equipment that I need. I went and bought a helmet and hockey pants, costing a 150 dollars, and then I still got it on sale.
Next year I'm going to try and join a league, as I only play for fun now.
I still need shoulder and shin pads to be properly protected for a league.
When I told my son about joining a league, he said I would have to play clean because there would be referees.
Nice, my son thinks I'm a dirty player.(I am)

With the remainder of my bonus, the three of us went golfing today, a nine hole course just north of here.
My son did well for him, my wife was alright and I as pretty good. Straight drives on all but 1 hole and I shot a 45, which is good for me.
The weather was perfect as well.

Next year I'm going to invest my all my bonuses into my retirement plan. I figure it will help our tax situation and my future, abeit 20 years from now. It is fun to spend it as I want, but I'll have all new hockey equipment by then, which should last 10 years.

nice day

Well regarding my last post, that was just a rant. Today was a perfect weather day and we just hung around the house.
We got our outside chores done and did some relaxing.
A drink here and some reading was just the right tonic.

Yesterday we went to my cousin's about an hour and a half east of here, in the middle of nowhere.
Funny how a distant cousin can be your closest one. Anyways we had lunch with them and she was glad we were there.

Saturday we did our chores and then went to friends for pizza and drinks. Yum.......

Overall, a decent weekend.

Labour Day

Normally my politcal leanings are to the right of center, but these days it is swinging back to the left.
In my mind if things are difficult at work, I think that if unhappy, get yourself a better position in life. I mean, stop whining and get another job or go see management to sort things out.
Now with the cost of fuel spiralling out of control, taxes not getting lower and keeping household expenses from not skyrocketing, I'm starting to get pissed.
Inflation like that is kind of out my control!
I need a car to get to work. The governments here haven't expanded public transit properly in 30 years, so the train or buses are not a option.
I could get another job, but I lose my pension and seniority. I currently work weekdays and a dayshift which are really difficult to get, so basically another job means really crappy hours.
I may be whining, but being loyal and hardworking means absolutely nothing.
I can't wait for our annual work meeting come November. The dude in charge gives a "state of the company address." He will tell us about how poor the company is doing due to the rising cost of fuel and insurance. Meanwhile they are locked in at a lower fuel rate and they just past the cost on to the customer anyways. It's called a fuel surcharge and it's on every invoice.
As far as insurance goes, we the drivers are at a record low for accidents and infractions.
I need more money!
The company has to keep up with the industry standard or they will have a mass exodus.

How about that for a whine?

New Orleans

I fell kind of guilty complaining about alittle rain storm which put my phone and computer down for aweek or so.
Can you imagine living in the southeast USA.
The pictures and reports from that area are simply awesome in a negative way.
It just goes to show you that you can't screw around with mother nature with New Orleans being below sea level.
Nature can be powerful and cruel at the same time, and we as humans are a small part of it.
My heart goes out to everyone affected by the hurricane.
The one picture that stands out in my mind is when a CNN reporter was in front of a building and he reported that this building moved as a whole about half a mile to that spot.
This was a casino that had to be 30,000 square feet.

The day of the hurricane, before all of the carnage, they played a song here by a Canadian band named The Tragically Hip. The song, New Orleans is sinking. I haven't heard it since.

Big Storm

Sorry about not blogging but our computer got fried in a storm last Friday. Right now I'm at the library using the computers here before I go home, you get a hour free.
Around 3pm last Friday in Southern Ontario, storms starting with really heavy rain and lightning.
Tornadoes were spotted about 75 kilometres northwest of here.
Floods were all around the city of Toronto.
Along with our computer, the phones were shot and our fax is history.
I didn't think I would miss the phone, but I did. Just not having the convience of it was enough for me.
Of course I miss the computer, but not the fax.(it's my wife's, for her work)
So we have about 500 dollars damage total. Our deductible is that amount.
Our computer is leased so Dell owns it and that's free. We just have to wait and I suppose that will be another week.
We have to get 5 phone jacks fixed, we have one working.
The fax will be replaced in a month or so. Our fax is 16 years old, so my wife doesn't mind getting a new one, they work so much better now and are smaller.

Other than that there is nothing really going on in my life that is exciting.
Oh yea, I scored 3 goals in hockey the other night, which is the first time that has happen in years.

