Now, finally, Spring and Summer are here, and that means that time will largely be spent outside. Camping, fishing, prospecting, you have it, life is too short to be paying rent. My address is the world.
That said, the world doesn't all have free internet, and with the assassination of my old computer by Microsoft I probably won't regularly be blogging. Maybe, if we're lucky, once or twice a week.
If we're lucky. I wouldn't count on it and I'm not making any promises. Maybe I'll start blogging with pen and paper and just posting my blog posts as photos or scans of my notes...although that would depend a lot on me improving my handwriting. Yeah, I know. So do you.
If you're in the neighborhood and you want to get in touch you know how. Otherwise, catch you in the fall when I move indoors.
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The last 4 days at the restaurant, crazy, Sunday, running, Monday, unexpectedly busy, children coming up from the dock, blended families of 8 and 12 people, 4 adults, the rest all children, separate bills, crazy again, unexpectedly so, and it goes ridiculously late...it's as if pinatas are bursting in the restaurant filled with children, crayons, sand from the beach, the night's a gong show...
The next night, quiet, much quieter by far, but we've a new cook and things don't go even slightly as planned. A slight rush - busy, but only for an hour. And in that hour the new cook gets 8 orders, more than he can keep up with, he's big, fat, lazy, likes to stand around and work the deep-fryer, came here from Prince George, only he's not working out....the orders are slow, too late, the ferry's here and there's lineups of irate customers trying to cancel food orders that have already been placed, the other waiter, classic sketchy waiter from down east, gets into a shouting match with a rude English lady at the bar, nobody does rude and ignorance better than the British, they're the soccer hooligans of Europe, he's giving her as good back, yelling at her to fuck-off, that if she doesn't pay for the food she didn't get he's gonna call the cops, it's a shit-show...
I stay out of it. I'm busy enough as is, got my own tables to worry about, later on I get the full story. That he said the job was bullshit and it was suggested by the competent chef that he leave, and he did, only he wanted to keep living in the staff accommodations and after numerous attempts to start a fistfight with the owner had to be escorted to Nelson with the RCMP. The other waiter couldn't get the food for an irate woman that wanted to get on the Ferry, hence the shouting match.
This place, restaurants in general, they're a shit-show.
Wednesday, slow in the afternoon, I stay until 3:00, short break, back at 4. At which point it's a bit busy, but we get it under control. At 4:30 we start getting phone calls - "do we have power?", apparently the power's out in Nelson, no restaurants there are open, first 1 call, then 2, by the fifth one I'm answering the phone with "Yes we have power", 20, 40, now a hundred calls an hour, hang up and the phone is ringing, there's a tidal wave of tourists and locals leaving Nelson for the pub, it's 30 minutes away, I can see it on the horizon, I warn the kitchen, the new waitress arrives just in time...
The restaurant has about 40 odd tables, or 200+ seats. 3 servers. We are slammed. Beyond slammed, people walking in, sitting themselves at dirty tables, expecting to be recognized, the entire town has had the same idea...
The other waiter, he knocks off at 10 to start doing his cashout, we're (the new waitress and I) are doing side duties to 11:00, he's still puzzling why it doesn't add up, I help him a bit, cure a few of the errors, help the waitress, then leave, he's still got problems, I'm on to a couple of days off and never have they been so well earned...
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Back from Prospecting, broke, a car but no gas, a room in an insane asylum, and whatever I do I'm not going back to that damned restaurant. (Not yet, anyways...).
I get on at Temps.
Temps is the short term solution to your companies immediate labour needs. You need a project, you need to throw men at it, brainless work that needs be done? Temps is your answer. "Cash Paid Daily" is their main recruiting slogan. All you need to work there is your own steel toed boots, they'll sell or rent you the hard-hat and safety vest. Show up, do your WHMIS, you're set to go...if you can wield a hammer and you have your own toolbelt you'll earn an extra $2.00 per hour.
First job is in Airdrie, a week or so digging holes in a basement, some contractor has built an entire development on a poorly built up flood plain, all the houses are getting foundation cracks, my job to dig the post-holes for the jacks that will lift the house up while they re-level the foundations and fill the cracks. Dirty, filthy work, head to toe crusted with mud by the end of the day.
The foreman likes me, wonders why I'm a temp, he can get me on full time, $20.00 an hour to start, I tell him of the prospecting.
A lot of people would think I was nuts, maybe he does too. But I've stirred something in him, I can see it burning inside, and finally when he's bursting and can hold it inside no more he tells me:
"My Brother" he begins, and then the conversation turns to aliens, realizing that I'm not adverse the conversation becomes first person, no longer his brother but himself, there are definitely aliens, they appear in the Bible, the burning bush? Aliens, the Pyramids? Aliens, they track each other via LED displays, they've got a TV screen on which they can watch each other, his brother and him, they're going to Mexico to look for treasure, you have to be careful, usually Mexican treasures are guarded by curses, Bears or Giant Snakes that have magical shape-shifting powers, the breaks aren't long enough for him to share his plans, but I'm catching the enthusiasm...
There's another employee, Philip, a Hutterite AWOL from his colony in Manitoba, he's a bit lazy, he's digging 2 holes to my 5, he's the hired help, not a temp, but he's a whiz with a bobcat, a bit simple, touched in the head, wants to get back to the colony, settle down, when there's bobcat work to be done he shows up to work, when it's hand-to-shovel he contrives illness, a bad cold, a flu, ... and there's Francis, forever off looking for local cafes in which to take a dump, bowel problems, as soon as the foreman looks the other way he's off, our lack of porta-potties means he can take an hour, two, to attend the call of nature.
I dig the holes.
We're working in unclosed pits, 4 to 6 feet deep, knee deep in water seeping in from Nose Hill Creek, the power tools give off electric shocks before throwing the breakers, this is the routine: Wake - 4:00 AM, Temps office at 5:00, be on the jobsite at 8:00, finish at 4:30, home, change, shower, sleep, repeat....
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Dear Osama
In which I write everyone's favorite advice columnist.
Dating
OK. I've been on a few internet dates. I confess this with the same reluctance I would admitting to masturbating, adultery, or excessive drinking and drug use.
This is a list of some of my best -- AND WORST -- dates ever. Note that you gotta go on a lotta dates to get this kinda list, this kinda discouraged. And my online dating thing has been sporadic - an every few years kind of thing at best. Some of these dates go back 10 years, others are a little more recent. And to answer any people who might argue "It beats hooking up at the bar", well, you don't have to hook up at the bar, and at the bar you can see what your getting...
Anyways - apologies to the countless normal, decent dates that I went on but just didn't hit it off with. Memory is selective, it tends towards the extreme, and in this you will find the extremes...
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