July 2006 — The Tugboat

July 30, 2006

It is Sunday morning and I just had the most ridiculous sleep of my life. Yesterday, I spent most of my time cleaning both myself and the house. I showered, shaved, brushed my teeth hard and long, I clipped my toenails and trimmed my fingernails. I combed my hair several times as one would do if one had nothing better to do. The middle of the day seemed to fly by. Brown came home and caught me playing baseball on the Xbox and settled in to watch. I lost my first game ever. I lost 3-2 in a tight battle. The pitcher who started was dealt immediately afterwards for a much better player. Brown was amazed at my lack of patience with the man on his way out of the digital town. The next game I won 34-0. Anyways, I could talk day and night about my digital teams and their performances, it's a deep seeded sickness that I've had since 1993. So that wrapped up before supper and I made a quaint and quiet supper of soup and a hammer for the first time in months. Actually, there was no ham so I guess technically it was soup and a cheeser. Anyways, I ate that while listening to my audiobook of Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. I started to fade out after eating due to the rhythmic drone of the narrator. Mid-sleep the phone rang and it was someone that knew me. I'm not entirely sure who it was but I assume it was Wood. I think he wanted to eat another dinner with laughs as we did earlier in the week. I was so out of it from the dozing that I don't even know what I said, from what I remember, it was an awkward conversation. I tried to wake up after that but to no avail. The droning voice had a hold on me. I was asleep before 7pm. Similar to Thursday I awoke later, this time just before Saturday Night Live came on. I think it was previously aired, maybe even last year, but I watched part of it. I was awake for nearly an hour doing so. I passed back out afterwards until Brown woke me up with his rummaging around in the next room and other rooms, including but not exclusively, the bathroom. I woke up again at 8am this morning but my sleep upwards of twelve hours. That is a fantastic sleep. I feel pretty rested as one would expect. I don't know what I'm doing today, I have no plans of dressing and certainly no plans of leaving this hovel. Hopefully everyone else's weekend was more exciting than mine, if not then you have a real problem and should seek some help. Kidding. Phillips out.

July 28, 2006

Howdy all, I'm back, just like I said I would be back. Anyways, I've had an interesting week, much more activity in the past 5 days than pretty much all summer in terms of my social calendar. As mentioned previously, Wood and I had dinner and laughs earlier in the week. Last night was a surprise BBQ for the return of Joanne and Alex who were squatting in their old house for a while. I'll get to that in a moment. Work this week has been fairly light. The workload didn't really pick up, in fact, it may have lightened. We were done around 2pm on Thursday and that was for the week. It was glorious to have a spontaneous long weekend. So Brown and I went to the BBQ, we stopped on the way and picked up a huge watermelon, one of two left at the grocer's, a cheese cake, and a deep'n delicious cake. It may have been overkill but it was party and we don't disappoint. We looked through the condensed version of the Euro pictures before supper. It was a good time and many stories of past adventures were told. A few pop-in guests appeared including Franco who ran there from his place of employment while on a 15 minute break. It was pretty funny. Also funny was when the watermelon was being eaten. They had little dishes since they were squatting so the melon was cut into 8th's and distributed. That left a second half. It came down after we'd all had our fill that one quarter was left. Brown ate it. That ran his total watermelon eating up to half of the huge melon. There are pictures and video out there that are pretty gross of him eating it. Everyone had a good hard laugh including him. We all broke off at 8pm with plans for me to meet up with them at an apartment on campus within an hour. I talked to my parents briefly on the phone and was just going to rest my eyes for minute and then call Phil to inquire about the situation with his tenants. When I opened my eyes it was almost midnight and I had missed everything. Evidently, Brown had done the same as he was asleep earlier than usual as well. I just went back to sleep disappointed that I missed out on that adventure. I spent most of today watching movies and trying to stay cool. When Brown got home from work we went and got some KFC. It had no affect on either of us, I don't know if that is good or bad considering the quantity. I went to bed pretty early after we hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. I don't know if I can fix Brown's swing in time for his first game of golf next week, he's too baseball. Alas, I will try. Farewell, Phillips out.

