hard to believe were into the middle of January already.

Yikes! I just realized spmething, I'm not very photo genic. Markus did a good job putting that photo of me up there, but I didn't realize I had hair forearms. So that shot might not be the finale take. I'll get another shot of me a better one on the weekend. Have a tea isn't exactly a fitting caption either. Maybe something like writer at work. It'll do for now.

When I got outside past the parkade stairs last night that block the street providing me with a blind spot there was a bus waiting at the lights. I just managed to catch it as well. Not that it would have made me late or anything. I sucked on a halls going in brought up some flem but I had a nice ride going in. I bought a ginger ale at the store took the elevator up to the office and I thought I’d pop into see Rob. His Nephew Steve was there. Rob was on the phone not looking to happy to see me. Oh well. Moe was. I got a dialer on the other side of Gary. And JT on the end and Will showed up and sat next to me. His first day back to evenings. Moe had king Arthur on for us. This looked like a good movie. I love the scenery in it. I was holding my own sucking back on Halls. Will was off and away fro m his dialer for the most part. Surprisingly my voice picked up ok for the first half and I ended up with $350 doing CPA.

Alright after the first half I reminded Moe about my cheque. He was pretty busy training new people. Seems this Sunday was Xl’s first ever Sunday shift. They had about 14 people show up. I think they work from 11-5pm. That’s not to bad. Some interesting news even though I was off for 3 days our team B were tied with team C to split $25 each way. That plus the 12 hours on my cheque. I had to remind Moe about 4 times for my cheque. Anne had called me at the break saying she got a couple of calls from one of the call centers I think she should try out that were in last week recruiting. They left a voice mail on her machine. This call center though has The Edmonton Oiler’s as one of it’s clients. Plus they have free coffee and candies. The only thing is, it’s manual calling. She’s looking at this other call center on the same block. Could be right across the street in the Pizza building and it’s using the same DASH software she’s been working with for the last 5 years. We’re using Anzio where I work. I don’t know the back end of the of the program but I know how to work the front end of it. The 2nd half went pretty well although the main casualty in all of this was no credit cards. Mainly my itchy scratchy throat was the main hindering block preventing me from not getting credit cards. Sundeep the kid from India that likes me (nice guy) got 10 credit cards in one night. I couldn‘t get a damn thing.

Finally at about 7:45pm I asked Moe for my cheque and he went to get it for me. I thought Rob missed my credit card bonuses but no, he put them all on there and gave me a buck more to even things out. I received $75 in bonuses alone last week and that’s not bad plus my stat pay. I left feeling very happy. Walking across that parking lot was a bit treacherous because of the sudden rush of wind. It wasn’t that cold or anything, just windy. I called Anne to let her know I was coming out of the building. Hopefully by this time next week she will be on her new job. There should be no disruption in income or otherwise if she gets this job. It’s not a question of if it’s a question of when. I had a nice relaxing ride on the lrt a brief wait on the bus and home.

I got home about 9:30pm no worse for wear. I think what I’m going to do this week because our lodge is having an emergent meeting is work Thursday morning. Not to get my cheque or anything but Anne gets her last cheque from Con on Thursday. I feel bad for Con, they treated Anne pretty good. They have a head office in Ontario and maybe a few other call centers in Montréal and Ottawa but they couldn’t staff their Edmonton operation. It’s the end of an era for Anne. As much as there were some days she hated it, it was more her then the job. It leaves a void in our lives.

The other thing that’s looming on the immediate horizon is the dreaded rent hike. It’s not a question of if its when and how much? There is also the possibility of an election as well that ties into all of this. Rent controls or a lack of them could be the key ingredient here. It basically works like this, if the Stelmach Tories come out unscathed then we might weather this year with a modest rental increase. If the liberals get elected and say “we’re going to have temporary rental controls beginning at such and so a date, property management firms will get nervous and hit renters (us included) with a huge increase before any deadline. The thing is, the next increase we get, we’re out of here. Anne wants out of here anyway because this place is making her I’ll. The best thing for us right now is would be buying our own condo. Property taxes are about $1,000/year. Condo fees $200/month+ Something like that would be excellent. But then we’d need a 25 year mortgage and I think I heard Neil say a 25 year mortgage is something like $1,200 month. Maybe condo fees would be a lot less. We really need to get into a situation where we won’t have to pay rent. Having to look over your shoulder every day to see if there’s that white sheet of paper in the door isn’t living. Sure there’s subsidies and we’ve barely looked through that window. Thing with subsidy is Anne doesn’t have a job after Friday night. The place that called her last night is in my Ophthalmologist’s building. It’s manual dialing and that doesn’t sit to well for her. They use a computer for everything else. She’s going to call them tonight. It’s a little out of the way for her as it’s an extra bus ride, which means she wouldn’t get home until 10pm. The other job is probably better for her because it’s closer.

But of course more on this later.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e. Jim