November 2013 Monthly Entry
US Thanksgiving weekend is the Knights of Malta - Dogwood Chapter's 33rd Anniversary weekend in Vancouver from Nov.29 to Dec.1. I will be attending all 4 events and taking pictures as usual. I've also reserved a room at the Holiday Inn on Howe with my friend, Peter. If any of you are in the city that weekend, let me know. My write-up about the weekend will be posted within the week following.
Last Sunday we had the AGM and it lasted a record of just over an hour to do! Poor Peter ended up in the hospital that morning so David as Vice-President & Master At Arms chaired the meeting. The reports went by smoothly and the nominations for positions on the executive had nothing to vote on as it's the same people as (now) last year and we all agreed to it. The awards took the longest and while Peter & Jim both got "Knight of the Year" together, I was the only other Knight nominated and got 2 out of 8 votes! Since Peter wasn't around he couldn't reveal who he was giving the President's Award to though he doesn't have to reveal it to us and it's an award that can go to literally anyone you want - you don't need a reason! Hell, if you're a sick-minded individual you can give it to serial rapist and there is nothing we can do about it LOL! It's the one award that is not voted upon and completely up to the President. Will be interesting to see who gets it this time. Last year it was his doctor from St. Paul's Hospital. Speaking of which, Peter was just released this afternoon from the hospital. Woohoo!
The rest of October was pretty sunny but by the end of the month to now, the wet weather has arrived. A lot of the trees are either bare or the leaves are not as colourful as they were before. October looked so much better in pretty fall colours.
Through our tax dollars, David got his expensive iMac (over $2000 model) plus a computer desk and office chair. He also got MS Office 2011 with it too. He is now in the dining room while I'm still in the living room and as I expected, his listening to music or watching a movie can get annoying compared to when he was up in his room. Not sure what he will do with his Windows 7 model PC but I suggested he give it to Peter as he is using a Vista model. Strangely, David took his VCR back as part of his "separating our things" even though he has no TV outside my own to use it on! He cannot take away his easy chair, couch, and coffee table from me because there is no room though I'm sure he was originally planning on too! Don't ask why... it goes to prove how far he has fallen from me and that we are no longer a real household. Next month will be the late-Kevin's 5th Anniversary of when he was taken from us. Almost never a day goes by that I think our lives would be so different and better if he wasn't gone...
So it seemed I only had to work at MacPherson Walk East for one pay period - 12 days in the period plus a day after to finish at the beginning of November. I'm very thankful as usually these transition periods of finding a new resident manager can take over a month (remember last year when I had to manage the Marquis Grande for three and a half months?). I'm also thankful that the job wasn't as stressful as I thought but I certainly was left at a disadvantage when it came to having the tools needed to do jobs. For example, I needed a screwdriver to replace a few burnt out lights outside but the one left behind didn't have the proper bit. I was also running out of paper for both photocopying and receiving faxes. My manager got me a pack of paper but there was no point in getting me a multi-bit screwdriver as he found out at the time that they found someone to take over... the same guy who quit - Michael! I'll get into that soon but first want to explain what it was like working on the complex.