We were at our friends last Saturday for a bbq. At the end of the evening, this couple got into a huge fight in front of us. Pretty wild for us, we don't argue that good ourselves. Anyways alittle awkward and we left shortly there after.

Hopefully I can do a blog from home soon.

Sunday morning rampage part two

Again another Sunday morning rampage, this time it's the two of us on the receiving end. Too much and I'm not going to take this every weekend morning.

We saw "The Upside of Anger" last night on dvd.
Pretty good chic flic with Kevin Costner and Joan Allen, I would recommend it. Good story and good acting!
As a family we also watched "Mr. 3000" staring Bernie Mac. We're not talking any great acting here but it was funny and entertaining.

Canadian justice system

Seems that we've had liberal governments here in Canada forever.
One of the biggest drawbacks is how the justice system works.
There was a murder in the early 1990s of a university student named Lynda Shaw.
Her remains were found about a week after she was missing in a forest area.
She had been raped among other atrocious things.
They found her killer this year from DNA testing. Hurray you say!
Not so fast!
The scumbag is dead, he committed suicide in 1994. Because he is dead, they can't name him for privacy reasons. He can't defend himself!
The DNA in this case is right, the odds are one in a trillion they may be wrong.
Oh yea, the guy was out on parole for the double murder of a undercover cop and a taxi driver.
Due to our lax penal system, he was on full parole. This poor excuse for a human shouldn't have ever seen a free moment for the rest of his life.
Luckily some of the newspapers named him anyways.

Nothing to say!

I'm sitting here at this computer at 11pm on a Friday evening with nothing really to say.
Actually reading my past blogs, I really haven't said much anyhow.

Work was easy today until I was trying to get to my depot from my last customer today.
Excuse tha language, but the god damned highway was closed due to a accident. A 50 minute drive back took over 2 hours. I hate that on a Friday!
Oh well, they pay me by the hour, but I just want to get home.
I get home a 730pm(13 hour day) and dinner was bought, not made.(someone was home today, working though, but home nonetheless) I had to put it together and heat it up.
The appreciation for my hard work, hmmmm...... Let's say I'm not impressed.
That's enough for the self pity!
Well one more thing or so.....
945pm, someone is falling asleep on the couch and it's not the guy who feels unappreciated.
The kid goes to bed at 10pm and I'm alone, again.
What a life!

I've decided that when this heatwave ends(almost 2 months) that I'm going to start exercising on Friday evenings. I need more energy, not from coffee, so exercise is the answer.
Now it's 2 rum and diet pepsi's and sleep by midnight.

Speaking of rum, bil and sil gave me a bottle of Cuban rum for me helping out during their wedding and honeymoon after.(babysitting)
Since I did very little, I told them it wasn't neccessary, but the bottle is on my counter now.
I'm drinking Jamaican rum right now.
Cuban rum will be in the fall!
No cigars came my way. They bought some, but they seem to think that they can sell them on e-bay and make some money. Good luck!

Sucky jobs

Reading Steph's posts about her crappy job got me thinking about my negative job situations. Here are a few!
I was an assistant manager at a fast food chain in the late 80s. I was transfered to this store where the general manager had a reputation of being a hot head, among other things.
The first thing he says to me is that he makes the deposits because he doesn't trust the bank. Ok, I then verified every deposit I ever made under his command.
One day he freaked out on the floor and grabbed me by the arm and screamed at me. Ok, time to nip this in the bud, fast.
I suggest to him quietly that we talk in the office downstairs. He disagreed! We were down there in about 2 minutes after I said to him to get his ass downstairs.
When we were there, I grab him by the shirt and said if he ever touched me again, it would be the last act as manager he would ever do.
I love being a rather large man.
For the remainder 2 months we spent together, he was rather polite and understanding.
I ended up getting him fired for stealing money from my verified deposits.
A few years later when I became a truck driver he was a manager on my route. He changed his name, but I still called him by his old one. I basically made him squirm everytime I saw him for the next 6 months or so.
Life ws grand!
My next job was managing cafeterias for this corporation. I had a iron clad contact about raises and permanent locations after 3 months.
My district manager was gutless, so she never stood up for me when I addressed the big boss about my contract.
One day I'm in this huge corporate account of there's and they are giving a tour for this guy I knew. I went to college with him, his name was Darrel.
After this tour was done I went over to speak to him. He was interviewed for my job. After I informed him that was the job I was currently doing, he laughed and said he didn't think he would like working there.
My plan was to walk around with a resignation in my pocket and wait for the right moment.
A couple of days later I come in to work and there is a message that the big boss would be there in the afternoon, after lunch of course.
She came in and I gave her the resignation and told her to F' off, in front of clients and employees.
We then met a few minutes after that in the cafeteria and I yelled at her for several minutes, to embarrass her.
It worked! Her face was red.
Basically I made too much money and they didn't want to pay.
In trucking there are all kinds of cockroaches, too many to mention.
When I quit the last job I had before the one I have now, they stiffed me out of severance, vacation and regular pay. They actually said I owe them pay, as they over paid me for a period of time.
I took them to the labour board and it took about a year before I got my money.

Sunday morning rampage

Quick blog, I can hear my wife yelling at the son while cleaning abit of the basement.
Why?
Some questions need to be answered, but this one will have to wait.
I'm going out to my refuge, the garage. I'm sure my son will be joining soon.
I tell her every once in a while to get a managers job so she can boss people around there.
See you soon!

Saturday afternoon part 21

I realized that I seem to blog on Saturday afternnon alot, so that's why it's part 21.(it's just a number)
I was going to blog last evening since the wife and kid were out with other kids and another girlfriend.
I was going home from work yesterday when I saw my friend's work van sitting at a coffee shop. I pulled in and had a coffee with him, which was nice, after all we are all family guys and there never seems to be enough time.
I've known this guy since I was in grade 9, we sat beside each other in a couple classes. He got into some trouble with the law then and most people bailed on him.
I always stuck by him and would to this day.
He doesn't get into trouble anymore.
He had this long time girlfriend over 20 years ago and I went out with her best friend for over a year.
Since then he has had a couple of wives and mine has been friends with both. Actually his ex lives about 20 doors down from here with her new hubby.
Anyhow we chatted for an hour and then I went home.
I was washing up when another friend called and asked if I wanted to golf a quick 9.(our wives and kids were out together)
20 minutes later I'm on a golf course.
Not a bad game either.
Went back to his place and had a beer with our wives and the screaming kids were at another part of their house.
When we got home I watched alittle tv and went to bed at midnight.
I woke up finally at 10 am, which is great for me.
Right now I feel great, except for my right pinkie finger.

Yesterday at work, I dropped a 80 pound drum against my finger. I cursed and then punched the side of the trailer.
My finger turned purple and swelled up to twice the size. It looks cool actually! It's just alittle sore now, but difficult to type.(easy to golf)
My week at work was better than this other driver.
He was fined by the police for having a insecure load, 390 dollars. Not only that, he loses his quarterly safety bonus, so we're talking 740 dollars. And he has to take at least a day off to fight it in court, so when it is all said and done, it will easily be over a 1000 dollars.
All this for a pump truck that wouldn't have moved or caused any damage anyhow.
We were teasing him at work when we found out, and then he admitted he called the lady cop "sir" when she approached. He didn't look first.

It seems that most new friends that I make, either on-line or in person, are women. I wonder why that is?
Anyways most of my blog friends are women or non Canadians.
I'll explain something that is very male oriented with a huge Canadian slant, hockey.
NHL brand to be specific.
My team is the Toronto Maple Leafs. For years if they wanted a player, they basically bought him. Of course this was at the expense of poorer teams and it pissed off alot of fans of other teams.
Even though they were a good team for the last 15 years they never won the big prize, The Stanley Cup.(they haven't won it since 1967)
The Leafs have the largest following of all hockey teams. They make near the top in merchandising, tv revenue and gate receipts. They are filthy rich! Other teams are not.
The NHL had a labour dispute with the players for lower salaries and they just settled. They now have a team salary cap and revenue sharing between teams.
In other words, the Leafs have to cut their player salaries and give other teams revenue money. Lose, lose situation you say. Not! They will make more money than ever.
But now they will have a lousy team for a couple of years. They can't sign or buy players now and are screwed.
They will get better eventually, but for a couple of years the lessor lights will have their time in the sun.
So this winter I'll try and not bitch too much that my team will suck. I'll be patient!