movie reviews..

wow, been some time since I had anything to write about. I guess I could go on about the 'interesting' people that I get to ride with on the bus when I go out with the Mrs on her walkabouts. Like the one teen I heard say to the other teen "you know, I heard if you take your 'urine' and 'pooh' ***NOT in those terms were they mentioned but you get the idea*** and put them in a jar, put a tight lid on it for a week and then sniff it you will get one wicked buzz". Personally, all I can say to that is if you have hit that point in your life where you have to smell your own bio-waste to get high, time to check in at re-hab.

I could also mention the few people that hit me up for money when I walk home from work at 3am. Of course I have spare change that I would love to give to you. Now put your cell phone in your pocket and take your iPod ear plugs out of your ears and so that I can give you my hard earned money.

I might also mention the idiots that ride around in cabs. Like when the Mrs and I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show and we managed to flag down a cab at 3:10am (after standing outside in the cold for nearly 45 minutes) and other drunks were screaming at us for getting a cab. To top it all off that evening the cabbie stopped to pick up two other people and since they were going down town like us, the cabbie was more than happy to have them ride with us. Guess it kind of got me a bit unnerved when we were dropped off first and had to pay the full $15 fare from Whyte Ave to our place and then wondered how much the two that he picked up had to pay for the other '...just 4 blocks down the road from here, thanks'.

There was also the time when one of my co-workers was giving me a ride home at 3am and we went down Jasper by Oil City during closing time on Halloween night. It amazes me how these drunken idiots seem to think that any car on the road is a taxi and that we should stop for them and pick them up and drive them where they need to go. Full credit to them for not driving there and then driving home drunk but I don't think we honestly needed the finger and a 'screw you' as we didn't stop for them. I did think it was great of my co-worker who actually swerved out of the way when the idiots walked right into traffic and in front of the car. Apparently in their mind they seem to think that cab drivers don't actually see anyone standing on the sidewalk waving them down so you have to step right in front of them to get their attention. Personally I would have loved to drive straight and taken out a few hips, toes or legs but with the way the legal system is these days they would have gotten away with it as innocent since they were a) drunk and b) pedestrians whereas as the drive I would have been hit criminally and civilly because I was a) sober and b) a sane normal person obeying all rules and regulations of society and the road.

However, I will just mention the one movie in particular that sticks out in my mind that I have seen recently that I have to mention. Due Date (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1231583/ ) with Robert Downey, Jr and Zach Galifianakis. If you are going to go and see one movie at all this week, if you are going to go and see one movie this month, if you are going to go and see one movie this year...in fact, if you are going to go and see one movie at all in your life time....do NOT go to this one! I mean, steer clear of this one like you would a leperous beggar on the street who has at least 25 STDs that wants to give you a kiss and shake your hand. Granted, I might not know comedy, I might not know humour, and I might not know the new development of entertainment in this new day and age and the 'next generation' of movie entertainment. Personally I enjoyed the original of this movie that was called Trains, Planes and Automobiles (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093748/ ) starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

Let's compare them. They both involve two men forced to travel across country together for extremely special and pressing occasions (DD: the birth of the first born child, PT&A: thanksgiving with the family) where one of them is an uptight, serious and stressed out individual and the other is a rather difficult person to travel with. During their travels, in both of the movies, the serious person is tested and bugged by the others quirky behaviours but in due course of the movie, a friendship develops between the two travellers.

How are they different? PT&A difficult character (Del Griffith played by John Candy) is a friendly and loveable guy who does mean to do right in his eyes but somehow manages to screw up from time to time that doesn't really cause any lasting damage to the other but just slows him down and creates somewhat of a difficult situation. DD difficult character (Ethan Tremblay played by Zach Galifianakis) is nothing short of a time bomb that manages to screw up constantly due to his immature and social inept ways that causes major lasting damage to the other character and not only slows him down but throws him back a few feet in the process. Whereas I found myself slowly beginning to like Del Griffith and wanting to see the two characters become friends, I found myself watching Tremblay wondering how long until the other guys snaps and either kills him and bury him in the desert or walk away and find other modes of transportation to get home (which I would have done about 15 minutes into the movie after having been shot by the air marshal with a rubber bullet because the other guy started a rather stupid situation).

The humour in DD is more in the form of the 'pull my finger' type of gross humour more than that funny 'ha ha' kind of humour. I found myself laughing once or twice in the movie and then realized I wasn't laughing at it because I found it amusing and funny but I was laughing the same way there is that dark side of people that laugh at other people's misfortune in the pleasure that they know it isn't them going through that sort of thing. However, if your type of humour is a masturbating dog, a burnt out 20-something idiot smoking dope and causing stupid mayhem and destruction (falling asleep at the wheel and driving a car off a bridge, shooting someone accidentally in the leg with a hand gun because he was handling it carelessly) then perhaps this movie would be right up your alley. For me, not so much....

I guess if I had to give it a rating I would give it 3 unpopped kernels of popcorn out of 5 popped kernels of popcorn. On a number scale that would be on a scale of 0 to 5 I give it a -3. Normally I would say wait until someone rents it and then borrow it to watch it but even then that would be nearly 100 minutes of your life you would never get back again.

It is funny but I found myself wondering if this is what it is like to get old with the next generation of humour. I wonder if my parents went through this where they would put on their classic comedy stars and my brother and I would look at them and go "that is so lame" and then we would watch some of the new comedy of our generation and we would laugh and laugh and they just would shake their head and say "that is just sick and gross, that isn't funny". Granted, I don't think that Robin Williams, Abbot and Costello, John Candy and Dan Ackroyd movies could ever be considered gross, 'pull my finger' type humour and not funny. Those guys, as well as countless others, were amazingly funny comedians and actors.

oh well, guess I will just have to keep thinking of what else I could write about if I am not writing about movies or the idiots that walk amongst us on the street. Which, by the way, movies do and DONT on my list are:

DO: Mega-mind, RED and Easy A.
DON'T: Paranormal Activity 2, Life as We Know It, Due Date.

Movie review - The Expendables

Ever notice how one object/substance can be of one particular look or feel in the presence of one thing but then something else when something else is around. Two examples would be a bucket of water when you change temperature and height of people. Take a bucket of body temperature water and soak one of your hands in ice cold water and the other hand in really really hot water. When you place your 'cold' hand in the body temperature water the water feels hot but when you put the 'hot' hand in the same water it feels cold. Another idea would be if you look at a person and say he is average height then put him in a room with shorter people you would describe him as tall, but put that same man in a room of basketball players and he is suddenly short.

Now what does all this have to do with the movie The Expendables (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/ ) you might be asking. To describe the acting in this movie, you have to keep this in mind. I know that some of the actors in this movie can act when given the right opportunity (Stallone nominated for an Oscar in 1977 for his writing and acting in Rocky, and Rourke was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in The Wrestler) and I also know that a few of the actors can't really act (namely Dolph Lundgren, who has worked with Stallone before in Rocky IV and is basically just an action hero). However this movie seemed to want to throw the acting out the window and just go for non-stop action hero-ness, which is basically shoot and kill anything that moves with a one liner attached to the end. In this aspect and mind, Jason Statham has to be one of the better, if not the best, actor of the bunch of action heroes...which isn't saying a lot. Put Jason in a movie with Oscar winning actors trying their hardest and Jason looks like a 1st year acting student fresh from the theatre, put him with a bunch of action heroes that only want to fight and not act and he suddenly looks like a real actor.

That is what this movie was all about, total and complete destruction and carnage. I decided that if I didn't see something explode in the first 5 minutes of the movie then I would be extremely disappointed. I have to say that I was not disappointed. Granted it wasn't a fire and blast kind of explosion but an exploding human due to high powered long range shot gun, or maybe it was a mini grenade launcher I am not really sure, was close enough as an explosion to me. That sort of set the scene and feel for the whole movie right then and there.

I went in the frame of mind of total action with no real acting or drama and I was not disappointed. The whole story line is basically fed to the watcher on a silver platter so you really don't have to engage any thinking skills or brain power to come to the conclusion on what is happening but you can simply sit there with your brain turned completely off and just enjoy the mindless action of it all.

One thing you will have to do though is prepare yourself for the blood and gore. I see the trend of director Stallone to be going more in the way of blood, guts and exploding humans. In his last movie "Rambo" and this one there were quite a few exploding humans from high powered guns and lots of heads/limbs being cut off by swords/knives and you get to see the stumps wave around for a bit before the person drops. Now whether this is because he is becoming an old man and is slightly out of touch of what people want to see today but THINKS he knows what we want to see today OR it is because he is adding some realism to gun shot hits and fighting scenes I am not sure since I honestly have not seen, nor do I think I want to see, the real effect of a shot gun blast on a person at point blank range to the chest. Who knows, maybe people do explode like water balloons filled with ground beef when hit by a bullet or high powered rifle.

Anyways, on this movie all I can say is that if you are going to go and see it be in the frame of mind to actually see it for what it is. An assembled cast of action heroes that are in it to show their action fighting skills and not their acting dramatic side. Go for the explosions and the noise, not for the tears or the drama.

MOVIE RED ALERT: SAVE YOUR MONEY

I thought I would never see a movie that was such a waste of time and attention as Step Up 3D, but little did I know that they were going to release The Last Exorcism. First off, right off the bat let me let it be known that you should save your money and the 87 minutes of your life that I have wasted and can never get back. It is such a horrible waste of time and all that if I can stop one person from going to see this movie then I have done a good service to the world.