July 25, 2006

Alrighty, let's get started here. Ok, the weekend; the plan was for Dave and company to land here late in the evening and then stay over. Turns out Dave was continuing his trek to London that night leaving Phil, Gordo, and Megan. Megan, my sister, went to Waterloo in the morning to see friends for the day. I arranged a ride to the bus for her by buying a breakfast for Brown at McDonalds. I arranged a ride for the GCP Express (Gordo, Chase, Phil) to go to their house to confront their subletters who haven't paid rent all summer. Jeff was that ride. We got to the bus station by the same means and made a move to Toronto. This move included lunch and a trip to the Jays game. The Jays were facing the hated Yankees and the crowd was a record for the season at 50014 people. It was quite full. The Jays lost 5-4. The GCP Express had a mishap when the DC Experience (Dan Clark) was unable to attend. There were complications that made this reality. Phil was upset by it and also about the house situation. The day wore on and after another frustrating round of missing out on DC we headed home on the bus. We were early and supped at Subway, an excellent choice except for the lack of lavatories. We made due by using those at the bus station. We got back and watched a film before getting some rest. The morning was slightly chaotic. Breakfast was produced and consumed and then golf was watched for hours. Dave appeared with Nicole after noon and we made a sub-standard lunch. It seemed to do the job though. Phil and Gordo headed down to their house to bust some skulls and lay down the law before everyone left. The rest of the day was spent quietly enjoying the cooler weather.

My boss is away again for the entire week so I made up a rough schedule for the week. It has been a light week so far with no sign of picking up. Tonight my good friend and web host Wood made an appearance. He dates a girl from Guelph so is here more often than usual. We made dinner plans tonight and had an enjoyable meal at the Double P. Pool followed. We both started the first game as a couple of professionals would. Missing only one shot each until the bitter end. Our true colors showed in the second game. I lost both by way of sewering on the eight ball. It was fun nonetheless. We had some good laughs and good food. We returned to my villa and watched the famous dance and enjoyed a few more laughs. Wood left but forgot his phone. He returned minutes later for it, I was waiting on the stoop. All in all it was a good time. What magic will the rest of the week hold? Only time will tell. Phillips out.

July 20, 2006

The last couple of days have been a blur. We've been dominating at work these past few days. Jeff was on holidays on Monday and thus Brian and I nailed it shut. Jeff came back and then Brian went on the road and has been touring ever since. It's nice that he trusts us enough to run the operation while he goes on various academic tours. We enjoy the freedom. We planned around the rain today and it came as expected. There has been a couple of good summer thunder storms in the area this week. The heat wave can be blamed for that. We've battled the heat wave pretty well with our wisely placed fans and air conditioners. We finally got a hydro bill and compared it last year's costs and we're right on pace with last year so the extra power drawn by the conditioners has not affected us as was prophesized. We're starting into the dog days of summer here and it shows. I think its called the dog days because by this time everyone is settling into a routine of sorts which makes the days go by fast and also makes memories blur together. If that makes any sense. I'm running on three hours of sleep so you can't blame me if I seem a bit more non-sensical than usual. I just could not, for the life of me, get to sleep last night. I mean I started asleep for 2 hours and then hit some kind of sleep wall. I watched TV to pass the time. I further noticed that late night TV is the best TV available, much better than daytime programming. We started early today to spray just to add to the hurt, and speaking of hurt, I hurt my shoulder at work also. I strained something hard in my back while shooting hoops at lunch. I was able to work through the pain and spanked the various tasks I had left. I also worked hard today and did more than what was asked of me. Much more in fact. I still haven't slept and I'm not all that tired. I imagine it will be an early night tonight. I'm trying to wait out the rain before I go get groceries but my patience is running out. It's going to be a good one. We've been milk free in this house for over a month now. We've also been without many, many other things that are considered necessary. We do have cheese, and margarine. Both of which were left out and partially melted. So I'm wasting my afternoon off work here by ranting about every solitary thought that goes through my mind. I guess that is enough for today. I don't have any news of anything other than the fact I bought a wad of Blue Jays tickets last night for the weekend when the Yankees are in town. Should be a good adventure in the Big Smoke. Phil is coming down here with Dave who is carrying on to London to find a place to live for next year. My sister and some of Phil's friends are coming also. My sister is going to see friend's in Waterloo where she gets her education. Well I think I've given enough and thoroughly wasted your time so I bid adieu with the now traditional and increasingly popular, Phillips out.

