It's My Life

A RAISE AND A TRIP TO CALGARY

Tomorrow I've offically been employed at the Lacombe Globe for three months, and as a result, I get a raise of $50/week. The extra money will be nice, that's for sure.

This past weekend I went to a place called Half Moon Resort. It's just southeast of Sherwood Park. My cousin's RV and trailer company (Arcan) was holding this camping get together which included some drinking by the fire on Saturday night, and a slowpitch game on Sunday. It was lots of fun, and great to see some family again.

The highlight of the game was scoring the winning run, but in ugly fashion. Tied 16-16 in the bottom of the last inning, my team had two outs with me at the plate. I knew a homerun would win us the game. Being the competitive athlete I am, I tried going for the long bomb, only to barely hit the ball a couple feet in front of me.

Luckly, the first baseman missed the throw, and I advanced another two bases. I scored from third on another hit that should've been an out when the next batter hit an infield fly that was misplayed by the shortstop. We won 17-16.

This weekend should be a dandy. I'm leaving Friday afternoon for Calgary to meet up with Dani and her brother Jason. We're going to party in Cotown for the weekend. We don't have anything concrete planned yet, but we do know it'll involve alcohol and night clubs. I'll have a post on it sometime after I get back to Lacombe.

ANOTHER VISIT TO PRINCE GEORGE

Roger: I'm done drinking after tonight.
Me: Oh yeah? How long will you hold that up?
Roger: A couple weeks.

Dusty: I'll never quit drinking. I may die when I'm 40 but I won't stop drinking.

Last weekend I went back to PG to get my winter tires put on my car, and catch up with family and friends while I was at it. It was nice to get away from Alberta, and back to my hometown.

The trip was fairly low key. I checked out my sister's new house, got new brakes for my car, winter tires on my car, went to the pub and Cadillac Ranch, and watched football and tennis on the tube on Sunday. The trip was the last big one until Christmas. The Lacombe Globe's year in review issue comes out the week before, so the office will be closed for a full week. I'm looking forward to a nice Christmas break. I'm also planning to fly home this time.

On top of having to cough up lots of money to fix up my car, I'm now without a muffler after the damn thing started dragging on the ground between PG and McBride. Rather than spend an afternoon in McBride to get a new one put on my car, I chose to drive the final seven hours of the trip without a muffler. It's a good thing I have loud music in my car, but my ears were ringing when I got home.

The worst part about taking a day off is the shortened work week it leaves me with. With Monday off, I only have three days worth of copy for next week's issue since Thursday afternoon is the copy deadline. However, I'm planning to hold the front page of the sports section because it's the Lacombe Rams high school football team's home opener on Friday. The team is also holding a pep rally at the school that afternoon. The next week will also be busy. I work this weekend, and our newspaper is also putting out its special supplement known as Small Business Week 2005. For this booklet, each reporter in the newsroom selects different businesses to take pictures and do advertorials on.

Here's a classic quote I picked up off watching Everybody Loves Raymond this evening. It was out of a conversation between Frank and Raymond.

Frank: Who the hell buys a $40 fish? Salmon costs $13 a pound and you can eat it.