Elizabeth's Blog

I couldn’t think of a title that would relate to my entry so dis-regard the title. :P

I guess a lot has happened since I last wrote! I can actually talk about my trip to Victoria now, since before I couldn’t because mum, Heather and Daniel didn’t know about it. The surprise was wonderful! I flew in on Thursday night and wound up going to the hot tub @ Oak Bay with Marc and Katie and then the traditional Denny’s afterwards. I definitely miss that place! The pool, certainly not Denny’s. Ew. (However my stomach didn’t think so at 2am after swimming…I think passing cars could hear THOSE tummy grumbles.) I got to bed late, and got up pretty early to drive dad to work so I could use the car. I went to Mayfair and got my hair cut and dyed, then just perused the mall a bit. At about 2:30 Katie, Marc and I met up to head over to mums. The best part was I called mum from dads place on my cell phone, saying how I was going out for dinner with Josh shortly so I would have to talk to Daniel quickly and say Happy Birthday (the reason for the surprise, in case you weren’t aware). Turns out he wasn’t home from the park yet, so mum was all “ooh, you JUST missed him! He’ll be home soon, can you call back later?” I tried not to giggle and said that would be fine. Katie, Marc and I drove over to her place, and I hid in the backseat. Katie and Marc got a BBQ for Christmas, so they had this huge box they decided it would be great if I hid in to surprise him. Katie managed to get mum and the kids in the back room, while the brought me into the house and I ducked down inside the box. I’m pretty sure mums reaction was the best – and I definitely got it on tape – but Daniel jumped a mile, Heather screamed, and my mum’s mouth was hanging open for a good solid 20 seconds! hehehe! It was certainly worth it. I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with them – reading books with Heather and playing video games with Daniel. Around dinner, Katie had mentioned that it was Janice’s birthday party that night, and there would be food, so I decided to surprise a few more people! After munching on this and that over at Janice and Tony’s place and catching up with several people, I decided I had kept Jessica waiting long enough and gave her a shout to tell her I was on my way. You see, I even had a Facebook event lined up. “The return of Liz; an excuse to party!” teehee
I met Logan, who I must say is a very nice gentleman. We had a few pre-drinks, and got in touch with Cara. She was working until 10:30 (ahh, I don’t miss those days.) so we picked her up and headed to her place to let her change and get ready. We had reservations at a place called The Social Club for 11, so we got down there about 11:15. The place was p a c k e d. I mean ridiculously so. I’m surprise someone’s heel didn’t lascerate any toes – I was certainly scared enough. They played Benny Bennassi, so I was definitely happy!
Saturday morning I headed back over to mums for about 10 and played with the kids for a bit before we headed up island for Daniel’s birthday party with his grandparents. Daniel invited his friend Gareth, and Heather was allowed to bring a friend, who was of course Danielle. We all packed in the car and went the rec centre in Nanaimo – probably the best pool ever – and the kids promptly went on the waterslides about 80 times. I mainly stuck to the hot-tub and the lap pool, but the kids enjoyed the wave pool as well. After a short panic attack about Heather’s jacket, which was actually back home, we drove back to Oma and Opa’s and had the unwrapping of the presents! The best part, right Daniel? ;) He scored some good toys. Opa made dinner, but at this point I had a killer head-ache. I opted to lay down for a bit, inevitably missing dinner entirely, but once I got up I caught up. Daniel had requested pancakes and sausages for dinner, the goofball, so after getting up from a doze, breakfast food was fine with my stomach!
Sunday morning was church, of course, and it was nice to see everyone there. Hannah is getting so big! She’s steady on her feet now – when I left she wasn’t even crawling! Crazy kids and their growing up. Next time I visit it will probably be “Hey Liz. Mum’s told me all about you. Wanna go for drinks??” lol
Monday was the last day in Victoria, and I didn’t have anything special planned. So I drove dad to work, went back home for a bit, and decided that I needed something to help me get through the last several snowfalls I knew were going to happen back in Calgary. I grabbed the video camera, and drove around to all my Victoria haunts – Mt Doug Beach, Beacon Hill Park, the breakwater…I put together a video for myself of all the beautiful trees blooming, and all the baby animals at the petting zoo. I loved it. It was a great day to end the trip on. I had dinner with dad and Katie at Moxies and it was a great night.

