What the heck happened to my blog?

I was able to contact the call center. I also had contacted payroll and the fellow spoke broken English. I got the feeling he was feeling uncomfortable with me asking about the state of my vacation pay. His Super intervened the call and was very aggressive towards me. “Your supposed to take this up with your branch manager.” “He told me to call,” is what I should have said to her. Because he did. Payroll said he’d look into this for me. I think somebody made a mistake with my vacation pay last December and they don’t want to be held accountable because they aren't giving me any details about the so called overpayment. I went in feeling good and I picked up my 6/49 ticket for Wednesday’s big draw and I got my old end dialer in the front 20. Nobody came out after me. I had a slow start doing CPA and at break barely at line hour and 3 CC sales. I got cans and bottles and at break called Anne. I got the rest of the empties and in the 2nd half I got $650 in 2 hours and 3 cards for a total of $1,085. $325 of that was on CC sales pulling in 6 for the night. I’m back. That ought to shut Rob up for awhile. I changed my pitch around slightly by shortening it up and it helped a lot. Apparently I even got a $20 bonus. I’ll believe it when I see it. I also talked with Greg about substituting Friday’s for Sunday’s and he said he hadn’t talked with Rob yet but he will. He didn‘t think there would be a problem. It means I’m still down at the office every day even if it’s just to pick up my cheque.

I got a small assortment of empties added to what I had from Saturday to take home. I’m getting competition now from Brendin’s wife as DC’s collecting cans for them. They’re having a baby. Then there’s Fran going around taking cans from our tap section. I was lucky if I got half a bag full this evening. Slim Pickens.

I was feeling pretty good getting out of there and I barely missed my train so I read for awhile waiting for the next one. This oriental lady across from my “booth” was reading a Jim Butcher “Dresden” novel from the Library. I got in about 9:45pm just before Monday night Raw and wow. It was a good one. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 9.5. It had everything in it. Anne made me some supper and went up to Walmart to get my coffee. Despite everything, today wasn’t bad. Even the markets picked up Monday…….. ………..1:05pm>I had a good 7.5 hours sleep or there abouts. I got up on the late side of the noon hour today although I missed the markets but on the CNN ticker showed the Dow up by about 21 points and finally from another source oil is just at $70! I remember when it was floating around $30 last November.

Another economic indicator things are improving: We’re back to around 8 tap shooters in the office at night but that could change tonight and tomorrow.

When I first began reading science fiction books, it was in the early 1970’s reading Ace doubles and Perry Rhodan novels. I sold a lot of books in the early 1990’s but now that things have been more or less stable I’m looking at getting back the Ace doubles. I didn’t have all of them. I think the publisher had something like 280 books of the science fiction line. Many of them from various Ebay sellers are in pretty good condition. I used to have a lot of the Doc Savage novels as well. As many of the original Dark Shadows novels. The one’s with the gold colored covers. Those were great reads. All of the books mentioned above are in various states of condition on Ebay.

I was mentioning about ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) last night to Anne when we were talking about what we‘d do if we won the Big one on Wednesday. I’d buy all of the modules I don’t have since “Multiman publishing” took it over. I filled Anne in what the game was about while we were lying in bed listening to a bit of Coast. Even though I find it hard to get the time to play ASL, I’d like to get back into it again. I have many great memories playing ASL in the 80’s and 1990’s and other wargames as well. I got involved in war gaming when one of the neighborhood kids back in Coquitlam had a game board set up in his bedroom. Dave Galloway and Jim Martin and a few others were moving these things called counters around the board and rolling dice. They were playing “Blitzkrieg.” I didn’t know at the time what the game was called or even where one could buy a copy but I liked what I was seeing. The last time I gamed an Avlon hill game was around August 1973 with Dave Galloway at the old (long gone now) Burard Bible institue. My favorite Avlon Hill game before Squad Leader was “Stalingrad.” I found “Strategy & Tactics” (SPI) magazine from I think Alfred. I had some cash and around 1972 I bought a 2 year subscription to S&T. You got a game in every by monthly issue. They had some great game topics along with in depth historical articles on the game. SPI released non magazine games later and I bought a few of those from Burnaby Hobbies. It’s still there today in the same location. I lost a lot of those old science fiction books and war games when I moved from New Westminster to Edmonton in 1978. I could have kicked myself for not arranging with the caretaker of the last place I lived in there, to send my stuff up to Edmonton by UPS or something. It might have cost me a paycheque from the guard company I was working with. I decided to stay in Edmonton the weekend of August 19th 1978. I'm sure for a small fee my caretaker would have shipped my things for me.

Weather wise we’re getting some cooler weather later for June. I don’t like it too hot. This is just right. And all the leaves are back on the trees. If I have a decent night this evening, I’m going to show up for Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. And when I begin working Sunday afternoon the only times I’m coming in will be on Fridays is to pick up my cheque.

I’m worried about my wife. She’s been having some discomfort in her foot lately causing her some grief. She’s worried about her job as they are cutting back in her hours etc. other then the odd grief I’m getting from my job and my payroll troubles I’m coping as best I can. Yet with all the layoffs around the Province/City, our office isn’t full. Maybe things are improving. With oil at $70/barrel things ought to.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim