August 2024 Monthly Entry
Sunny temperatures continue though we did have some brief rain at the tail end of July. It hasn't been too hot lately, kind of fluctuating around the early to late 20s celcius.
Tomorrow I start my summer trip. Here is my itinerary:
August 9-12 in Montreal, QC: I depart YVR at 7:50am PST on Air Canada and land in YUL 3:42pm EST. Going for Pride weekend but mainly to be with the members of BLUF Montreal at their planned gatherings. I'll be staying at Hotel Quartier Latin Montreal.
August 12-14 in Halifax/Darthmouth, NS: I leave YUL through Porter Airlines at 12:05pm EST and land in YHZ at 2:38pm AST. Visiting slave Blake and pup Chris as I haven't seen them since 2018.
August 14-18: I'll be flying to Green Bay, WI on American Airlines to meet up with my leather family and spend the night. I leave YHZ at 2:15pm AST with transfers in Philadelphia and Chicago. I land in GRB at 10:02pm CST. From the 15th to the 18th we will be at the 50th Anniversary of the Argonauts of Wisconsin Northwoods Leather Run.
August 18-20: We return to my family's home in New Glarus. May visit Madison.
August 20-23 in White Haven, PA: I leave MSN on American Airlines at 11:36am CST with a transfer in Chicago and will be in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre AVP at 12:39pm EST. Visiting Daddy Eric.
August 23: [Edit] I head home. My United flight will first be from AVP and depart at 3pm EST with a transfer in Washington Dulles IAD. My Air Canada flight to Vancouver will be at 5:45pm and land about 8:33pm PST after an over five and a half hour flight.
My write-ups will be in either three or four parts.
[Also edit]: I forgot to mention that I will be going to BiggerBash in Las Vegas. Biggercity is celebrating its 25th Anniversary on September 5-9. I can only go Sept, 7-8. I'll write about my time there in a future entry and try to get some pictures to share.
After Lyndhurst I spent the rest of July at Forest Grove which consisted of Paul the sub-foreman of Armstrong, and Rajpaul a casual on a temporary contract who cleans Forest Grove. On certain days, we got Dean from Burnaby Mountain (was my ex sub-foreman at Montecito) too. We worked well together wiping things down and scrubbing floors. I mainly squeegeed the windows and whiteboards before helping with anything left in the classrooms. I did scrub some floors, but I ended up being the one doing the vast majority of waxing the floors to finish things off. I was fine with that as I could use the practice. In my last two days, we were given a couple of Building Service Worker students to help us as part of their practicum for four hours a day. I helped show them how to use the swinger machine and each had a few chances to scrub floors. I also showed them how to lay down wax. What made this easier were a couple of classrooms that were mostly carpet, but had a section of hard floor for each of them to scrub and wax. During their time there, I and my coworkers explained why we did certain things when scrubbing floors. I explained that likely they have learned in their class about the pH balance of chemicals that custodians use every day. After a floor is scrubbed with a water and chemical mix, the dirty solution on the floor needs to be sucked up by a wet vacuum or autoscrubber vacuum, and then the floor needs to be neutralized by mopping on clean water and vinegar, including the baseboards. I explained that the chemical we used to scrub -be it acid or alkaline- is still scrubbed deep into the pores of the floors and can cause damage overtime if we don't neutralize it with a water and vinegar mix. After it dries up, we can apply a couple coats of wax. I later got complimented by Paul for being their "teacher" and passed it onto my foreman! At least it makes me look good. The only small problem during my time there was the custodian -we'll call him Seth- of Lyndhurst who joined us for one day. He ended up screwing me out of extra pay because he conveniently called in sick when I was tapped to be the sub-foreman 2. Paul had to take that day off for a medical appointment and since I had more seniority over Rajpaul, I could be sub 2 that day and get paid that wage. Seth has more seniority over me but Paul wanted me to be the leader as I knew what was going on and Seth only just joined us. But all this can only happen if there are at least three of us working. Since Seth called in "sick", it was only Rajpaul and me that day. I had already logged into the system that I was sub 2 before I got the phone call from my foreman that Seth wasn't coming in. Come my recent paycheque, I noticed no difference in pay - which meant payroll noticed it was only two of us working that day and thus, I was not entitled to extra pay (I'd guess about $30-40 more after taxes.) We believe Seth screwed us over because he didn't like how Paul was running things and used a minor incident near the end of the shift to claim a well-after-the-fact workplace accident. After I was transferred to Cameron for the first two days of August, he came back to work not to help clean, but to do some surveying with a maintenance crew since he is on "light duties only" before he takes his vacation time off. It was only for about an hour or two before he had to go to another school and we no longer see him for the rest of the summer. Oh well. Speaking of Cameron, the school was very filthy as usual. Most of the classrooms in the main school were done thanks to the leadership of Cherrie from Cariboo Hill. I worked with her at Lyndhurst last month. We spent most of those two days cleaning the portables. After the provincial holiday, my final week this week was at Cariboo Hill while Cameron is probably done by now. Rajpaul, who has been with me since Forest Grove and also at Cameron, has joined me at Cariboo though she has called in sick the last two shifts. It has been the sub 2 and one casual custodian helping to wipe down classrooms in the Social Studies and English section. I'll be back at Rosser on the 29th and 30th.
I've began Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and got to the end of the Tanker chapter. I will continue the game sometime after my trip and while I wish I were done the game by now, it is a good place to reload when I return. I'm very early in Bravely Second: End Layer and hope I'll make some decent progress throughout my trip. I've since replaced the control stick on my 3DS so I can continue playing. No progress on Star Trek: TOS and Harley Quinn.
Last Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (Theatrical), Despicable Me 3 (Netflix)
Last Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Last Game: 3D Classics: Kid Icarus (3DS)
Current Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Miracles
Current Games: Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection (PS3) & Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)