First thing I would do once I came in the morning is check for phone messages. I then grab my mop bucket, glass cleaner, stainless steel cleaner, duster, and vacuum. I go across to the other building and clean the lobby, two elevators, and two elevator lobbies. I check the mailbox for any forms that people drop off and walk each hallway checking for garbage or major messes plus burnt out lights. I then go back to my main building and do the exact same things. Pretty easy work. The garbage and recycling room I check a few times a day and have to use a battery-powered pallet jack to move the garbage and cardboard bins just outside the room. I've never used one like this before but gotten the hang of it. The last time I used a pallet jack, it was a manual one. I worked the graveyard shift up at SFU in 2005-2006 and I would be the one emptying the baler (crushes down cardboard) on a pallet outside the MBC building. Because this motorized one could move forward or backwards automatically by turning a dial, I was crashing a lot at first! But it certainly made moving the bins a hell of a lot easier! I slide the pallet under the middle of the bin either on one side or the front, press a button for the legs to lift it up just enough, move it outside the room, and place it for the city garbage workers to pick up the next morning. Repeat once or twice more for all bins that need to be emptied and thats it! But it wasn't always cakewalk as the bins would get stuck under the legs of the pallet jack and even after lowering it all the way, was still stuck and carrying the bin to boot! A lot of times I have to use actual manpower to move the bins to get them outside, sometimes with the help of my supervisor if he was visiting. But most times it was to angle the bins so that the garbage collector could back up and take them easily. No big deal, the pallet jack certainly does help as these bins kill your muscles and fingers as they're so heavy when full! The garbage bins are taken by the city on Tuesdays and Fridays, cardboard bins on Wednesdays, and recycling containers on Fridays. Unlike where I usually work, I took Michael's advice and hardly sorted through the recycling. The people there (mostly Chinese) are terrible and don't bother to sort through and throw out recycled items in the proper bins! It would be a waste of time so I just did the minimum needed and left it at that. As for any administrative work, I didn't have to program any fobs and thank the good Lord because I did not know how to do it. Unlike the Keyscan system that I've been trained to use, this was a different system and Michael barely showed me how to use it. I had to deal with a few moves which was easy but when someone booked to use the guest suite for one night, I didn't get back to them as Anca, the property manager, did not return to me the form they filled out so I could contact these people wanting to rent the suite. It was a weird cat and mouse game between her and I. She would take forms from me and have them for the records, but then some she'll give back to me by hand if she happened to visit the property (thankfully only a few times!) or fax them to me. I don't know, I have no opinion of her but she is better than the jackass property manager from my last month's entry. I didn't have to clean the exercise room and only did little cleaning of the washrooms. For taking my breaks, the amenity room was a great place to relax. It's where I have my supplies, it's near the washrooms, where the phone is, and it's private (residents don't get access unless they book it but that's rare and never happened when I was around). It comes with a kind of "couch" (don't know what to call it) that I can grab a chair and put my feet up while relaxing on it or I can lie flat down and doze off. Never got caught either than the phone going off and interrupting me LOL!
There were about four major problems I had to deal with:
The first was a garbage can outside the building that people usually throw out their bagged dog poop or whatever. During weekdays, it's not so bad and I change the bag always on Fridays before I go and possibly on Mondays when I return. But after a weekend, some dipshit will try to place something on top of the garbage can that won't fit in the small hole (Michael added a plate to make the hole smaller and put a lock on the top of the can to prevent people from using it as a drop off point for their household garbage - smart man!) and because they leave it there, people just leave their scraps of garbage and bagged dog poop all around the can - even though there is plenty of room in the bag! I usually end up sweeping the garbage and adding it into the bag but it's so frustrating and even my supervisor was appalled!
The second problem was finding out how to retrieve phone messages and also access the password feature on the intercom system. I called Michael and he thankfully gave me the needed info but I knew to try and keep phone calls to him minimal.
The third problem was sometime after vacuuming and mopping the floor in the first building's elevator that doesn't have a mat (it's the only one among the four), I come back about 4 or 5 hours later and discover some brown residue on the floor and the smell of rancid shit coming from it! I couldn't believe it! I'm guessing someone must have had their dog take a shit outside (or taken a shit in the elevator and picked most of it up) and the dog smeared it on the floor, up against the stainless steel baseboard. I locked the elevator and I immediately went and grabbed my mop bucket and poured some extra deodorizer into it plus a disinfectant chemical. I emptied a spray bottle and filled it with deodorizer and water to take with me too. Thank God my supervisor brought me supplies that day! I washed the elevator floor and let the mop absorb and scrub the excess shit while the deodorizer killed the smell. After I picked up the solution, I let the floor air dry completely. There was (almost) no shit smell and the floor was back to what it was like earlier when I cleaned it the first time. I then wanted to know if anyone tracked the shit onto the hallway carpets and was bracing myself for more shit to deal with. Starting on the 4th floor, I walked through the hallways, checking for brown spots and sniffing around. It was fine and then I did the 3rd floor and it was the same. But once I got to the 2nd floor... aw, fuck! I could smell the shit just outside that same elevator it originated from and some slight brown spots on the carpet. The smell was very pungent in that part of the hallway, all the way to the other elevator (the hallway is simply a straight line in that building) except for the end sides. I took my mop, squeezed it out, and worked it into the area outside the elevators to absorb the shit residue out of the carpet. I then walked back and forth, spraying the deodorizer onto random spots all over the hallway carpet until it was run out. I once again mopped that area plus the other elevator area just in case as the smell wasn't going away. That was all I could do given the circumstances and supplies I had. The main floor hallway didn't have the smell so no need to clean it. While it was weird that no one called and complained about the smell (and I was expecting it!), the smell was mostly gone the next day! A day or two later, it was completely gone! YAY!