The Last Exorcism (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320244/): Basic idea, a young preacher decides to give up exorcisms and lets a documentary crew follow him on his last exorcism so that he can try to debunk the whole 'scam' that he feels exorcisms really are. Not really much else to that description since that is only what it is. The acting is pretty basic and about the only one in the movie that does show some serious freaky acting would be the girl that is 'possessed' and even that is sketchy. The full capacity of her acting in this movie is giving totally blank and empty expressions at the camera one second and then in a blink of an eye lunge at the camera and attack. I have seen this same blank look and empty expression on many a young kid sitting on the bus or at the mall so not really a HUGE stretch for acting ability required there since she is born in '86. The only horror that exists in this movie is similiar to the jumping fright that you get when you are walking down a hallway and a little 7 year old (or your significant other who has the maturity of a 7 year old) jumps out at you from the dark doorway screaming "YAAAHHHH!". My reaction in this movie was the same as that. I jump, I gasp, I get my breath and laugh at the stupidity of it and then it is gone. Not like the terror and fear that you feel from a really great horror movie where you jump, you gasp and you try desperately to get your breath back and when you get home you sleep with the lights on for weeks or check your shower/car for strangers/monsters cause the thought of that movie still lingers in your mind.

It is also shot in the format of a documentary. You have the preacher and then the boom lady/interviewer who you see quite often and then there is the camera man that you don't see at all, though you hear his voice. While it doesn't have the same jerky seasickness feel that the Blair Witch Project had it is more in the feel of The Fourth Kind.

So, not really much else to say about this movie except do NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT go and see it. If you feel that you must go and see it then I highly suggest that you wait till it is on video and one of your friends buys it and you get it for free from them OR you wait till the library in your area gets it and you borrow it for free. I saw it on a $7.99 night and I feel I was robbed of the whole amount. It isn't even worth a $2.00 movie night cheap seats. If you have to pay a penny for this movie you are being robbed of your good hard earned cash. It is bad enough that you are being robbed of 87 minutes of your life, don't add insult to injury and lose cash to this movie.

Did I happen to mention that I thought this movie was horrible?

another week and charity event

So let's see what to say about this last week. Work is going good. Learning quite a bit, the people I work with are great and I have to say that while somethings feels the same (what I said in my last post of the speed of the work and having close quarters to work in with my co-workers) somethings are different and those are the things that I really enjoy. For instance, back in camp when something needed to be done and the information was being relayed to the workers it had a certain ring to it. Let's call this a test. Can you tell which one of these two statements is from camp and which one is from my new job:

A- "Hey bozo and 'penis'--head, you guys keep f&(*ing up, get your f&(*ing a$$ $*&t together and f&(*ing learn, here is what I want you f&(*ing idiots to do from now f&(*ing on"

OR

B - "excuse me. I see that things are done this way. If it is possible could you please do it this different way to make things easier on the next people. Thank you."

If you guessed A was from camp, especially when Radio was doing the info relaying, then you are correct and win a gold star. I have to say that it is so refreshing and nice to be in an industry where the only people that swear and belittle me are the customers and not the staff or supervisors.

Another thing that happened this week was that the Mrs and I went to a charity event for the food bank. There was a silent auction being held by a couple of her twitter friends and she sort of volunteered me (as in they asked her if I would do it, she asked me and I find it so hard to say no to the Mrs) to bake a pie for the silent auction. I attempted a lemon supreme pie (cream cheese bottom, lemon pie topping on top) kind of pie. Turned out not too badly though the top part was melting by the time we got there so it had to be frozen to preserve the look. We almost lost the pie on the way to the event because we were on the bus and the bus was about to turn left at the lights that were yellow and going red. The bus driver was accelerating through when a cabbie decided that he couldn't wait for the lights so he gunned it through the intersection making the bus driver decide whether to slam on the breaks and send everyone in the bus lurching forward OR drive through the cabbie and remove him from the world's gene pool. The Mrs and I both agree that the bus driver made the wrong, however it was the more humanitarian, decision and slammed on the breaks. The Mrs and I both agree that the bus driver should have gone through the cabbie. Anyways, by breaking it caused both the Mrs and I to lurch forward and nearly crushed the pie between herself and the seat back in front of her. Luckily all that happened was that the casing it was being carried in got a little bent but the pie was unhurt.

The event was basically a silent auction where you bid with food over money to help raise donations for the food bank. Basically you came in and weighed in the food that you were donating and the conversion rate was 100g/100ml/$1 = 100 TIKI points. You then would take the tiki points and use them to bid on the items that were up for grabs. There were a lot of really interesting items and my pie was part of a 'pain/pleasure' package where you got two yoga passes, a case of honey cinnamon water (made and brewed here in edmonton by the owners of the shop we were at...not too bad stuff actually), and my pie.

It was a fun event, I have to say. It was funny to watch because at the beginning no one was bidding on anything. It was all just the minimum bid. However, as soon as the auctioneer called out "20 minutes left in the bidding", people started to hover over the bids and put in their last minute bids. A few bidding wars started to the point where some people had two going at the same time so they would write down on one and instantly go to the other one to put their name down and back to the first one. One of the girls wanted a package so badly that when it was announced that it was '1 minute left to bid' she wrote her name on the form but held the pen as if 'I am thinking..do I want to bid...what should I bid...what amount should I put' to stall. It was funny to watch. In the end, I won two of the packages. I got 2 passes to a yoga studio and 250grams of specialty tea from the store we were at in one package and the other had a big black forest cake (really really good one too) and two more passes to the same yoga studio. Funny thing is that I noticed the yoga passes expire on Sept 30/10 and I wrote the company asking if they can be extended but still no answer. So looks like the Mrs and I might have to go and do some yoga in the next 4 weeks.

Also my grandmother and mother have been down visiting for the last week. Definitely different having people visiting and me being working during the day than being able to take an extra week off work to do nothing but visit and spend time with them. But we have all survived, got things done that we needed to get done and all.

Tonight I go to night shift for the first time. I work the 7pm to 3am shift so it definitely will be interesting to see how awake I am for my first shift. I am up now at 8:30am to see my mom and grandmother off to the airport then going out for lunch with A and V (V is back from camp for her time out) and then hopefully grab a two hour nap before heading in to work. Gonna be interesting.

street performers and work

Went to the street performers at the Fringe the other night. The Mrs had been asking me again and again about what shows I wanted to see at the Fringe but honestly I couldnt get into it. All the synopsis (synopsi? plural..synopsises?) about the plays always seem to be like 'an exhilirating experience of..' or 'a wild and wonderful ride of..' or even 'an intellectual roller coaster of experiences when...' about the play. However, when you go and see it is usually kind of lame. Like last year when we went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show play which was supposed to be a wild and exhilarating story on stage. Turned out to be a huge bomb since the acting was average and all but the worst part was when the narrator kept berating people for participating. So not really much of one for the actual plays. However, I am a huge fan of street performers. My favorite time of year is the street performers festival except I was usually in camp when they were out so I missed a lot of the acts and seasons, but the ones I saw I really enjoyed.

So we went to the Fringe street performers and all and I have to say that I was, on average, 'decent'. I mean there was one performer that we saw that was really really great. In the span of 45 minutes he did about 3 tricks that were really cool (dislocated his shoulders to manipulate a broom handle around, juggled fire sticks, juggled balls with the help of a young girl that was really adorable). There was one performer that was really bad as in the span of 45 minutes all he did was have volunteers handcuff him and tie him up with a long chain, put himself in a bag and in 1 minute get out of the bag and chains by basically peeling off the clothes he had on to reveal himself in a white under shirt, spandex bike shorts and a pink two-two. All the while he was insulting and taking jabs at people walking by. There were a couple others that we just looked at while walking past. The worst part about it all was the amount that they are asking for these days. Before at the festivals the performers always had the end wrap up of "thanks for watching, pay what you think it is worth, we appreciate anything that you can give and if you give me $5 you are my new best friend". Figured $2 for a decent act for the 20 minutes or so and $4 for a really awesome act was quite good and reasonable. However, the new wrap up is "$5 for a single person, $10 for a couple, $20 for a family and $50 I will be your new best friend". I guess I am branding myself a cheap skate here but I think that is kind of steep, especially when the act is nothing more than a guy insulting passers by. When I first heard that they were asking for $5 I laughed thinking it was part of the comedy routine but when the 2nd and 3rd said it I was thinking "wow, they are serious!" Guess I will just have to re-evaluate my entertainment practice. Figure either I can forgo going to the festivals cause I am too cheap to pay the $5 OR I become a 'free rider', which according to my game chaos philosophy is the best way to live in a society. Not the nicest way to live but the best and more economical.