July 16, 2006

Is it really true? Have I not been around here in a week. It seems that I have been absent for some time. The reasoning why tonight at 11:00pm. Kidding. Here it is. So after last Sunday I had to really put a push on to get ready for our tour at work. It made us feel like we were on the Apprentice TV program. We had many tasks to complete to have a successful tour and we did manage to get everything done and we were rewarded with many kudos from big wigs in the company. We got a huge rain the next day and worked mainly indoors. I used the evening to re-cooperate. The next night was scheduled for me to drive to Toronto and pick up my cousins and then whisk them up to their parents house in North Bay. It all went down. The weekend was spent with family and beyond on the lake. I took many photos, the most I had every taken at one venue. This evening was spent organizing electronic files and finding some food to eat. My roomie Rich got laid off for two weeks during the summer shut down at his job. This was unexpected as he was told earlier that he would be working. The union got involved and screwed him over so he went home for a while. He'll be working around town up there. As for me. I work all week, quel surprise. I'm losing interest in this post at the moment so I'll be hitting the hay, watch for more soon. Phillips out.

July 9, 2006

Yesterday was an interesting day. The plan I spoke of previous was to take Liz and Franco to my site to show them what I do and how I do it. Liz is in plant biology at the school and works in a lab there so she had an interest in seeing and her boyfriend Francis is interested in trying to get my job so it was looking to be a fun afternoon. Unfortunately, only Liz could make it. We still set off for the open fields of Ayr. We toured the bottom, top, town and various close off-site locations. I think she enjoyed the tour although I'm sure it was pretty boring. Rich was supposed to make the trek also but a hot girl had instructed him to go to the beach with her and understandably he crapped out. I'm happy that he did and saved himself the torture of the tour. I realize now that a love of field crops is necessary to get "into" the tour. It is only mildly interesting for others at best. Either way, after I dropped Liz off I headed to the bank and got out next month's rent and also the money to pay bills. Brown is doing an exceptional job of organizing the finances and my hat is off to him. I rolled the money up into a tight roll and tossed it to him gangster style when I saw him which is a rarity in itself. I also tried to rent some movies but the one I wanted, the Matador, was all gone so I left it at that out of spite and disgust. I got home, chatted with Brown briefly before he left for Laura's. Rich then returned, chatted briefly with him before he headed to Toronto to randomly see a concert. I then watched some television and read my novel, the Iliad. This was followed by sleep. I awoke at 6am which brings us to the present time. Hope I have a fun day. Yesterday was also the day of the surprise anniversary party for the Mayor and his wife which was put on by the kids, Dave, Phil, and Karli. I gather that it was a success and that they didn't know about it. Hopefully, I'll get the details about this party that I was unable to attend. That is all for now. Phillips out.

July 7, 2006

Today was a really good day. We had a load of fun at work today. But let's start with the previous day. At some point over the weekend or early in the week, I'm not sure when due to my lack of sleep, some company who shall remain nameless thought it wise to leave a flyer on our stoop. The reason it was not put in the "junk mailbox" is because I duct taped that shut a few weeks ago to try and slow the amount of junk mail that was coming in. That and to avoid any charges applied to us in form of a fine for not cleaning out our "junk mailbox" by a certain time each week. That rule being put forth by our Nazi property management firm, but I don't want to get into that at this juncture. Anyways, the flyer; I consider it to be littering when they just leave a flyer on the steps. (Littering being the reason for the clean out rules.) I took the flyer in and found a phone number on it. The next day I took it with me to work and called the people up. I got a general desk and then asked to speak to someone in marketing. They instead patched me through to customer service and I told them that it was littering to leave papers on people's doorsteps. The guy apologized and claims it will never happen again. I told him I hoped it wouldn't as I would not want to involve the police in such a trivial matter. This was a widely ridiculous threat that I have absolutely no intention of upholding but he didn't know that and was very apologetic. Anyways, that was the excitement from Thursday. Today, was a different ball game. We were at work early again, as we have been every day this week except the first day (same scenario as last week) to spray various plots. Hopefully we run out of things to spray by next week. We did our work and then did some extra tasks and finished with some pong. Around 11am we changed our clothes and headed to Ingersoll, land of the restaurant. The unofficial stats are that it has 30 restaurants for 9000 people. There are an inproportionate number of eateries to say the least. We selected Crabby Joe's and all the students and their bosses were there for a solid meal. This was followed by nine holes of golf just down the road in Mount Elgin. I played with the three students who had never played before while Jeff played with the three bosses. It was a good time followed by a sit around in the clubhouse, before we all went our separate ways. My weekend plans fell through so I have a long, lonely one coming up. Actually I might have a back-up plan for Saturday which ironically was my plan to do all along. That don't make no sense to me. Anyways, I'll be back soon with this long, lonely weekend. Phillips out.