I should abridge something weird about people in the complex: One day I got a phone message that was left just after 8am from some guy complaining about a light outside his suite door being burnt out... and yet, NO ONE called to complain about shit smells in an elevator and hallway? Ooookay... moving on...
The final major problem happened on Halloween. I get to work late as usual but got there just before my manager stopped by (the ONLY time I have seen him since working in the complex - he wanted nothing to do with the place and left it for me and my supervisor to handle! Bastard!) to give me my paycheque. The fire panel alarm was going off for some reason and I didn't know what was causing it. There was no fire or mechanical problems that I knew of. He quieted it and called Mountain Fire to have a look at it. He made mention that someone complained about "half the lights being out in the building" and I said the person was exaggerating and that I'll be working on changing some of them later as I just got some new light bulbs delivered to me from the supervisor. He left right after but once I got to the first building to clean, I notice the lobby lights are off and I look out to the hallway and one side of the lights halfway down the hall are also off! So THAT'S what the complaint was about! It was on each floor, the same side too. I called my manager and he called an electrician company to come by when they could later in the day. I couldn't clean the floors much in the lobby as the power was out for the sockets too. Mountain Fire came sometime after 1pm and the guy could only deduce that it was an electrical problem and couldn't solve it himself. The electricians finally came and I spent the last two hours running all over the building and parkades with them. But they were great guys though. They isolated the problem in the electrical closet on the main floor that had the main panel (there were none in any of the other 3 floors). My shift was about to end and one of the electricians had to go pick up something while the other stayed behind. I asked them if they needed any of the electrical rooms left open as I needed to get home and they said were sure they didn't. I left them the fob but there were no extra keys to get them into anywhere they needed to go. I left for the day and nearly an hour later, one of them calls me while I'm nearing Coquitlam Station on a bus asking if there was a way to let them back in the room and I said it was too late as it would take me around the same amount of time to go back! They said they would come back in the morning to finish things off and that they managed to get the lobby lights working at least. I said no problem and given that it's Halloween, the darkened hallways will add to the atmosphere LOL! The next day, I give them full access again and it doesn't take them long to restore power to all the lights. They said the problem were these three wires coming out of a concrete block and as the building is aging, the concrete is putting stress on these wires. I told them that Michael had a similar problem with these lights before he left but didn't elaborate what the cause was. I said I would let him know as he will be coming later in the day. I thanked them for everything and they left.
Before Michael arrived in the afternoon, my supervisor gave me his set of keys to give to him later. When he came, I asked him what happened and why he was coming back. He told me that after a mere two days starting his new job, First Service called him and begged him to come back. They were willing to give him what he wanted: he doesn't have to live on the property and just do the same jobs as before. I said I understood why he didn't like how things were before. Being a resident manager that has to clean a complex can be psychologically taxing because you never truly relax. If something happens during your non-working hours plus weekends/holidays, you have to jump on it and you cannot escape. At least just having a shift that you come in, do the work, and leave after 8 hours, you aren't as responsible. Any problems can be done the following day. For weekends, my supervisor is on call to handle problems so the key set he gave me would go back to him. Michael wanted me to put my main key set into a closet in the exercise room for him to pick up on Monday. I showed him the supplies we got and he seemed pleased, especially the deodorizer chemical. After he left, I did the final jobs, I put everything away, the keys were placed in the closet, I washed up, and left the complex. It wasn't too bad of a place but glad to be no longer be responsible for it.
Back at Brentwood Gate, some people were happy to see me again. The guy who took my place did an okay job on my buildings considering he only worked part-time in them. There were two things he did that were questionable though. I noticed in my main building that two separate bulbs that are over a couple of suite doors had their sockets come out. This has never happened before and because the sockets are connected to the wires, it will require an electrician to come in to fix them before I can replace the bulbs. Also, the wringer on my mop bucket in the same building was broken! The backside that holds the handle and wringer came apart. What the hell did this guy do to it? Sigh... at least my supervisor just got a replacement for me. Besides that, it's great to be back at my buildings and work with Larry again.