Also work is going pretty good. Training is going well and I think I am slowly getting the hang of it all. The people I work with are all great with helping me out and showing me the ropes as well as I can not get over how polite everyone is. I do find it interesting how the other day I was looking at the office and it reminded me a lot like working in a kitchen. For instance, in the kitchen we had obstacles like cutting tables, deep fryers, grills, steamers and places to put things in like drawers, cabinets and hooks. In the office we have obstacles like cabinets, desks, fax machines, photo copiers, phones and computers as well as places to put things like counter tops, filing cabinets and shelves. In the kitchen there are usually 4 people crammed into a small little area that everyone has to work in. The camps were not too bad but by seeing where a friend of mine (who is a kitchen manager in a city restaurant) as well as seeing many cooking shows of restaurant cooks, you can see that everyone pretty much works with their backs up against each other and has to run around people or dodge people walking around with hot items in their hands. In the kitchen the only thing that seems to be yelled out is "HOT" for when someone is walking behind you opening something hot or a warning like "spill behind you" to tell you either to wipe it up now or becareful in the next 5 minutes while it is wiped up behind you. In the office everyone is so polite that if I am walking from the fax machine and have to wait while someone walks by me to get to the filing cabinet they always say "sorry, excuse me". It is so nice now to come to a place to work that is polite instead of people cutting you off and barking orders around.

cash does not mean CASH

first day cash training on the job. Little point of advice to people posting bail. 'cash deposit' does not always mean you have to give us paper. Seriously, when the judges/justices put that on the bail order they are not looking to make people targets for muggers by making them walk down the street with thousands of dollars worth of bills in their pockets. You can pay by credit card (visa or mastercard) or debit. We love plastic. Also, not only does paying by plastic (debit or credit card) make it easier on the person behind the screen BUT it speeds up your process. A card swipe and verification takes seconds and while counting out $200 in cash is not that long when it comes to $2,000.00 bail that takes serious time to count out the twenties, run each one under the counterfeit checker and then put it in the drawer. Cause if you are posting bail and are annoyed at the 30 minutes you have to sit in the chair waiting for the paperwork to be processed, why add a few extra minutes on top by making them count the cash?

Yes, I took a bit of cash bail today....yes, I found it strange to count out the money when if they have the cash they probably took it out of the bank so they should have a debit card.

week 1

My first week of work in the city has come and gone. I have to say that it is definitely going to be an interesting job to do. One thing for certain is that we definitely go through a lot of paperwork in this job.

So far the people I have worked with are definitely an interesting bunch. They are all friendly and hard workers that is for sure. For the one week that I have been there I think I am the only one that has taken our given break/lunch times. The first couple days I was there I took my 45 minute lunch break and my two 15 minute coffee breaks. The other couple days that slowly dwindled down. Not because I had so much work to do but simply because no one else in the office seemed to take their breaks so I felt really guilty being the only one taking the breaks. I guess it was because with me training and all I have just one little duty that I am doing again and again to get the pace down. It will get more interesting when I branch into the other areas and my brain is going to have to switch from the paper process for one document to the paper process for a different one and then back and forth. Definitely an office job and definitely NOT a cushy gov't job, that is for certain. Gonna be fun!

Other than that the Mrs and I went out on the River Queen (http://www.edmontonqueen.com/index.php?area_id=1000) which was pretty cool. We went with two friends of ours and we had a really nice time. I think I got a little bit too much sun because later that night when the Mrs and I were getting ready for our night out I was as red as a lobster in the face. Not a bad enough burn to make my face burn and hurt but red to the look to make me look kind of goofy. All in all it was definitely a rather cool thing to check out.

The main event, however, was Saturday night when the Mrs and I went to Cirque du Soleil: Alegria. We bought the tickets almost 4-5 months ago and had planned for this event for a long time. I even had to ask for a special week out of camp to make sure that I was going to be out for it since I was supposed to be scheduled to go back to camp last Wednesday but had them keep me out till this upcoming Wednesday. Well, that was before I got a job in the city and quit the camp but you can see the planning process that went in with planning this event. I knew CDS was something that the Mrs really really wanted to see so when she was going to select seats for the show I told her to get the floor as close to the front. She definitely got the best seats we could get for the show. We were front row as close to centre as we possibly could get. I mean, we were so close we could see the sweat beading on the chest of the guys after they did their acts and see the little lines of make up on the faces of the performers. I would swear that we were so close that when the fire jugglers were doing their thing I could feel the heat from the torches that they were carrying, we were that close. A definite awesome job by the Mrs selecting the seats.

The performers were amazing but the scene stealers of the show had to be the clowns. The Mrs bought a program for the show that had a list of all the performers and their nationality. They range from all over the world like Mongolia, Ukraine, France, Russia, Poland and USA to name only a few places and there are 7 Canadian performers. I found it funny that when I was looking at the program first off the first two Canadians listed were 'clowns'. I thought "WTH! that all Canadians are good for? Clowns???" Then on closer looking I found that there was an aerial high bar catcher, bandleader(Bass), powertrack (trampoline people) and keyboard player that were Canadian. So, three clowns and then those other 4. At the end of the performance when they performers all got a standing ovation for their work, the group that got the loudest applause and cheers were the clowns. I was wondering later if the other performers all get jealous of this sort of response since the other performers are doing amazing feats of strength, timing and skill, risking their lives for personal injury or even death and the ones that get the loudest cheers are the ones that make people laugh with absolutely no threat of injury or death. Oh well, chances are they are all professionals and have the attitude that as long as the crowd is happy, who cares who gets the loudest applause.

So, yeah, was definitely an interesting first week of work and another lifetime ahead of me. As you can see by this blog, no real idea which route to take for what to write about so will probably just fill it with mindless stuff for the time being until I find something to really talk about and all. Not sure if I want to go into the political/social commentary since, after reading and watching the news for the last week, there is soooo much I could comment on about the stupidity of what is happening in Canada today in that area that I would be here all the time writing and questioning. It would be almost like shooting ducks in a barrel and what fun is that?

two movie review

two quick reviews of movies that I saw over the last couple days.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963966/): Usual story, kid is destined to save the world found and recruited by an ancient sorcerer while being pursued by forces of evil. Luckily the characters were amusing enough with quips, wit and puns to make the movie interesting and appealing. A couple minor things that had me scratching my head and asking questions (much to the hatred of my movie watching friends) but not big enough ones to kill the movie. Plus the movie had the music and scene from Fantasia with the sorcerer and all. Was pretty amusing. Not a bad movie but definitely not a jaw dropping summer stealer.

Step Up 3D (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193631/) : rag tag dancers join up to beat a rival dance group for title of best dance crew. Not really much to say about this movie except from what I saw the actors in this movie are definitely not 'triple threats'. Triple threat defined as an actor that is equally excellent in dancing, singing and acting. All the people in this movie are definitely great dancers but definitely not acting but since they didnt do any singing will reserve judgement on that account. This movie definitely relied on the 3D effect to make the movie more than what it really was. They went all out with the tricks of throwing things at the audience and dancing 'in your face' style. I found it really distracting more than enjoying because I find that the dance is not just the lead character but a group of people all moving together to make a matching wave of people to the music. Having one person standing in front of me flashing their hands in my face made me want to lean back and try to look behind them to what the rest of the dancers were doing. The one thing that I can say definitely about this movie is that the 3D technology is getting so great and advanced now that just watching the movie made me uncomfortable as the actors on the screen felt like they were invading my personal body bubble space.

first day

well, first day down....life time to go :-)

It was definitely an interesting day to say the least. Not really much to report as I spent the whole day doing orientation about the building and getting set up with cards and stuff. I have to say that the gov't definitely has a better idea of orientation than the camps did. I did orientation in the camps for 6 hours and only 30 minutes of it were actually applicable to my job and myself, the rest was for the information of other workers and not myself. I mean, I was orientated on the speed that you can drive around camp (I didnt have a licence or truck to drive), I was informed on the proper procedure on drilling on a frozen lake (not mentioned in my job description that the 2nd cook/dishwasher would be required to drill on a frozen lake), informed on the proper procedure on how to handle wildlife when we came across it (we were repeatedly told not to go outside of the camp as we didnt have the proper safety equipment) and how to handle hazardous spills like drill oil or gasoline (the most hazardous liquid we were allowed to touch was deep fry oil). However, for the gov't I was orientated on the computer system (I will be using), office harrassment policy (so nice to be in an environment that didnt involve conversations about sex with hookers like was a standard topic in camp) and where my key card allows me to go to (which I will be required to go to on a regular basis for supplies or drop off files). While the orientation did take all day it was all related to my job. Not once was I given orientation on the proper procedures to taking down a riot in the cells of the remand centre or told how to receive shipped units of toilet paper for the janitor.

In the end, a nice day was had and for the next two weeks I am going to be trained by the head supervisor. So will keep my ears and eyes open and learn as much as I possibly can to be the best darn worker that I can be....*G*

movies and festivals

Well it has been a rather interesting and adventure filled couple weeks being out of camp. What have we done? We have watched a few movies. Here are some quick reviews:

Inception (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/): Psychological mind thriller about a 'theif' who steals subconscious information from individuals during a dream state. Incredibly interesting story and plot, well written, nicely played out and a fantastic ending. Downside to the movie? Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't know if he is just type casted by the director so that when he steps on the set he has great ideas of all the wonderful things he can do and make this character come alive but the director steps in and just says "no no no no..we don't want that. We got you on this project for this one character. I want you to be blank, totally blank, no expression or feeling whatsoever...Think Shutter Island. Give me that guy!" If only they had gotten someone else to play the character since Leo was really out of place with all the others that seemed to have caring, depth, personality against Leo's character of sheer blankness.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1287468/): Extremely cute kids movie sequeled to the first Cats and Dogs. In the sequel the teams of elite cats and dogs that are out to save the world from mischief that the humans don't know about team up to stop a mad cat from dominating the world. It has a lot of cute moments and all with just enough butt jokes to make the kids laugh and stay interested without going too far into the realm of just plain pathetic. Of course there is a moral lesson in the film that isn't too subtly hidden so that the kids get it right square in the face as to what they are to take away from the film. Only down side to the movie is that in the trailer when the robot message squirrel decides to play a little tune for the dog before self destructing you get to listen to the Hamster Dance, which totally rocks and is hilarious, but instead in the movie you get to listen to a cheap little nothing song. Very disappointing in that respect.

