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Monday, September 25, 2006
Busy Weekend
After a fairly nice weekend with some sun, we are now back to dreary rainy weather. I was going to barbecue tonight but it's pouring rain so I'll not. I did manage to get out and cut the grass on Saturday as it was very nice with sunny skies and warm temperatures and a couple of trips were made out on the bike although it hardly made up for the dismal showing of the past two weeks. With it getting dark so early now it's hard to get out after supper by the time everything is cleaned up and the miserable weather has been nothing but a deterrent. Oh well, I will just have to start doing my K's on the stationary in the basement, much to my dread. I'm hoping we will get a nice October so that we can at least get down to the river valley while the trees are still in their autumn colors, always a pretty sight. We had a seminar on writing resumes last week which forced me to get mine out, dust it off and then completely rewrite it. It was a tough job as everything on my resume is centered towards broadcasting, and seeing how I am not going to continue in this field it was hard to write the resume with a generic slant. Anyway, I got it done and it was submitted to the company who gave the seminar and they just sent me a draft copy of it today with a few changes that they recommend. There was actually not a lot of changes so I must have done something right. I will be sitting down with someone for one-on-one counseling in the next few weeks so I will go over it with them to see what can be improved. On Friday night some idiots drove down our street egging all the parked cars including my truck and Chris' Acura which are both parked out front. The egg was easy enough to clean up except that one of them hit the side view mirror on the truck and partially smashed the mirror. A quick check with the Nissan dealership revealed that a new replacement mirror would be $177. No thanks. I taped the old one up as best I could and put it back on the truck for now. Today I was at the wreckers and managed to find one on an old King Cab for $20. That was a bit of luck. Well, tonight I can look forward to starting another famous midnight shift. With any luck this will be my second to last midnight shift EVER! I will have one more towards the end of October unless things go well with the transition and I am not required any more. We are all hoping to be finished work by the middle of December and have Christmas off while our paychecks will continue to roll in till January 10th. Let's hope that works out. I was hoping to get Christmas off at some point in my life but I wasn't expecting to lose my job to get it. Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Now The Fun Begins
Had a good visit to Saskatchewan over the weekend, albeit somewhat short. We drove down Thursday after work, stayed over night in Saskatoon and headed to Sedley on Friday morning. We came back Sunday night, again staying the night in Saskatoon for an easier trip home Monday and so that we would be home in time for me to get to work by 4:00. We ran into some nasty weather going down with fairly heavy rain all the way. The weekend remained cool and miserable and didn't improve too much for the return drive. Nonetheless, we had a good visit with Dianne's Mom & Dad and some of the siblings before we had to return home. This afternoon, after work, I headed downtown to attend a job fair and got some information from a few of the companies hiring. There was nothing real inspiring but it did give me an idea of what the possible job market was like. It's still a bit early to be making any decisions on anything. Tomorrow I am attending a seminar on resume writing at work, part of Corus' attempt to ease us into other jobs as painlessly as possible. I printed my resume out tonight to take with me and I'm sure I will have to do a major overhaul on it as it seems to be quite broadcast-centric. I'm hoping to get out of broadcasting all together so I will have to do a bit of creative reorganizing of the information and so I am looking forward to the seminar and any help I can get to that end. Another thing I am looking forward to is a seminar on job hunting along with some one on one counseling, again provided by the company. I feel that I need all the help I can get and will gladly sign up for any courses or seminars the company is willing to provide. Wednesday, September 13, 2006
End Of An Era And A Career
We had a bit of a shock yesterday as it was announced that Corus Entertainment is closing down the Movie Central operation in Edmonton. In a special meeting yesterday morning, staff were informed that the operation was being consolidated into their Toronto facility. As of January 10, Chris and I and some 80 of our co-workers are out of a job. The official story from Corus as outlined in this news item is pretty much a bunch of bureaucratic doublespeak. The real reason comes from the fact that Corus wants and always has wanted all it's eggs in the same basket even though the Edmonton plant has been on the leading edge of technology and has been one of the main money makers for the company. Nonetheless, cutbacks and scrimping on expenses has continually eroded morale in the plant and now here is the final straw. Anything that can be done in Toronto could have easily been done here, and cheaper. The 83 employees in Edmonton are very bitter and feel very betrayed. We have all received a fairly good severance package but it is only the bare minimum stipulated by the contract between Corus and the CEP union of which we are a bargaining unit, nothing extra from the company. So, for some this has been a black week, but for others, myself included, it is becoming an opportunity to start fresh and find a job that will be more rewarding and hopefully will not involve shift work. I am in no hurry to rush out and start looking. I want to take a little time to really assess were I want to go and what I want to do. It could very well be an answer to prayer. Stay tuned as the adventure continues. Thursday, September 07, 2006
Wedding Pictures Are Up
As you can see I have posted a page for Nikki & Chris' wedding. There are some not so great quality shots of them getting married. We are waiting for the pro photographer's CD for some better ones. These were scanned from some prints friends of ours took as I shockingly discovered that I had not taken any pictures at the wedding as I was busy scurrying around doing one thing or another. Our last two wayward suitcases made it home today so Lee can now have his life back. Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Luggage Woes
Well, 6 of our 8 missing bags showed up last night. Unfortunately one of the ones still missing is Lee's so he is still without his toiletries and such. However, we are hopeful that they will be here today. We flew on DELTA and Lee thinks that means "Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive". I am just in the process of finishing up the trip report and I just have a few pictures to scan and I will post it. I've also been transferring video to the hard drive and hope to edit a little video together with highlights of the trip. Stay tuned. Tuesday, September 05, 2006
And We're Back
After an exhaustive week in northern Florida we are back home again after seeing another daughter successfully married. I will be writing up a full report later today which I will post along with some pictures. For now I will just say that everything went well in Crestview. The kids had a great wedding ceremony and a beautiful reception. Both looked very handsome and we got lots of comments about them and the impact of our family on the community. There was a few days of very hectic work getting ready for the event and I spent a lot of time driving back and forth down the main street of Crestview picking people up, doing errands and general carting while the girls looked after decorating the church and the hall and other duties. There was some time to relax, though. The guys went out for a day of deep sea fishing while the girls had a wedding shower for Nikki and spent some time on the beach. We had a super rehearsal party on Friday night, put on by the fabulous couple that also hosted our whole family in their home for the week. The flight down was uneventful and there was never any evidence of a hurricane whatsoever. It became a non issue, thankfully. The flight home was equally uneventful, but somewhat greueling with stopovers in three cities. And when we arrived home last night we discovered that every piece of luggage in our group was missing so we are waiting for them to track that down and get our bags to us, hopefully today. But it's good to be home and nice that we do not have to do any more long distance planning. All we have to do now is try and scrape together the cash to pay the bills that are going to start rolling in.
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