Then of course I fly home and the turbulence makes me think that was God’s way of saying “take a good long last look cause you’re about to kick it.”

Seriously, the turbulence was BAAD. The lady next to me was praying out loud, and the flight attendants were crouching in the isles trying not to fly up and hit the ceiling. Nuts I tell you, nuts.
So, as I predicted, it was snowing when I came back into town. The worst part was, it snowed a TON, and then the next day it was like, 10 degrees, so the city became a giant slushy. Huge puddles everywhere – it was like a bad video game making sure you weren’t near a puddle when a car was about to hit it cause that almost happened to me once, and I learned pretty quick you have to be sharp as a tac when the city is a giant slushy.

So, in so far as work goes, this past week, pretty much everything that could break, did. First it was the film reader – the thing that sucks in the negatives, then allows us to do colour corrections and then order the prints. Well it wouldn’t suck anything in without it getting stuck. So we couldn’t accept any rolls of film, however this didn’t help us for the large batch that we already had taken in, and was due very soon. We got over the problem, one frustrated customer at a time. Thank goodness for the Eaton Centre Blacks! It’s about a two minute walk, so we were sending film customers that way. “Well,” you say, “at least you could develop digital prints though, right?” Wrong.
The printer, one day, starts turning itself on and off. Like a little gremlin behind the machine was sitting there with a wrench, and just poking the ‘on, off’ button. Kristen gave up trying to fix it, so she called Randy, our lab technician. He comes it, and decides that as much as he hated to say it, it was the circuit board. 1500$ later….
So, as much as it sucked, problem solved, right? Wrong. Next thing he knows, the printer starts spitting out prints that have huge gashes down the centre of them. So, taking a few deep breaths, he rolls up his sleeves and starts taking apart the machine. At this point, all he can do it take out the individual parts and give them all a good rinse in the sink. Keep in mind, that washing all the parts once takes about 3 hours. On the 4th wash, he was about to kill someone. The prints were STILL coming out ripped, gashed, torn – you name it. He was literally banging his head against the wall..I felt so bad for the guy. Meanwhile, we’re fending off angry customers wondering why their prints aren’t ready, our sales have dropped dramatically since most of the money we make are on our printing and the lab has been down for 3 days now, and since we have no idea how long it’s going to take him to fix it, we can’t even give them an estimate for fear they’ll come back again and they still wouldn’t be done. Finally, the next afternoon, he manages to get it to start printing normally. No more scratches! Hurrah! Light at the end of the tunnel? I think so! .....or wait….I think that’s a train. Headed straight for us.
The clicking starts again. Randy starts swearing up a blue streak. I was almost tempted to join him after dealing with angry customer after angry customer.
It’s now been a week and a bit. The printer FINALY started behaving normally. I’m scared to touch it, for fear I will break it…

So that has been my nightmare of a week. On the plus side, I got a raise. I would say I earned it. <:)

Tonight I was closing with a guy named Alex. I was in the back, getting a few orders together, and when I was finished Alex calls me to the front. Apparently, there was a guy that came in, bought a frame for 5.99, and when Alex tells him the total, hands over a 100$ bill. After Alex punched in the 100 to the till, the guy says “Oh wait, I have smaller change.” Thankfully, Alex’s math skills are better than mine. This guy has already scammed two other Black’s stores, and who knows where else, by trying to confuse the salesperson with numbers. The computer thinks you’re still giving change for 100, so that is what someone who is not paying attention would give him back. After realizing that Alex knew what was going on, and it wasn’t going to work, he tried a few others tactics before Alex told him to please leave, and if he saw him again in the store he would call security. At this point, the fellow (who was an African American, about 25 years old) says “are you a racist man??” and leaves. So after Alex described him to me, I went and found one of the security guards to alert them to this guy. It certainly made the evening go faster! Nothing like a little fraud to raise the adrenaline!

I’ve officially been sitting in this computer chair too long. It is time for bed. :)

Yay! 7 years old! You’re practically ancient little man. Hope you have lots of fun with your friends :)

Ahh, tis good to be a full-timer. The hours are the same as what I was pulling before, but now it’s nice to know I’m getting the beneifits to match! All that time spent at work isn’t apparently in vain. Stephen, who was our assistant manager in training is now our ‘temporary’ store manager. We had a new store open up, so there was more shuffling, and upstairs got yet another new manager, and we got Steve to stay. It’s been pretty good so far, Norman has quit, and we shall miss him. He was a pretty funny guy once you got to know him.