Predators (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424381/): Not really much to say about this one. Total gore fest with some violence thrown in for good measure. Individuals who are known for their violent tendancies (mercenaries, gang enforcers, military deviants) are put on a planet and hunted down by alien predators. Incredibly stupid plot and story as well as bland developement of the characters along the way. There was so much potential as to what could have happened but in the end it left it sort of wanting. This film is supposed to take place after the Predator (Arnie movie) and Predator 2 (Danny Glover movie) without taking into consideration for the Alien VS Predator movies. However, the movie makers introduced an almost new breed of Predators without really giving any explanation to their existance or whatever. Never really was a big fan of that sort of movie. I call them the "I got a secret" kind of movie. I like 'cliffhangers' and movies that make you go "Ok, you have all the evidence, come to your own conclusion as to how it ends" but the "I got a secret" is like in grade school when someone comes up to you and goes "I learned something cool but I am not supposed to tell you so I got a secret" and then walks away. If you have a secret, don't tell me about it unless you are willing to give information freely to make me figure out your secret. This movie basically says "here are new predators but we arent gonna give you any information about them". Both the Mrs and I developed different ideas as to the new predators but neither of us had any evidence from the movie to back it up but was just our gut feeling.

We also attended the Heritage Festival, Taste of Edmonton and Klondike Days (even though it is named Capital X now we all agree that it is still 'K Days' and that Capital X is basically the stupidist name that the PC tree huggers have ever come up with for this event). Even though the prices were too high and the portions too small in both events we only ended up eating at the Heritage Festival and not Taste of Edmonton. We did get a few things to eat at K Days but only because we were there a long time and starving. Normally I would shun paying $5 for a corn dog and $12 for Millinum Fries (think freshly fried potatoe chips in a bowl. I could get 4 bags of large Lays potatoe chips for the price and feed more than one order of M Fries). I also can't believe I spent nearly $6 on a donair at Heritage Festival and all they gave me were two strips of donair meat (almost wafer thin and dried out), a cold pita bread and wilted lettuce with diced up tomatoes on a plate and I had to assemble the donair myself. No sauce, no dressing, no nothing. For $6 I could have gone to a fast food joint and gotten fries, drink and an assembled donair for that price. There were some cool demonstrations and all in the way of dancing, instruments and all so it was pretty cool.

This weekend the Mrs and I have rented a car to go around and do some things like going to a Jurrasic Forest (Mrs found this thing and now we are just going to check it out), corn maze and go out to visit a friend of mine up north of Edmonton. Definitely will be interesting.

Other than that, nothing really out of the ordinary. Usual stuff and all. Oh, I did quit my camp job and got a new job in the city. I start my job as a judicial clerk in the bail office on Monday.

bite my tongue..oh so bite my tongue

The IT guy is back in camp and the internet connection has gone all funky. We have been up and down for the last couple days and everyone is complaining that it is broken and all but the IT guy says that everything is running smoothly. All we can say to that is that if it was running smoothly then the managers wouldn’t be having the entire camp complaining to him every day that the internet connection is down and not responding.

Had a bit of a fight with the old dishwasher that we have in camp. His favourite saying these days as the dishwasher is “Tony told me this”. Henry, the old dishwasher, has basically two regular duties for his job, clean dirty dishes and keep an eye on the vegetable pails (potatoes, carrots, celery, onions) to keep them stocked up. We told him awhile ago that we need at least 2 pails of these items at all times. We said he can wait till it gets down to one pail but after that he has to fill them up. For the last couple days we have watched the pails dwindle down to almost nothing and no refilling has been done. Finally the other dishwasher came to me and said that Henry is waiting for us to ask him to fill the buckets cause apparently “Tony told him” that unless the cooks ask for the pails to be filled, not to do it. About 10 minutes later Henry came up and asked “So what is the magic word today?” and I asked what he meant and he said “what pails do you need filled?” I just looked at him and went into a huge rant swearing at the idiot and calling him a moron. He has only two regular duties and I felt that I didn’t have the time or the energy to babysit him since it is not that hard to count the pails and fill them when needed. He ended up doing the vegetables and he asked me how he should do something later and my only response to him was “I don’t know, what does Tony say?”. He ended up doing it the way he wanted to but had to ask me if that was a ‘smart ass response’. In the end I am doing the vegetable pails now because it is easier and quicker for me to look and keep track of them than try to baby sit him.

I am going to baker this Wednesday, which should be interesting. I figure I have proven my theory about them putting me on baking. In the other camps I had no baking cooking books or any tools and they would get to me cover Donna cause she was too drunk to get on the plane to come to work for a couple days. I then started to bring in my baking books and all till I had a really good collection here. They then stopped to ask me to bake. I think with my arsenal of cooking books in camp I was asked to bake maybe a week or a couple of days. Last time I went out I decided to cut down on the crap I had in camp so I took about 75% of my books home and only brought in the bare necessities of books. Of course what happens? I get asked to go to baker for 2 weeks straight. I am fully prepared, not a chance of being baker; I am under prepared, I am put on baker for a long time. The fates have it in for me. Even better is that Sheldon is back but he is going to days as the 2nd cook helper. Talk about pressure now. Sheldon, a really really great baker is on days and I am doing baking at night. Everyone in camp is going to be asking him why he is cutting vegetables on days for the 1st cook while I am stumbling through baking. Talk about pressure.

My ‘nearly get in trouble cause of my big mouth’ moment came the other day. Radio was telling me about me going to baking and all and Sheldon and Roger on days. This is basically what he told me:

Radio: You will be going to nights as the baker and the new guy is going to breakfast cook with his wife as his helper. I figure that you wont be of much help to him at nights cause you aren’t that great of a baker, no offence, I know that Donna could help him out cause she has been baking for such a long time that she could do it with her eyes closed but you will need extra time.

Of course my first reaction to that was to say “really? Well maybe you should tell Donna to start baking with her eyes open and maybe we wouldn't have such crappy desserts when she bakes” but I bit my tongue on that one. Then was going to mention “I am sure that Donna could help him with breakfast stuff but she doesn’t help the breakfast cook cause that would cut into her 4 hour breaks at night” but again, bit my tongue. I ended up just looking at him and nodding. I find that is the best way to handle that sort of thing with him. I say little and just nod and wonder exactly how much BS he can shovel in a day and wonder if he really believes the crap that comes out of his mouth at times.

peeing in the shower....and MISSING

ok, nearly a couple weeks so quick update. I have to say that the last week and a half in camp have been about the most relaxed days that I have had in camp as the 2nd cook in a long time. Why is this? the extra hand in the kitchen definitely has something to do with it that is for sure. For the first week we had Peter (new guy, northerner, works really well, quiet but will talk when you approach him, knows his way around the kitchen but a little slow on the knife but, and this is the most important thing, he never takes breaks. Works hard all the way through his shift. A totally new concept for most of the northerners that we hire here in camp) but he left last Wednesday and we got Nick back as the 1st cook so Chris went to the helper and I stayed 2nd. Still nice to see that they took a few of the duties that were originally mine.

On the plus side I am not running around doing about 5 things at once trying to get everything done and barely coming under the wire. On the down side, I realize how boring this job really is when you are not running around doing 5 things at once trying to get everything done and barely coming in under the wire. The work is like that annoying person in school that kept hanging around you all the time (if you are a girl that person was probably a boy who was 'in love' with you; if you are a guy chances are it was that geeky little guy that you were nice to and he idolized you and wanted to be just like you) and basically being a pain. When they were around you wished they would leave you along and you could get some peace and quiet but then once they left (either cause they took the hint finally or had to go away on vacation) you missed having them around and you realized how boring most of the days were. That is what it is like here. I am slightly bored doing the same old things and am going out of my way looking for more work to keep myself busy. For steak night instead of just regular baked potatoes I made 120 stuffed baked potatoes as well as the regular baked potatoes. However, still enjoying the chance to sit down for daily meals of lunch and supper.

As to other annoying things, for the first week the IT guy was out of camp and the internet worked. It was slow and went down for one evening but was up the next morning instantly. The IT guy came in and within 24 hours is was down on a regular basis and then yesterday it was down for a whole 24 hours. So yeah, that is one of the biggest annoyances so far.

Though this one is a close second. I can understand that some people pee in the shower. I accept that it is possible that when I go in to shower up here in camp that someone has probably peed in the shower before me. It is with this knowledge in my mind that makes me spray the shower down with the disinfectant that they supply and then run the shower for a couple minutes to hopefully wash as much of anything away as possible as well as wearing flip flops in the shower. I figure this is the extent that I could possible go minus bringing in shower cleaner and a sponge with me and cleaning the shower completely every morning. However, I find it really annoying, and slightly scary, when some people pee in the shower and MISS the shower completely. I can understand missing the toilet bowl first thing in the morning since it is early, your tired, the bowl is soooo small with one eye closed and the other half open with sleep and you are trying to hit it with a squirt gun. It is kind of like one of those carnival games where you have to squirt a clowns mouth that is about the size of a quarter from 6 feet away with a squirt gun. Very little actually gets inside the clowns mouth. However this is a shower. The guy is basically standing INSIDE the toilet bowl and he missed. I mean, either how tired or stupid can he be to miss the shower????? Of course I was about to walk into the shower room, saw this big pool of yellow water on the floor and instantly walked out of that shower room and went to another one. Someone else can clean up that mess.

So that is the fun that I am having in camp. 2nd cook for the next couple days and then I am supposed to go to nights as the baker. However that could change as we are getting a new 2nd cook hired that is supposed to start on Wednesday. On one hand I am going to say that he wont last long since we haven't had a 2nd cook come in and last in the position for long because it is so much work. However, with there being an extra person in the kitchen it might be slow enough that this new person will stick around. Will see what happens. Though I know for certain when it comes to baking I am not going to be doing anything funky or too extreme. Just going to do the small simple things like pies, chocolate cake, brownies, butter tarts and that sort of thing till I get them down pat.

devil that you know...