Halloween was very uneventful this year. We only had three kids show up at our door though it seemed there were quite a few of them out. One reason is that they thought we weren't handing out candy as our front light wasn't on when in reality, it was burnt out. We had our lights on in the lobby which meant we were home. The last kid to knock on our door was so impatient that he/she disappeared to our neighbour right next to us within 12 seconds for me to go downstairs and open the door and not see him/her. It was nice just having only two knocks on the door as I got few interruptions watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Blu-Ray. While I saw the UK version as usual, I did the opening of the movie in B&W this time (becomes colour when Brad & Janet enter the party room in "The Time-Warp"). Once again, it was the highlight of my Halloween just like in previous years.
I saw Disney's Peter Pan, another good classic animated Disney flick and as most of us know, the late Michael Jackson's favourite all-time movie! Extras were pretty good and there was a tribute to Disney's "Nine Old Men" from their surviving children. You can watch Doug Walker's review of the movie here or below (I agree with Walker that I didn't think the Indians were a racist portrayal and thought they were cool but you know me, I hate today's PC bullshit):
I've been very slow with TMNT and I think I'm on Season 7 now. The subseason in which they go to different places in Europe was pretty sub-par in terms of scripting and animation quality. Season 7 has the Turtles back in New York and it's a vast improvement! The artwork and animation are back to normal and the scripting doesn't make you scratch your head as much. I'm well over halfway through the series and once it's done, most likely will start Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
I am almost done Folklore and the review should come out tomorrow or this weekend. I've hardly played Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and need to step that up.
Bible reading has picked up more and I got through 1st and 2nd Kings pretty quickly. King David passes away and his son, Solomon takes the throne. At the beginning of his reign he assumes God's promises to David and brings splendour to Israel and peace and prosperity to his people. This all came from a prayer asking for wisdom and guidance so God grants it to him as his prayer is sincere and humble. He astonishes the people with his wisdom in the deciding fate of a child with two mothers claiming the child as their own. The Queen of Sheba visits King Solomon and is awed by how blessed he is. He answers all her questions and she leaves him with gifts before returning. The centrepiece of Solomon's reign is the building and dedication of the First Temple. He has numerous wives and concubines but this ends up being his flaw. Because of them, he follows other gods and oppresses Israel. As a consequence of Solomon's failure to stamp out the worship of gods other than Yahweh, the kingdom of David is split in two in the reign of his own son Rehoboam, who becomes the first to reign over the kingdom of Judah. The kings who follow Rehoboam in Jerusalem continue the royal line of David (meaning they inherit the promise to David); in the north, however, dynasties follow each other in rapid succession, and the kings are uniformly bad (they fail to follow Yahweh alone). Two major prophets are featured: Elijah and his disciple, Elisha who eventually succeeds him. A famous event with Elijah is having a test to see which god was real and more powerful than the other. The people of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah are summoned to Mount Carmel. Two altars are built, one for Baal and one for Yahweh. Elijah then invites the priests of Baal to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They pray from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridicules their efforts. They respond by cutting themselves and adding their own blood to the sacrifice (such mutilation of the body was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law). They continue praying until evening without success. When it's Elijah's turn, he asks God to accept his sacrifice. Fire falls from the sky, consuming water, the sacrifice, and the stones of the altar itself as well. Elijah seizes the moment and orders the death of the prophets of Baal. This pisses off the evil Queen Jezebel who wants Elijah dead! But she eventually meets her end when her subjects push her out a window. She falls to her death and is eaten by stray dogs - all prophesied by Elijah. Elijah departs from the earth in front of Elisha by a chariot of wind and fire, making Elisha the new prophet. Hezekiah, the 14th king of Judah "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" and institutes a far reaching religious reform, centralizing sacrifice at the temple at Jerusalem and destroying the images of other gods. God saves Jerusalem and the kingdom from an invasion by Assyria. But Manasseh, the next king, reverses the reforms, and God announces that he will destroy Jerusalem because of this apostasy by the king. Mannasah's righteous grandson Josiah reinstitutes the reforms of Hezekiah, but it is too late: God, speaking through the prophetess Huldah, affirms that Jerusalem is to be destroyed. God brings the Babylonians, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, against Jerusalem. God deserts his people, Jerusalem is razed, and the Temple is destroyed. The priests, prophets, royal court, and citizens are led into captivity. This is what is known as the "Babylonian Exile".
In Christian Bibles, this is where the order of the books in the Old Testament become different compared to the Tanakh - the Jewish Bible. With the exception of reading the book of Ruth earlier in Christian Bibles, 1st & 2nd Chronicles is next for me in my Bible while in the Tanakh, it would be Isaiah. 1st Chronicles starts with about ten chapters of nothing more than genealogies before getting into referencing back to the events of the book of 1st Samuel. Perhaps by next month's entry, I'll be done both books but there isn't much to mention.
Last Movie: Despicable Me 2 3D (Theatrical), Disney's Peter Pan (Blu-Ray)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - 2nd Kings
Last Game: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)
Current Book: KJV Holy Bible - 1st Chronicles
Current Games: Folklore (PS3) & Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
Last Sunday we had the AGM and it lasted a record of just over an hour to do! Poor Peter ended up in the hospital that morning so David as Vice-President & Master At Arms chaired the meeting. The reports went by smoothly and the nominations for positions on the executive had nothing to vote on as it's the same people as (now) last year and we all agreed to it. The awards took the longest and while Peter & Jim both got "Knight of the Year" together, I was the only other Knight nominated and got 2 out of 8 votes! Since Peter wasn't around he couldn't reveal who he was giving the President's Award to though he doesn't have to reveal it to us and it's an award that can go to literally anyone you want - you don't need a reason! Hell, if you're a sick-minded individual you can give it to serial rapist and there is nothing we can do about it LOL! It's the one award that is not voted upon and completely up to the President. Will be interesting to see who gets it this time. Last year it was his doctor from St. Paul's Hospital. Speaking of which, Peter was just released this afternoon from the hospital. Woohoo!
The rest of October was pretty sunny but by the end of the month to now, the wet weather has arrived. A lot of the trees are either bare or the leaves are not as colourful as they were before. October looked so much better in pretty fall colours.
Through our tax dollars, David got his expensive iMac (over $2000 model) plus a computer desk and office chair. He also got MS Office 2011 with it too. He is now in the dining room while I'm still in the living room and as I expected, his listening to music or watching a movie can get annoying compared to when he was up in his room. Not sure what he will do with his Windows 7 model PC but I suggested he give it to Peter as he is using a Vista model. Strangely, David took his VCR back as part of his "separating our things" even though he has no TV outside my own to use it on! He cannot take away his easy chair, couch, and coffee table from me because there is no room though I'm sure he was originally planning on too! Don't ask why... it goes to prove how far he has fallen from me and that we are no longer a real household. Next month will be the late-Kevin's 5th Anniversary of when he was taken from us. Almost never a day goes by that I think our lives would be so different and better if he wasn't gone...
So it seemed I only had to work at MacPherson Walk East for one pay period - 12 days in the period plus a day after to finish at the beginning of November. I'm very thankful as usually these transition periods of finding a new resident manager can take over a month (remember last year when I had to manage the Marquis Grande for three and a half months?). I'm also thankful that the job wasn't as stressful as I thought but I certainly was left at a disadvantage when it came to having the tools needed to do jobs. For example, I needed a screwdriver to replace a few burnt out lights outside but the one left behind didn't have the proper bit. I was also running out of paper for both photocopying and receiving faxes. My manager got me a pack of paper but there was no point in getting me a multi-bit screwdriver as he found out at the time that they found someone to take over... the same guy who quit - Michael! I'll get into that soon but first want to explain what it was like working on the complex.