The weather here has been simply georgeous! It’s the warmest here it’s been since we moved, and I can tell you now did I ever need the sun. After a while, the snow stops being pretty, and you wish you could wear something a little less than 4 layers. I have the sliding glass doors open and am enjoying a nice cool breeze while I sit here writing to you. I was out earlier today, doing a little shopping, and decided to walk to the malls since taking the train seemed rediculous on such a nice day. Here in Calgary you can’t waste weather like this! Unlike Victoria, here when the sun comes out it’s probably not going to stay out. I imagine we’ll have at least a couple more snowfalls before summer arrives. Ahh such is life in Calgary!

Kristen and I have discovered a very cute pottery place, and have decided we simply must go there on a quiet evening and paint some pottery. Both of us have been working like crazy and havn’t really had any ‘art time’ as I like to call it. It’s one of those places where you pay for an un-painted piece of pottery, you pay a small cover charge (for the paints and such that you use) and then you’re free to get creative! I remember doing something like that in a small place in Victoria that I think now doesn’t exist (remember the big mug with the sun in the middle mum? I did that there) and I really want to try again.

Josh is going on a snowboarding trip this weekend so the place will be quiet. Very quiet.

;) Bye for now!

It was, to say the least, a very good birthday!

The day started off at about 9:30 when we dragged ourselves out of bed and got dressed. We headed out the door and walked a brisk sunny (but cold) walk to 17th ave where we met a friend, Jenny, and her Boyfriend Adam for brunch at a very nice little restaurant. It reminded me a lot of The Blue Fox downtown in Victoria – colourful walls and paintings, different styles for each table, small, and the most familiar part – the line-up out the door. The food was great, the company better, and with our bellies full we trekked to their car to drive back to our place. Josh and I have been meaning to go to the science centre right across the street ever since we got here. It’s a 2 minute walk, we can see it from our window, and it seemed like a pretty cool place. So yesterday we made the decision to make that 2 minute treck across the street to finally explore this ‘world of science’.

This place was sooo cool! When we first walked in the door, my first thought was “dang, we’re going to look like idiots without small children with us.” Kids were everywhere. Being a Saturday, though, I guess that’s not surprising. We even borrowed one for our game of giant Snakes and Ladders! Yes, you heard me, a floor sized version of Snakes and Ladders. The section you first walk into when you enter the exhibits are several displays – with toys from the 80’s in them!! I’m talking Tinker Toys, the really old toy cars of which I seem to remember having a million of (I think they’re still somewhere at mums) Snakes and Ladders which I mentioned, Easy Bake Ovens…it was a blast from the past. Jenny and I immediately picked up the spinner dice and ran for square one, and the boys soon followed. About halfway through our riveting game, a young boy was watching enviously from the sidelines. Jenny was ever so gracious and handed him her spinner card, insisting he take her spot. It was quite funny – the kid wound up kickin’ our butts! Anyways, I’ll be definitely going back there at some point and taking pictures of these displays – for old times sake.
We moved on, into the more ‘science’ part of the building. The first thing we see when we walk in are these two people sitting across from each other at a long-ish table, with headbands around their heads connected to a couple TV screens. On the table under glass was a small ball that was very slowly rolling back and forth, sometimes more in one direction, sometimes more in the other direction. It took me a minute, but when I figured out what on earth was going on I knew we HAD to try it after them. So here’s how it works. You put the headband on; when you have it in her hand you see there are three metal circles on the part that sits on your forehead. When you put the headband on, you can look at the sceen next to you and notice lines moving up and down. This is the cool part – it’s reading your brain waves! So the whole point of the ‘game’, is to be as relaxed as you can, and the ball will move away from you. The more nervous you are, or thinking about other things, the ball will move towards you. Once the ball either reaches you or reaches the other person the game is won or lost. I thought that was so cool! Josh kept winning – he just slouched down into the chair and got this look on his face like he was either going to fall asleep/start drooling/fall off the chair. He was very good at wiping all thought from his mind. Weird eh? ;)

Others things stick out in my memory as being pretty cool – one being an artificial tornado! They had two opposing wind forces, and some sort of smoke machine on the bottom, so when the tunnel picked up the smoke, you could see the funnel of the mini-tornado. It was very, very cool to watch. Plus it wasn’t enclosed, so you could stick your hand in and feel the wind moving! We also went and watched a very cool movie about African wildlife, which they referred to as ‘the big five’. Elephants, white rhinos, leopards, lions, and cape buffalos. The best part about the movie, though, was it was on a screen as big as the Imax, but this one bent up and over you instead of just being in front, so it made you just that much more dizzy – I loved it.

