Well, it's been just over a week now since starting the new job and so far things have been going pretty good. The one thing I am noticing is that it is quite physical and my muscles are rebelling after five months of hibernation. I have been doing rough-in wiring in some new houses and this requires lots of drilling holes and climbing ladders and pulling cable. I guess it is the toughest part of the job but is where everyone starts out that is learning this business. I have my own van which I am responsible for keeping well stocked with supplies. With the spring thaw going on here at the moment the worse thing to contend with is the mud. It's everywhere on these job sites and it's just one of those things you have to learn to put up with. Hopefully it will dry up quickly.
It is taking me quite a bit of time to do each house as I am still learning the techniques and seem to be all thumbs at times, but as things progress I will pick up speed as I become more efficient.
I had to take last Monday off to attend a funeral. We tragically lost a good friend of ours a couple of weeks ago. The son of our friends Lawrence & Doris Daher (Lawrence leads the IHS Orchestra ministry which I play in occasionally) was struck down by a car two weeks ago Saturday. LJ was crossing the street in his wheelchair after getting off a bus when a car went through the crosswalk and struck LJ and another woman. He was rushed to hospital where they thought he was in stable condition but an hour later things turned bad and he passed away. Most of us at church the next day were in shock. His mom & dad and family rushed here from Europe for the funeral Monday. LJ had made quite an impression on a lot of people in his 27 years of life and the funeral was a celebration of that. There were several write ups in the paper and reports on TV during the week after the accident. LJ was about to graduate from a network administrator program at NAIT.
Dianne headed to Saskatchewan this afternoon to visit her dad and family while she has five days off so it's just me and the cat until Sandi comes home tomorrow night. Sandi has been taking a break with a friend in sunny California for the past few days. She is just about finished her classes for fourth year and will be graduating right away. She has still not heard back as to whether she has the teaching position in Japan yet, so she will probably just work at Starbucks for a while until she knows for sure

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Something Going On

Whoohoo! a new post, FINALLY!
Here's a couple of items of noteworthy news:
On April 6th Angela will be taking the razor to her curly locks as she shaves her head for cancer. She decided to do this to raise money for cancer research in honor of her grandma, Sally Mildenberger. Here is the website you can go to to pledge a donation. Angie hopes to raise $10,000 for the cause. The Chronicle will be there on April 6th to capture this major event on tape and will be posting it on the internet shortly after, so stay tuned to this very blog.
I have finally found a job! I start next Wednesday and I am working for a company called Connect Home Innovations, a young local company that specializes in installing computer networking, alarm systems, home theaters, music systems and home automation in new homes. I will be starting as an installer. I have had to buy a bunch of new tools as well as some new safety boots and a hard hat and I have been clomping around the house in my new boots trying to break them in. It's quite a departure from my previous career and I am looking forward to getting out there and getting dirty.
I have also been working on the DVD project for Fort Edmonton Park, which I finally got the material for. I have to have it finished by the end of March and now that I will be working full time again I'm starting to feel the crunch. But it's moving along quite nicely and I think I will be done on time.
The snow is on it's way out here in Edmonton as we have been having wonderful weather of late. There's still a lot on the lawn but we are seeing more and more grass everyday and the snowbanks along the road have diminished to practically nothing making it a lot easier for Sandi to park the truck.

Posted 6:52 PM by Jeff

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Starbucks Spoofery

Last week Sandi took part in the annual "Quick and Dirty" Festival at the U of A drama department. She and a group of her friends performed a little spoof of the Starbucks culture and it was quite hilarious. Take a look:
My apologies for the fuzziness of the video but I had to compress it considerably to get the 10 minute clip in under 100mb's.

Posted 8:45 PM by Jeff

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