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?