July 5, 2006

So today was a weird one. We actually took a huge step today at work, well a huge responsibility or something. Initiative maybe? Anyways, we knew we had to spray a plot in Delhi which is an hour from our site which is an half hour from home. Because of this and a mitigating threat of wind we had to leave early, like 5am early. I woke up well before 5am. This was a huge move. A McDonald's breakfast fuelled us through this early morning endeavour. Our next move was to work ahead of schedule and pre-mix a lot of herbicide spray trials that are to be sprayed tomorrow. We stayed at work for 10 hours doing site prep work for the grand tours of next week. We called the boss who was at a media day event elsewhere to give him a status report and he was enthralled with our efforts. We do totally dominate at our jobs. So I reported on the weekend already. Just to add, Brown came home from work and was all up in arms about something and wanted to go to the show to settle his nerves. He wanted us to go with him. Rich was beat from a wild Northern Weekend and I had to be up early. He was all mad about that was just being generally cranky which he does now. So we called in the meal that Jeff owed him and Jeff came through in the clutch as he is prone to do. The meal was delivered and that settled Brown down. Jeff stayed and the four of us all watched the House. It was a good time. Tonight my plan is to make some calls and then hit the hay early as we have to spray yet again. Excluding the first days of the week I have sprayed every day for two weeks. This is getting ridiculous. I don't even know what we're spraying anymore. Anyways, that is all I have to say about that for the time being. I hope all is well elsewhere and Steve I'll be talking to you soon about those drunken voicemails. Phillips out.

July 3, 2006

Let me begin by apologizing about the lack of posting material over the last week or so. I was very busy with work as my boss was on holidays and I took it upon myself to do most of the planning for the week. Also, I was enjoying some off time or down time if you would. Speaking of down time I was away for the Canada Day weekend. I went the cottage of a friend of my parents if that makes sense. There were some logistical problems in the beginning but I managed to solve them. The friend, Wray, was to be working in Guelph on the Friday of last week and so would acquire me and bring be to the destination but that fell threw and he was in Barrie on Thursday and Huntsville on Friday. This did not work for me and was going to present a challenge. I had to dig deep into my logistical magic sack and pull out a whooper. So I work with a guy from Meaford (near Collingwood). He had plans to go home for the first part of the long weekend leaving Thursday. Barrie is near Collingwood in a sort of not at all type of way but we could legitimately include Barrie in the trip as we have a plot there. So we did just that. I met up with Wray courtesy of Jeff's ride and we traveled from there. I arrived at the cottage, which is on Pine Lake, just west of Bracebridge, on Thursday evening. Wray went to work the next morning which left me with the better part of the day to myself. I did some sleeping, some reading and some eating. My folks arrived that night and we had a good meal and some laughs. The next day was pretty much the same as it's forefather, as was the next. Today I drove Wray's wife's PT Cruiser from the cottage to the bus station in Toronto. The bus brought me home. I took some pictures but nothing of interest. I got a video of a chipmunk gathering peanuts which is nice. I'm enjoying my air conditioner now and I'm going to hit the sack soon. Hopefully I'll have a post with more substance and girth. Until then, Phillips out.