I can't believe Radio actually said those words to me. I get to camp, look at the flight manifest and notice a name of an employee that we had working for us about a year ago. The guy is in his late 60's, native and has either the memory span of a goldfish (cause he often forgets to do the duties that he has been told to do) or the energy level of a sloth (cause he often doesn't do the duties that he has been told to do). He was dismissed from the company awhile ago cause he got drunk on his way out of camp and held a party in his company paid for hotel room and trashed the place. I remember hearing talk about booze spilt, cigarette burns in the carpet and blood everywhere. When confronted about his inappropriate behaviour he broke out in anger and quit. Now he is back and on nights doing about 1/4 of the job that a normal night shift janitor has to do. So, that means now we have 3 night shift janitors (all northerners) to do the job that one night janitor used to do. When I looked at Radio in disbelief in this little thing all he could say was 'it is better to hire the devil you know than the devil you don't know'.

Luckily I was smart enough to check my southern common sense at the airport before getting on the plane and had my camp sense in my head so that made perfect sense. After all my southern common sense in the work place would have screamed "better to hire the person that does the job right instead of the lazy butt head that you know cant do the job". It would have made connections of the fact that the logic he was spouting was like going grocery shopping and saying "I remember buying this cheese and it made me throw up, gave me horrible stomach cramps and I had the runs for a week afterwards cause of it....but, better to eat this cheese and know what is gonna happen than buy a different brand that I might have no problem with". However, since I had my camp sense in my head I nodded and went "great plan chief" and walked away.

I will try to make this rant shorter than the rest. Wont go into too much detail but for some reason they have decided to cut back on vegetable buying, or they know that the new 1st cook loves to cook with vegetables and does so on a regular basis but instead of buying more vegetables to meet his needs of cooking they buy the same amount and hope that he sees that he isn't getting all the vegetables he cooks with and will stop cooking with them all the time. Which means I have no got the challenge of putting out a leaf salad for lunch AND dinner with only 5 heads of iceberg lettuce (4 of which I already used to the two tossed today) and 5 bags of spinach (of which I used a bag and a half already bulking up the tossed due to small amounts of iceberg available) and no romaine. I also still have to put out 2 vegetables at dinner and make 3 mixed salads for supper. I went to the freezer thinking that they would have some frozen veggies to help in this situation. All I found was 2 bags of frozen peas and two boxes of frozen corn. So at least that means I will be safe for Sunday (frozen peas and carrot cubes for one) and Friday (corn on the cob for one). Ahh, talk about the thrill of the job.

Since it is late and I should be going to bed I will add one more funny thing and will continue with my head shaking rants next day. I tried to open up my comics pages to get some funny relief from the day. I was disappointed to note that all 25 websites for my comics were blocked by the netnanny. The reason was the classification of the websites. Some were labelled as 'advertisements' some were labelled as 'shopping' but the best was that a couple were labelled "humour/jokes". Apparently in camp you can block a site because it is considered amusing and funny. This I find to be the most amusing and funny considering the stupidity of the decisions made around this place by some of the higher ups. Well, maybe not stupid since I am sure, or at least hope, that the decisions they make have favorable outcomes in the area that they are made eve though they are considered ass backwards at the lower levels where we sit. Even better was that I opened up the 'to read' folder that I have in my favorites which bring up news pages, flickr accounts, letters to the editor of the Edmonton Sun, the Edmonton sunshine girl and the Mrs' xanga webpage. Seems the sunshine girl came through no problem (though not the best one they have had) but my wife's xanga blog page has been banned cause of 'adult/mature material'. A girl posing half naked in underwear and a bra is acceptable but my wife blogging about vintage cars and lightening storms are adult/mature subject matter? like I said, I hope that these decisions have favorable outcomes higher up cause at my level they are just plain stupid.

Ignorance is bliss

I guess ignorance truly is bliss. Here I thought that Canada was a free speech/free to protest nation where as long as you were peaceful, didn't carry weapons (pitchforks, flaming torches) and basically hung around someplace you could do it unmolested by the police. It is when you start to break up windows and throw things or taunt the police that you turn from a peaceful protesters to a violent one and the police can take charge on the situation. After seeing this video on youtube that the Mrs showed me yesterday, and watching the extended one later on, I am wondering what else is happening out here that the real news are not reporting but is happening around the country.

Here is the thirty second clip of the ending of the protest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heb9BXjYcII&feature=player_embedded

Here is the extended version, complete 9 minute showing:

http://www.vimeo.com/12907488

From what I can tell of the 9 minute video the only thing that the protesters are guilty of would be doing a really bad voice impression of William Wallace of Braveheart.

Granted tensions are high there because of other protesters doing bad things in other areas. I have heard that there are some cars burning, hundreds are being arrested and all...however, when you have a crowd singing O Canada carrying only cameras and doing bad renditions from movies and the police have police shields, horses, handcuffs and batons...how can the police feel threatened by such people?

I do like the last words of the camera person at the end of the full length video. "And that's why I don't have faith in anything anymore".

4 weeks of hell over, out of camp now

Out of camp I am. I have to say that these last 4 weeks in camp had to be one of the most stressful and annoying that I have ever experienced. I dont know if it was just the huge stack of work, the grumbling of the people in the kitchen or the fact that it seems that everytime Radio opened his mouth I, along with a few others, wanted to shut it with a meat tenderizing hammer.

The last week in camp had to be one of the most relaxed and enjoyable times, though a couple things had me looking at the camp managers going "are you serious?" Like, for instance, when I was on 2nd cook duties I was told that the breakfast cook had a lot of things to do so I was responsible for whatever breakfast and sandwich prep I could do. I would come in to work in the morning and have a little list of things like 'roll bacon, slice meat' and that sort of thing. I would do my 2nd cook duties and then do his prep work and all. So when I was on breakfast I had all my breakfast prep done easily enough but I was running low on sliced meat for sandwiches. I asked the camp manager if they would be slicing my sandwich meat during the day (like I did) and was told that he wasnt comfortable with having the day shift people slice the meat and I would be responsible for doing it at night. It seems that out of all the camps in the company that we are in, we are the only camp that has an actual meat slicer and if we have one injury on it either when slicing meat or by cleaning it then we lose the slicer and have to go to pre-sliced/fabricated meat. The pre-sliced meat would be easier to use but not as tasty as fresh sliced meat. As a result of this fear of injury on the slicer there are only two people in camp that are 'adequately trained' meaning 'have used it for over a year with no injury' to operate it. Those two people are the day 1st cook and myself. Since the 1st cook was busy helping the new 1st cook and assisting the cover 2nd cook I got the job at night. Even the baker was shaking his head at that saying that it was unacceptable for that sort of thing since he knows how much work the breakfast cook has to do.

However, it is sooo relaxing working night shift because there is no one around to ask stupid questions and the baker puts his head down and works as hard as I did. Neither of us got breaks so we were both on equal ground. Nothing more annoying than me being 2nd cook and always having something to do (either stuff for my salads or prep work for the 1st cook) and seeing the dishwashers and 1st cook taking hour breaks every day. Also the things that people do during breakfast make me smile and give me some comic relief. For instance, there was one guy that came through the line and asked "can you poach an egg?" which of course when you ask me in that way you are not going to get a simple 'yes'. My response was "we have the technology to do that, yes". He looked at me like I was a nut and said he wanted two poached and to my 'easy, medium or soft' I got "I dont f*&king care". Some have no sense of ha ha in the morning. Though I found out later from the baker that when he was cooking breakfast he had a run in with the guy a week and a half ago. The baker saw the guy standing at the steam line looking sort of down and lost. When asked if he was looking for something specific he answered "what I am looking for you havent got". The baker asked "what is that?" and was told "breakfast sandwiches". Apparently he said it in such a way that it reminded the baker of a 6 year old pouting that he wasnt getting his favorite breakfast meal. The baker laughed and in a loud voice so that people a few tables over could hear he said "awww, that is so cute...can you say that again but with your lip a little lower to the floor". Guess the guy was so embarrassed by the way he was responded to that he didnt come and ask for eggs the entire time the baker was on breakfast. After my response he stuck to scrambled eggs for the entire week as well.

Another time I was standing at the line waiting for an egg order when a guy came up to the french toast tray. He lifted the lid, that had a set of tongs sitting right on the top of the lid, and reached in with his fork from his tray and stabbed two pieces of french toast and put them on his plate. Normally when we have seen this done we lecture them not to do that since they usually use forks that they have already eaten with and they are coming back for seconds but since this was a new fork I decided not to make a big deal out of it. However, I had to smile and nearly laugh when the guy then stuck his fork into a piece of french toast in the line and then left the fork there. It was like those times when you are at the dinner table and you use your spoon to take out some cranberry sauce or something but then forget to take your spoon back and you realize a second later that your spoon has now done the round of the table and you have no spoon. The guy looked over at me and saw me smiling and gave me a half hearted smile back and I said "that is what we have tongs for but thanks for donating your fork". The guy looked at his plate and then at the fork stuck in the french toast on the line and broke into a big smile and started to laugh. He took his fork back and smiled and I gave him a final "since it is the morning I wont bust you for that" and he went to sit down. After that I took the french toast he stabbed plus the other 3 under it (in case there was too much penetration) and threw them out for appearances sake.