First thing I would do once I came in the morning is check for phone messages. I then grab my mop bucket, glass cleaner, stainless steel cleaner, duster, and vacuum. I go across to the other building and clean the lobby, two elevators, and two elevator lobbies. I check the mailbox for any forms that people drop off and walk each hallway checking for garbage or major messes plus burnt out lights. I then go back to my main building and do the exact same things. Pretty easy work. The garbage and recycling room I check a few times a day and have to use a battery-powered pallet jack to move the garbage and cardboard bins just outside the room. I've never used one like this before but gotten the hang of it. The last time I used a pallet jack, it was a manual one. I worked the graveyard shift up at SFU in 2005-2006 and I would be the one emptying the baler (crushes down cardboard) on a pallet outside the MBC building. Because this motorized one could move forward or backwards automatically by turning a dial, I was crashing a lot at first! But it certainly made moving the bins a hell of a lot easier! I slide the pallet under the middle of the bin either on one side or the front, press a button for the legs to lift it up just enough, move it outside the room, and place it for the city garbage workers to pick up the next morning. Repeat once or twice more for all bins that need to be emptied and thats it! But it wasn't always cakewalk as the bins would get stuck under the legs of the pallet jack and even after lowering it all the way, was still stuck and carrying the bin to boot! A lot of times I have to use actual manpower to move the bins to get them outside, sometimes with the help of my supervisor if he was visiting. But most times it was to angle the bins so that the garbage collector could back up and take them easily. No big deal, the pallet jack certainly does help as these bins kill your muscles and fingers as they're so heavy when full! The garbage bins are taken by the city on Tuesdays and Fridays, cardboard bins on Wednesdays, and recycling containers on Fridays. Unlike where I usually work, I took Michael's advice and hardly sorted through the recycling. The people there (mostly Chinese) are terrible and don't bother to sort through and throw out recycled items in the proper bins! It would be a waste of time so I just did the minimum needed and left it at that. As for any administrative work, I didn't have to program any fobs and thank the good Lord because I did not know how to do it. Unlike the Keyscan system that I've been trained to use, this was a different system and Michael barely showed me how to use it. I had to deal with a few moves which was easy but when someone booked to use the guest suite for one night, I didn't get back to them as Anca, the property manager, did not return to me the form they filled out so I could contact these people wanting to rent the suite. It was a weird cat and mouse game between her and I. She would take forms from me and have them for the records, but then some she'll give back to me by hand if she happened to visit the property (thankfully only a few times!) or fax them to me. I don't know, I have no opinion of her but she is better than the jackass property manager from my last month's entry. I didn't have to clean the exercise room and only did little cleaning of the washrooms. For taking my breaks, the amenity room was a great place to relax. It's where I have my supplies, it's near the washrooms, where the phone is, and it's private (residents don't get access unless they book it but that's rare and never happened when I was around). It comes with a kind of "couch" (don't know what to call it) that I can grab a chair and put my feet up while relaxing on it or I can lie flat down and doze off. Never got caught either than the phone going off and interrupting me LOL!
There were about four major problems I had to deal with:
The first was a garbage can outside the building that people usually throw out their bagged dog poop or whatever. During weekdays, it's not so bad and I change the bag always on Fridays before I go and possibly on Mondays when I return. But after a weekend, some dipshit will try to place something on top of the garbage can that won't fit in the small hole (Michael added a plate to make the hole smaller and put a lock on the top of the can to prevent people from using it as a drop off point for their household garbage - smart man!) and because they leave it there, people just leave their scraps of garbage and bagged dog poop all around the can - even though there is plenty of room in the bag! I usually end up sweeping the garbage and adding it into the bag but it's so frustrating and even my supervisor was appalled!
The second problem was finding out how to retrieve phone messages and also access the password feature on the intercom system. I called Michael and he thankfully gave me the needed info but I knew to try and keep phone calls to him minimal.
The third problem was sometime after vacuuming and mopping the floor in the first building's elevator that doesn't have a mat (it's the only one among the four), I come back about 4 or 5 hours later and discover some brown residue on the floor and the smell of rancid shit coming from it! I couldn't believe it! I'm guessing someone must have had their dog take a shit outside (or taken a shit in the elevator and picked most of it up) and the dog smeared it on the floor, up against the stainless steel baseboard. I locked the elevator and I immediately went and grabbed my mop bucket and poured some extra deodorizer into it plus a disinfectant chemical. I emptied a spray bottle and filled it with deodorizer and water to take with me too. Thank God my supervisor brought me supplies that day! I washed the elevator floor and let the mop absorb and scrub the excess shit while the deodorizer killed the smell. After I picked up the solution, I let the floor air dry completely. There was (almost) no shit smell and the floor was back to what it was like earlier when I cleaned it the first time. I then wanted to know if anyone tracked the shit onto the hallway carpets and was bracing myself for more shit to deal with. Starting on the 4th floor, I walked through the hallways, checking for brown spots and sniffing around. It was fine and then I did the 3rd floor and it was the same. But once I got to the 2nd floor... aw, fuck! I could smell the shit just outside that same elevator it originated from and some slight brown spots on the carpet. The smell was very pungent in that part of the hallway, all the way to the other elevator (the hallway is simply a straight line in that building) except for the end sides. I took my mop, squeezed it out, and worked it into the area outside the elevators to absorb the shit residue out of the carpet. I then walked back and forth, spraying the deodorizer onto random spots all over the hallway carpet until it was run out. I once again mopped that area plus the other elevator area just in case as the smell wasn't going away. That was all I could do given the circumstances and supplies I had. The main floor hallway didn't have the smell so no need to clean it. While it was weird that no one called and complained about the smell (and I was expecting it!), the smell was mostly gone the next day! A day or two later, it was completely gone! YAY!
