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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2208
I find the moment to tell the owner I'm leaving. Moving to BC. Not an easy thing, overdue, well overdue, life should move on and I've been stale here a while, my corpse stinking up the restaurant.
I'm nervous, of course, it's been 20 years, more, here in Calgary. Kids, work, obligations. But I give up. Finding the work-life balance here, it's impossible. Especially now. Always, as long as I've worked here, but even now more than ever. Time to leave. Nelson, well, not so sure. There are jobs, if you're willing to work there's always jobs, and you begin again to climb the ladder, I only want the struggle to be 8 or 10 hours per day, 4 days per week. A little more time for me and my devices. Who knows? They might pay off yet...
...and I'm closer to a lot of things...
Worried, of course, about finances, bills to be paid, accommodation, work, there's things to be worried about for sure. It's no picnic...but I dispel the clouds overhead with my sunny thoughts that life is an adventure...and, regardless, I'm due. I'm due.
He takes it well. Disappointed, but I think he knew it was coming. Maybe the nephew, maybe the abstracted way I went days without speaking. I've got nothing to say. I'm overdue. Time to go. And, the word is spoken, the countdown starts...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2156
Not that I need it, what I really need is to finish up the countless projects I've already begun...but I'd made some notes the day before, jotted down a few related ideas. And the next morning, a bit under-the-weather (read: Hungover), I find the ideas, associations, percolating non-stop. Why? I don't know, clearly this idea had been gestating for a long time, every line found a rhyme or another, driving at every red light I'm grabbing the pen, the distraction of driving seemingly allowing a hundred, two hundred ideas to burst to the surface, I'm catching them all and scribbling them down, and road leads on to road...more ideas surface, the project completes itself, in rough, now to transcribe and filter the brainstorm. It was a rare day of inspiration and I've no desire to go back to work...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2330
Bored, the nephew persuaded me to go out, he wants to go out bad, this life in the burbs is wearing on him, he can't take it...I'm tired, can't be bothered to party, not tonight, notwithstanding the weather I have to dig some holes on my day off and don't want to be too wrecked before it starts...
Outside the club, having a cigarette, the doorman complaining to somebody in line that he doesn't get tipped. Alright then. I'll bite. I give him $50. Let's see what tipping the doorman does for one...I'm curious...he tells me he's straight, not to go expecting ...., no, no, I reassure him, I'm just curious, what do you get out of tipping the doorman? A red carpet? Expedited line-up? Reduced cover? Fairy tales are rife with the unexpected consequences of good deeds, we'll see...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1901
"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work." - Edison
Meaning that while the weather has been, to say the least, adversarial, the day will be spent off digging a few more holes. I need to take bigger samples, process more dirt, even if they're there I won't find them in the first few buckets, I'll have to commit to moving a few meters of dirt a day, and every place I look is another star on the map, it's the process of elimination, I don't need to find them, just find where they're not...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1912
And tonight, returned to work, a long break between shifts paying bills....the nephew has some news...
The Nephew is the world's most unreliable witness. Witless. That the owner's been working on a sale to a group of Lawyers, it's almost done, when it's done we'll be paid as well, a couple of thousand, enough...when? Soon...
I don't know. I get he'd want to sell, this recession, it's without end, and the restaurant has been a headquarters of sorts for commercial real estate agents, but what will he do? He's not someone with a lot of other interests or hobbies...Still, if he's selling it saves me quitting, if he's selling - soon - it makes sense to wait until the deal is done, can have the parachute of EI if required, the only problem is I'd like a date, the ability to organize some plans, the nephew doesn't have this and the owner's said nothing, he's preoccupied with his own worries...
...and I wonder about the reservations we've taken, months in advance, and what his plans are there, but his concerns, necessarily, are more immediate, and so it's ride out September and see what October brings...