After seeing that and knowing peoples habit of using their fork to take stuff from a buffet steam line, dont think I am gonna be eating at a buffet anytime soon, if ever again in my life.

So yeah, was an interesting time in camp and now have 2 weeks out to look forward to before returning to camp. Oh oh oh, one last thing. The day before I left I heard that the 1st cook was talking with a couple other underlings about the possibility that Big D was going to be transferred to the other camp opening soon as the baker. I think it is because she is definitely a more small camp baker/worker than a big camp worker. We need fast, efficient and talented people in the kitchen at the big camp and she lacks in all 3 areas. So with her in the smaller camp it was wondered who was going to be the baker in the big camp. Of course when I heard that I let my fantasies, hopes and dreams go wild. My dream was that I would be breakfast cover for the breakfast cook when he is out for his two weeks and then baker cover for the baker for his two weeks out and then I would get my two weeks out. That would mean that with three people they would have breakfast and baker position covered without worry. Of course, that dream was shattered a second later when reality kicked in. Reality being that in the span of a two months we have had three 2nd cooks quit and the only 2nd cook that has stuck in the position, and seem to be fast and efficient enough to do the job well, is myself. So either that means I am considered a great asset to the company or I just have no real spine to stand up and tell them "screw this job, you cant walk all over me like that, I can find work anywhere in a second and I dont have to put up with your crap" I just take their big bowl of steaming crap and happily ask for seconds. Though, that second of hope and dream was pure heaven.

finally..night shift

It happened, I have switched over to night shift as the breakfast cook. We got our new 1st cook (guy has worked with us before in another camp and has come back for more punishment) and dishwasher so I was finally switched over to nights.

The first night I had as breakfast cook was pretty simple since I worked the day leading up to it and did all the prep already so all I had to do was walk in at 2:30am and start cooking and heating stuff up. Today was a little bit more complicated as I started my 8:30pm to 8:30am full shift.

First shift was a total storm of people. First off it was fly day so everyone was getting off work early and coming in for their last big meal before getting on the plane to leave. I couldn't keep stuff on the steam line fast enough. I would put out 10 french toast and 6 pancakes then I would get orders for 5 different types of eggs and by the time I blinked and looked back at the line we were down to 1 french toast and pancake. I remember the breakfast cook I was replacing was put on full time baker and he was hanging around giving me tips and pointers on timing. He said that he would do some prep work while cooking breakfast in the slow time. It was so busy I didnt even have time to get the mushrooms out to slice for omelette prep it was so busy.

Today was the total opposite. I basically pushed the limits of my speed to get all the sandwiches made and breakfast prep done before breakfast cause I figured it would be like the day before and I would get no work done. Come 5am when I opened the line I had 18 french toasts, 10 pancakes, full pan of bacon and hash browns, 12 slices of ham, 10 bologna, 25 beef sausages and around 80 pork sausages all on the line (not counting the scrambled egg bin full, oatmeal, 30 hard boiled eggs and a full container of hot beans) and ready to take orders for eggs. By 15 minutes past, when the day before I had about 10 orders plus a quickly depleating steam line of food, I had 2 egg orders and maybe 5 people come through the line for oatmeal and boiled eggs. Problem was that I had prepped up everything so there was really nothing to do but hang around and wait for orders to come in. Nothing more frustrating than having all this free time to do prep work but not having any prep work to do since the stuff for breakfast can not be prepped too far ahead or else it goes funky.

I do really enjoy the night shift because you dont have to deal with people always stopping your work to ask stupid little questions like "do you have any rye bread?" or stuff like that. I go by the thought of camp life, if it aint on the shelf than chances are we dont have it. The kitchen staff is not so bored out in camp that we make a game out of hiding food or hoarding the good stuff in the back and not putting it out for people. Nights you go in and start work and with the exception of the night baker walking around talking to himself (eg. "I gots the carrot cake in now, comes outs at 1am then the chocolate cakes goes in but thats nots done till 1:45 buts I have the cookies to trays......" as he walks away mumbling to himself) you dont see a single soul for hours. I likes the peace and quiet just fine. Now I just have to train the baker into knowing my work habits since all day shift knows that I am not the talker when I work. It is not a sign of stress or overworking but just I dont do the small talk chatter while I work like some do. The baker must have thought I was really stressed and all cause he kept coming by and asking "are you alright? you doing fine? you behind, yous just lets me knows" (if you havent guessed the baker is a newfie through and through...he is so newfie that he will throw in a few newfie slang now and then that makes us in the kitchen shake our head and go 'try that again?').

The only problem with night shift is that I have to deal for 3 hours with the people in camp when they come to place their order. Now I don't really mind the way some of them have made up words for how they want their eggs done. Like when the french guys come up and ask for their eggs "well done", or there is one guy that says "two eggs cooked good around the outside of the yolk yet still runny in the centre"...yeah dude that would be eggs over medium, but ok, your way sounds so much more professional. I can even handle the way they give me hand signals like it is a universal language of eggs. Like when they give you two fingers (sort of like the British two finger salute) and then hold their palms upwards and flips them over so that their palms are face down. This is egg sign language for two over easy. It is quite easy to figure out though the one that threw me for a loop was when one guy held up the two fingers and then made the hawaiian 'hang loose' gesture with his knuckles facing towards me and then shook his thumb and finger up and down. Apparently that is an egg swimming so he wants two poached eggs.

All is good but the one thing that I can not stand that annoys me to no end is when they stand at the toaster to place their order. Picture the end of the steam line to be about 20 feet away from the grill. I will be at the grill cooking some eggs or something and I will look down and see someone standing there. Some guess dont know the egg sign language so he talks but because of the chatter from the dining room and exhaust fan I cant hear him so I have to start walking towards him. Depending on how loud he is talking I usually get half way before I hear what is being said then I have to turn around and go back to the grill to start his order. Once his eggs are nearly ready I then have to walk back to where he is at the toaster to get his plate to walk back to the grill to get his eggs to walk back to the toaster to give him the plate. Then what does about 90% of the people do? walk down the steam line to get bacon and sausage, which is about 10 feet tops away from the grill. I can literally turn from the grill, take 2 steps and be at the steam line to hand him his plate.

Before anyone says "why dont you just take their plate when they place their order?" I had thought of that however when there are 5 egg orders on the grill and everyone has some type of toast or fruit on their plate, it is difficult in the rush to remember whose bread/fruit goes with whose egg.

So now I am slowing training the monkeys. Instead of going cold turkey and making them all walk down the line, which would be too much for some of these guys, I am slowing getting them closer to the line. I will hold my hand to my ear like I cant hear them but go about 1/4 of the way there and make them walk a bit down the line. I am hoping, in a few rotations, to have them trained so that they will automatically come down the line to place their order.

So yeah, am on night shift and am still loving it.

ways to tick off the camp manager

I sense that I have a different way of dealing with stress than the 1st cook does. I have noticed that in the past few days the 1st cook has taken to coming into the kitchen, running around like a complete and total mad man trying to get everything done in the shortest time possible and then leaving the kitchen for a 'quick smoke' (won't go into my usual confusion of how a smoker can take 8 ten minute smoke breaks a day, plus their coffee break and lunch break, and be considered a hard worker but a non-smoker takes an extra 10 minute break on top of their coffee break and lunch break and they are considered lazy) and then comes back into the kitchen with a frenzied look in his eyes and does the cycle over again. However, my method of dealing with the stress and all is just to basically shut down everything, plod away at what I have to do and have the attitude of 'if it gets done, it gets done; if it doesn't, then it didn't get done'.

For instance, we have to make a vegetarian dish every night for the herbivores (all 5 of them) in camp. The 1st cook had no idea what to make so he grabbed the eggplant (that has been in the fridge for quite some time) and threw together some eggplant Parmesan, or at least the camp version of it. Cut the eggplant into large round circles, dredged them in flour, deep fried them and then stacked them in the baking pan with spaghetti sauce (sauce, eggplant, mozza cheese, eggplant, mozza cheese, parm cheese). They must have looked really good cause most guys during dinner service would go 'wow, that looks tasty' and grab the spatula and just as they were getting one to put on their plate they asked me 'what is it?' and when I said 'eggplant Parmesan' it instantly got put back in the pan and they made a face and moved on. Anyways, he came out with two pans of eggplant and said "ok, I have 20 parmesans, think that will be enough?" I looked at the pans and asked "do you have any more eggplant?" to which he replied "nope" so my simple answer was 'then I guess that is enough'. He sort of looked at me dumbfounded like 'my god, why didn't I think of that logic?!?!?!?' and smiled and went "I like the way you are thinking" and went off on another frenzy run.

So what does our differing attitude have to do with what I am going to say? well, I have discovered that from my total lack of enthusiasm and all in camp this rotation I have discovered 3 ways to tick off Tony.

#1 : Purple cabbage out as a vegetable.
As 2nd cook duties I am responsible for putting out a vegetable. I found that green steamed cabbage seems to go pretty good but I was out of that and wondered how purple cabbage would go over. I had it cut up for Mondays dinner but was told by Tony not to put it out with the other vegetable cause the two were not that strong and no one eats steamed cabbage. I had the cabbage already cut up so I ran it as a vegetable on Tuesday. I noticed his look of disgust when he was walking by the vegetable part of the steam line.