So after our adventure in the science centre, Jenny and I both agreed that that afternoon was calling for a nap. Adam and her left shortly after we got back, and Josh and I came back upstairs and had a lazy afternoon. I was told that we had dinner reservations for 8, and we should leave about a half an hour ahead of time – needless to say I was very curious as to where we were going. I didn’t really want to guess though – surprises are fun :) So I got ready, put on my lovely new earrings that I got from Josh (they’re two angel wings – looove it!) and we headed out the door. Josh looked rather smashing, I must say. So we got on the train and took it to centre street, where we got off and started walking.
“Do you know where we’re going yet?”
“No…is it that place?” As I point to some random restaurant across the road.
“No..why would we be going to that place?”
“I don’t know! Is it…Milestones?”
“Nope…”
“Is it…” as I look straight ahead of me and my jaw drops.
My reaction: “NO WAY!!!”
We had dinner in the very luxurious, very expensive, yet VERY good Calgary Tower restaurant. I was very, very impressed. We had a private booth, overlooking, of course, the city. For those of you who don’t know, the Calgary tower restaurant rotates, and it takes one hour to do a full rotation. It was super cool! For a starter we decided to try and share a Caesar salad. Knowing that most of the time, fancy restaurants don’t skimp on Caesar salads, I knew we were in for a treat. Boy, was I ever right. The salad came as 4 whole leafs of romaine hearts, shaved Italian parmesan on top, along with a light but creamy roasted garlic and lemon sauce. To finish it off it had a slice of baked proscuitto on top to crunch up as the bacon bits. Probably by far the best salad I’ve ever had. Ever. For dinner, Josh ordered ‘the duck’ as he put it, which had a blueberry glaze and was roasted medium rare. I ordered the ‘chicken supreme’ which was chicken stuffed with smoked cheddar and spinach over a bed of vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. I’m drooling just remembering all this! We had both forgotten that even though expensive food is just that, expensive, they certainly make up for it in taste. Both our dinners topped our lists for flavor, and the service was wonderful. We had some very nice wine with dinner, suggested by our waitress to compliment each of our meals. Heaven. I even got a desert with a sparkler in it and said ‘Happy Birthday’ aorund the rim of the plate in icing. Even the desert was amazing! Once again, Heaven.

After dinner we headed upstairs to the observation lounge to see more of the view. Another thing that the tower has is glass floors! It really was quite nerve-wracking, especially when Josh is being a jerk and jumping up and down to show me it’s stable.

Overall a very amazing day. I couldn’t stop saying ‘thank you!’

It’s snowing rather hard outside right now, just as it promised it would. The cool thing is Josh and I just got back from grocery shopping, but as we were waiting for the train back into town, I noticed on his jackets that it was cold enough outside (-15) that the snowflakes weren’t melting. So I was looking at them really closely – and you could actually see the individual shapes of the snowflakes! I really wished I had my new camera cause I would have taken a photo of it, it was beautiful! So small, yet so perfect.

Tonight is my staff Christmas party. Yes, I know, it’s February. I guess finding places to book here in Calgary is hard, especially around Christmas when EVERYONE is booking. So, we’re having a Hawaiian themed Christmas party! I helped organize and plan it, and after I’m done writing on here to all you fine folk I’m going to be making a veggie tray. I knew all that time spent at Thrifty’s would come in handy somewhere! :) I’ll be sure to post pictures and such of the good times. Chow for now!

Things may be a little rough around here for a few more posts, as I figure out the inner workings of this blog. In the meantime, posts will be as usual at welcometothebigcity.blogspot.com.

Yay! I started making my dream into a story. It’s somewhat more aimed for ages 9-12, but I think it’s a fun read for others. I just finished chapter one, and am now going to start work on chapter two. Heather, Daniel, this one’s for you! Let me know what you think! :) And no Daniel, the Daniel in the story isn’t supposed to be you, I just named him after you hehe

The story is here: http://flightofanig.blogspot.com/