#2 : Play 'guess the spice' in the food.
I made the roast potatoes for supper. As they were coming out of the oven Tony came by and took one and bite into it. Without thinking I asked 'can you taste the rosemary?' to which he said "oh yeah, lots of it". Well there was no rosemary and I told him that there wasn't because "I know better than to put rosemary into anything when you are in camp". Tony hates rosemary in anything it seems. He says it isn't the taste but the fact that you sometimes get the needles stabbing you in the mouth/gums when you bite into the item. He looked at me with either a look of 'you ticked me off, mortal!' or 'no rosemary, so what am I tasting?' I did mention it was another herb he hates and he got it on the next guess. I said there was basil, thyme (the other spice he hates), pepper, seasoning salt and paprika. He said that basil and thyme do not go together since basil goes with food and thyme goes with the garbage.

#3 : say you will get something when you have no right, apparently, to do so
There is a guy in camp that we call craphead (well, technically another word for crap but yeah, you get the idea). We call him this cause he is a pain in the butt and he has dreadlocks that are curled and tied up on his head and, as the 1st cook puts it, he looks 'like someone did a triple coiler on his head'. Anyways, the guy came up to me and asked if we had a set menu (I confirmed our set 8 week menu) and asked if he could get a copy of it to take to a nutritionist. I only said that I would check with the cook and all and see about getting a copy. I asked the 1st cook and was told 'tell him to go to hell'; I asked Stephanie in the office and was told 'tell him to go to hell'; and then I asked Tony and was told 'tell him to fornicate himself and then go to hell'. As well as having the same answer to the request they had the same reason. Apparently they are worried that he doesn't want it for his own personal use but because he wants to take the menu to one of the big wigs to complain that there are not enough vegetarian options and say that we are starving the vegetarians with all our meat eating ways. The big bosses then will force us to make half and half vegetarian to meat eating food items which will make more work for the cooks plus drive food costs up since that means a lot more vegetables. The big bosses however will have no clue that it is not a good idea because there are about 195 mouths that are meat and potato loving men and only 5 pseudo-vegetarians since most of them are the main eaters of chicken wings on junk food night and will kill any poached/steamed fish that we put on the line.

In the end I told craphead that he had to talk to Tony about the menu since they all agreed that a menu does nothing for a nutritionist since it isn't what is on the menu that they need to know but what goes into that food item and how it is cooked. The menu may say "chicken breasts" but there is a difference between a slow steamed chicken breast with no seasoning or skin and a chicken breast that is battered with bread crumbs, deep fried and served with a white gravy sauce. So yeah, Tony was not impressed on that one either since I apparently leaked out that we have a set menu now that is hanging on our back board and the menu isn't a 'make it up as you go along with what is available' type deal.

So yeah, three ways to tick off Tony. Now if that had happened a year or even 6 months ago I would have been stressing out on the fact that I might have done a bad job and be worried about the consequences to my actions. These days I look and go 'it was done, get over it' and go about my regular plugging away.

On the bright side, we are getting our two new cooks (HOPEFULLY) today, if there is a plane coming in and all. Though they wont be going right to work since they have to waste half a day in orientation learning the proper way to dispose of oil and other industrial fluids like brake, transmission fluids and drilling lubricant as well as the proper procedure for laying down drilling hoses on ice so as not to melt away portions that could cause an unsafe working condition. Another general broad spectrum waste of time brought to you by your friendly minds of the company. So we are thinking that I am on days until Thursday afternoon and then I go to sleep for half of the day and get up to do Thursday 8:30pm to Friday morning 8:30am and then I am on nights for one week to do breakfast.

blasting and signs

So they started blasting on the ridge right behind the cabins yesterday. Seems like it is going to be a daily thing now, though in the last safety meeting we had they said they were blasting three times a day. That I found hard to believe considering the amount of drilling and work that goes into each blast. Out staff were given instructions on what we had to do leading up to, during and after the blast. The housekeepers had to guard doorways leading out of camp and the 1st cook has to guard the door leading to the back of the kitchen while everyone else in the dining room has to keep people away from the windows during the blast. Though Tony had a good point in that if a stray rock or something were to come flying at the camp because of the explosives that were laid under/around it, the debris would fly through the camp wall and pretty much through anyone standing in it's path...window or wall, it would go through you.

Yesterday was the first blast. Of course everyone came to the dining room earlier than they were supposed to and some were even standing at the window or stepping back from it with their camera in hand trying to get the most optimal spot for the blast. When I looked out at the dining room just before the blast happened, everyone was sitting as close to the windows as they possibly could to get a look at this blast up close. After all, we have seen blasts from a distance and we see smoke, dust and rock go flying up in a big display and a lot of noise and who doesn't like to see destruction at that level, right?

So everyone is sitting in the dining room except for one of the big bosses who came to the back kitchen area where the 1st cook was guarding and got a front row seat at one of the windows. I can see the hypocrisy in that statement since the rule we were given was no one was allowed to be anywhere near a window and this boss was standing at the window, basically with his face pressed up against the glass. I guess it is true that there are rules for the rulers and rules for the ruled. Either that or everyone knows that if you lose the life of a grunt underling working then production and all is lost in the company but if you lose the life of a manager/supervisor/big boss, no real time is lost. Shows who is doing all the real work in the company huh?

So cameras are ready, people are milling around in the dining room and I can almost feel the excitement wafting in from them. Mind you, I am in the kitchen still working cause I was already behind on the breakfast prep due to a few snags on the prep for the dinner. Finally there is a call on the radio and we hear a "PHHOMP" and the ground shakes a bit. The sound and feeling I got reminded me of a long time ago in Burnaby with my dad.

Well, not sure if this is an actual memory or a dream of some sort that I had but I keep remembering it. Anyways, I remember standing with my brother just under the balcony of our place. I remember dad telling us to stand really still and not to move. I remember the step he was on was about a hundred miles up in the sky (so, if you rate that from kid to adult to actual height, he probably wasn't more than 2 feet above our 3 foot height at the time) and he dropped a cinder block about 5 feet from where we were standing, or at least dropped it somewhere in the area of where we were. I remember the fascination of feeling the ground shake at the PHHOMP the block made hitting the ground. So that is what the blast felt like. Of course, after feeling and hearing I really wasn't blown away (hee hee..so punny am I*G*) by the whole thing and went up to the 1st cook and mentioned that it sounded like the baker had fallen out of his bed.

So today when the blast happened I noticed a distinct difference in the way that people reacted to the blast. There were no cameras, there was no nervous chatter about what was happening and what the people did that day. You know how when people are nervous or scared they seem to go on and on about the most mundane things, almost like if they talk about the boring and mundane they forget about what is making them nervous or scared. One other thing I noticed is that yesterday everyone was sitting as close as they possibly could to the windows which I am assuming was because they were hoping to catch a glimpse of the blast. Today, however, everyone was sitting as close as they possibly could to the coffee machine on the far opposite side of the dining hall, total opposite side of the hall as to where the window was. The only thing that remained the same was that the big boss was in the back of the kitchen at the window but this time he brought a friend to stand by the window. Guess everyone wasn't told that it was a 'blanketed' blast. They basically covered the whole blast area with a covering and tires. So all you see is the tires go up slightly and go down again. It is like watching the sheets in bed of your sleeping partner when they break wind.

Needless to say, the whole blast thing is wasted on me in terms of excitement.

However, one thing that has me laughing in the kitchen are the two signs that we have posted in the dining room. We had problems with people putting their tray and plates with food on it on the dish rack. The response to this problem was to put up signs on the wrack letting people know to discard their garbage. However, the wording that they used was “please clean your plates” on the wrack with arrows pointing to the garbage can location. So people followed the arrows which lead to the garbage cans BUT the first thing that they hit before the garbage cans were two sinks for people to wash their drinking jugs and all. So people started doing what the signs said and they would throw their garbage in the can and then actually rinse their plate off in the sink before bringing it to the sink.

Now the dishwashers loved this idea since he was the one that started the whole ‘rinse and scrub your pots/pans in the back sink before bringing it to the dishpit’ idea. However, it was causing a problem cause the sink was not designed for the constant plate washing and was plugging up on a regular basis. So what was the solution? If you guessed taking the sign down and rewording it to something like ‘please scrape garbage into bins’ you are wrong. The solution was to make a sign to hang over the sink reading “please do not clean your plates in the sink”. I knew it didn’t make sense but didn’t really realise that people were reading it until I saw a new lady in camp standing there with her plate in hand looking at the one sign to clean her plate and then the other saying don’t clean it here and then back saying to clean her plate. Almost like she was trying to decide which sign to listen to. I had to go up and break her wonderment by telling her the proper procedure of the whole thing.

Got me thinking about the stupid meeting they made me go to a week ago for the health and safety where someone said that there is actually a sign out in one of the pits reading “yield to buried cable”. He asked the safety guy running the meeting exactly how does a truck yield to a buried cable. After hearing about this sign I so want to go out and take a picture of it so that I can send it to a late night talk show under their heading of stupid signs posted in the work area or in public.

ships log, morale at low....

This rotation in camp has turned into one big happy joy joy work time after another. Figure after all the stuff that has gone down it is hard to believe that it has only been 2 and a half weeks in camp. I can honestly say that morale in the camp kitchen has hit rock bottom and started to dig into the bedrock. The first cook is totally fed up and frustrated with his shift and the working conditions, I have absolutely no fuel or desire to be in the 2nd cook position. I started on Wednesday after the new 2nd cook quit and by this time I normally would have my lunch sandwiches planned 3 days in advance and be pulling all the meats and items required to assemble and put them together. These days I walk into the kitchen and look at the 1st cook and go 'totally no idea what to make for sandwiches, lets deep fry something'.

For examples, yesterday I had no clue what to do so he said that we had three cases of discount bargain burgers (we call them a 'Guido' product cause they come from Buck Saver and I always joke that they are the things that 'fell off the back of some cousins truck' so they are a good deal) to go through so lets run them. Well I opened up the first box and started to cook them (50 burgers in total) and when they were gone I opened the next box and discovered that they were burgers about 2 inches in diameter. Mighty small burgers to begin with so we opened the next box and discovered the same thing. If we were grilling burgers for 70 preschool toddlers, those burgers would have rocked; if you are grilling for 40 camp workers just come in off the plane after having spent 5 hours in an airport in Cambridge Bay with no food or drink, not a good idea. I looked at the burgers and told the 1st cook that we should fire up the deep fryers and make chicken fingers. After all, Tony was coming in on the plane and if he saw chicken fingers he would freak and give someone crap (he hates deep fried foods for lunch) but the guys would love us cause they go nutty for chicken fingers. If we had stayed with the little medallion burgers, Tony would freak and give someone crap (honestly they looked pathetic, even I was shaking my head going 'stupid, stupid, stupid') and the guys would be unhappy and look at us like we were idiots giving them these little things. At least with the fingers someone would still love the cooks.

Luckily Tony must have been warned by Radio about us in the kitchen and all the crap that had gone down because all Tony did was walk in and look at the line. I was standing there ready to take the heat and admit that it was my fault and all he did was look at the burgers, point and go 'what are those?' to which I admitted my fault in running the burgers without checking the amounts of them and all. Instead of giving me crap, like he normally would have, he just shook his head, smiled and gave a chuckle and moved on.

Oh, something else that has happened. Seems the other guy that we had in the kitchen as the 1st/2nd cook worker was having some marital problems a week ago. His wife was apparently giving him some troubles about being in camp, not being there to help with the two boys and the usual stuff that married men hear about while in camp and away from their wives. He tried to quit but Radio and the 1st cook convinced him that if he went on a 3/3 rotation that she would see he was home half the year, the pay wouldn't be that big of a hit from a 4/2 to 3/3 rotation and everyone would be happy. He accepted the idea, in words, and said he would straighten it out with the wife when he got home.

However, something must have been amiss because when he packed up to go home, he took everything. Normally we leave items that we use in camp on a regular basis up here like cookbooks, utensils (knives, spoons, meat thermometers) locked up in the cupboard or C-can for safe keeping. Saves us from lugging two heavy bags south and then back again 2 weeks later to go to work. He didn't leave a single stitch behind, he took everything.

Radio got an email yesterday morning from him saying that he basically walked in the door to hug his wife and after a few quick words it was decided that they were going to get a divorce. No surprise that the email ended with him saying that he would not be returning to camp and hoped that there were no hard feelings.

The 1st cook said he was surprised of this development since there was a study done (he claimed, I haven't checked to back it up so maybe he is just making stuff up) about 5 years ago on isolated workers in camps and all and found that the divorce rate was around 90%. They attributed it to the fact of being away from the other person for long periods of time and all. Granted, it is only 40% higher than the roughly 50% of divorce rate in civilization but still that is a high rate of divorce. He even stated as evidence that he has gone through 8 girlfriends in 12 months. Though I am thinking it is more that he is a charmer and flirter than the distance. Last time I flew out with him he was chatting, smiling and flirting with every single female that came within speaking distance of him. However, I am sure that the camp life has some help to the problem.

So yeah, baker, 1st cook and myself are totally beat and drained. Tony was warned about it all so he is being extra special and nice to all of us. Even Radio has taken to walking around and asking everyone at least 8 times a day "how you doing? how are things?", granted he says it in the most annoying tone possible but that is just him I figure, instead of him asking it once a day in the morning and walking out the door before you can even give two sentences as an answer. Though if you give a negative answer "I am tired" he rattles off numbers and calculations of how much money you are making, how you can use it to buy houses/boats/cars and all the great things camp has to offer. Doesn't take much to realize that he is divorced and has a girlfriend that seems to be busy enough with committees and other things (rich parents, don't think she works much) to even notice he is around much.

Anyways, so far these 4 weeks in camp are the worst 4 weeks in camp I have had and these 4 weeks are in the running for being the longest 4 weeks I have had in camp. I am noticing that even the idiots in camp are not as amusing as they used to be.

over worked and under paid

Like they say in camp, when it rains it pours. After the last entry I went in on the 2nd with a couple books to lend the new 2nd cook to help him learn a few salads to ease into the whole 2nd cook setting. When I showed him the books he seemed slightly disinterested and then about 30 minutes later I hear the news that he quit and is going to be heading out on the next available plane. It seems that he got lectured on June 2nd about his salads (pieces being too large and the quality being rather ugly) and then the next day got a lecture from the 1st cook about hygiene and health safety. He was wrapping up left over hot dogs from lunch to put in the cooler for the guys to take to work. However, what he was doing was putting the buns on a counter which the medic deemed to be unclean and unsanitary and then grabbing the wieners with his bare hands and putting them in the bun and wrapping them up and putting them back on the counter. So it was brought to the 1st cooks attention which was then mentioned to the 2nd cook to be careful about what the public sees you do as they complain about everything and anything. Seems the new guy didn’t like being told what to do so he went to Radio and said that it was a double standard how the 1st cook speed thaws chicken in the back sink and he can’t put a hot dog bun on a counter. Of course Radio handled it in his own personal style of management skill. Basically told him “if you are a whiner now, you will be whiner in a week or two...you quitting and want to go home?” to which the answer was “yes” and thus ended the new guys glorious career in the camp with us. Think after orientation and all he basically worked with us for three whole days and then he was gone.

So what does that mean to us? Well that means that now baker and 2nd cook have a whole load of extra duties thrown upon us. The baker is now baking during the nights and cooking breakfast in the morning while I am doing all his prep work for breakfast. These duties are making 250-300 sandwiches (plus all the prep work for that of slicing meats, washing lettuce, slicing vegetables for the veggie sandwiches, making tuna and egg salad), omelette prep (cracking 150 eggs into two measuring cups, cutting up green and red peppers, onions, ham, tomato, grate cheese), tray up 10 sheets of bacon as well as sausages, cut up the fruit (2 watermelons, 4 honey dews, 4 cantelopes, 6 pineapples..plus the cottage cheese and two canned fruits) and preparing 45 breakfast sandwiches (45 hard fried eggs, cooked bacon/sausage or ham, cheese on English muffins...think like a McMuffin). All these duties plus my regular 2nd cook duties (lunch and supper salads, hot sandwich for lunch, potato/rice/two vegetables for supper as well as prep work for the 1st cook when required).
Wednesday was a complete and total messed up day with all of us trying to get the things done and run with the idea of what we had to do. Today was not much better since it is all still a mess and I really have not got my head into the whole 2nd cook duties and all. Luckily there are two dishwashers so I scooped one from the dishpit to help out with the sandwich making. Took him all morning to slice the meats and then all afternoon to make the sandwiches. Not going to complain since I didn’t have any time to spare to do that job and I would have had to stay an extra 2 and a half hours after shift to get it all done if he hadn’t of done it. So, on the whole you could guess what my state of mind and attitude toward this whole affair is. Pretty much the same as the baker who said this evening “I have stopped going faster. The faster I go, the more work I get, the slower people go, the less work they get. If it didn’t get done then screw them it aint getting done.”
So today at supper when I am just finishing up the breakfast prep to relieve the 1st cook from the supper line. Radio comes in and puts his arm around my shoulder and acting like the saviour sent from above to give me good news, or acting like some big time CEO, and the conversation went something like this

(R)adio - since I know you are driven my monetary power, I am going to give you one hour over time a day for all the work that you have done

(M)e - *Not in the best of moods, stressed and tired so with mirth and mocking* wow...a whole one hour. Running around like a whirl wind to get the jobs of two people done in a 12 hour shift and I get a whole hour. Wow

R - *slightly defensive* you will be going to nights on Wednesday so don’t worry about that.

M – Oh I know that I won’t be going to nights.

R – sure you will. We have a new 1st cook coming in that has worked with us before and he can take 1st or 2nd duties without even blinking.

M – really? A new guy. You mean you are not going to make Tony 2nd cook? That plan sort of went down hill? Cause I was really hoping to see that plan come to action.

(SIDE NOTE – Tony is like the actual camp manager and Radio is like the cover one. If Tony has an idea what happens in camp, it happens; if Ken has an idea what happens in camp, it happens only if Tony gives the stamp of approval to keep it happening. The idea of Tony being 2nd cook at any point in time is laughable. Kind of like Bill Gates going to the assembly production line of Microsoft cause the acting CEO said he should)

R – nope, he won’t be going to 2nd but you will have the time and freedom to go to nights and you can ‘fornicate the poodle’ (not really his words but you get the idea *G*) all you want for a week. You should be thankful I am giving you the one hour extra a day for this work since you ‘fornicated the poodle’ for the last two weeks on dishwasher. I saw you taking your hour breaks.

M – sort of made up for the no breaks for the last 4 weeks while on 2nd cook but hey, a whole hour...thanks for that whole extra hour.

At this point he walked away to let me finish the work. He did come back about 20 minutes later and whispered on the sly ‘ok you get two hours a day. Just told tell any of these clowns or Tony cause it is against the mines regulations’.

Though on the bright side we don’t have to worry about running out of food. We got our groceries on Wednesday and we ordered more than we really need. For instance we had 2 cases of green peppers and we got 2 more cases, we had 2 cases of romaine and we got two more, we had 32 cases of eggs and we got 24 more cases. I call the cooler Jurassic Cooler because if you don’t follow your guide closely when you walk in it you might get lost and never come out again it is so cluttered.