I should abridge something weird about people in the complex: One day I got a phone message that was left just after 8am from some guy complaining about a light outside his suite door being burnt out... and yet, NO ONE called to complain about shit smells in an elevator and hallway? Ooookay... moving on...
The final major problem happened on Halloween. I get to work late as usual but got there just before my manager stopped by (the ONLY time I have seen him since working in the complex - he wanted nothing to do with the place and left it for me and my supervisor to handle! Bastard!) to give me my paycheque. The fire panel alarm was going off for some reason and I didn't know what was causing it. There was no fire or mechanical problems that I knew of. He quieted it and called Mountain Fire to have a look at it. He made mention that someone complained about "half the lights being out in the building" and I said the person was exaggerating and that I'll be working on changing some of them later as I just got some new light bulbs delivered to me from the supervisor. He left right after but once I got to the first building to clean, I notice the lobby lights are off and I look out to the hallway and one side of the lights halfway down the hall are also off! So THAT'S what the complaint was about! It was on each floor, the same side too. I called my manager and he called an electrician company to come by when they could later in the day. I couldn't clean the floors much in the lobby as the power was out for the sockets too. Mountain Fire came sometime after 1pm and the guy could only deduce that it was an electrical problem and couldn't solve it himself. The electricians finally came and I spent the last two hours running all over the building and parkades with them. But they were great guys though. They isolated the problem in the electrical closet on the main floor that had the main panel (there were none in any of the other 3 floors). My shift was about to end and one of the electricians had to go pick up something while the other stayed behind. I asked them if they needed any of the electrical rooms left open as I needed to get home and they said were sure they didn't. I left them the fob but there were no extra keys to get them into anywhere they needed to go. I left for the day and nearly an hour later, one of them calls me while I'm nearing Coquitlam Station on a bus asking if there was a way to let them back in the room and I said it was too late as it would take me around the same amount of time to go back! They said they would come back in the morning to finish things off and that they managed to get the lobby lights working at least. I said no problem and given that it's Halloween, the darkened hallways will add to the atmosphere LOL! The next day, I give them full access again and it doesn't take them long to restore power to all the lights. They said the problem were these three wires coming out of a concrete block and as the building is aging, the concrete is putting stress on these wires. I told them that Michael had a similar problem with these lights before he left but didn't elaborate what the cause was. I said I would let him know as he will be coming later in the day. I thanked them for everything and they left.
Before Michael arrived in the afternoon, my supervisor gave me his set of keys to give to him later. When he came, I asked him what happened and why he was coming back. He told me that after a mere two days starting his new job, First Service called him and begged him to come back. They were willing to give him what he wanted: he doesn't have to live on the property and just do the same jobs as before. I said I understood why he didn't like how things were before. Being a resident manager that has to clean a complex can be psychologically taxing because you never truly relax. If something happens during your non-working hours plus weekends/holidays, you have to jump on it and you cannot escape. At least just having a shift that you come in, do the work, and leave after 8 hours, you aren't as responsible. Any problems can be done the following day. For weekends, my supervisor is on call to handle problems so the key set he gave me would go back to him. Michael wanted me to put my main key set into a closet in the exercise room for him to pick up on Monday. I showed him the supplies we got and he seemed pleased, especially the deodorizer chemical. After he left, I did the final jobs, I put everything away, the keys were placed in the closet, I washed up, and left the complex. It wasn't too bad of a place but glad to be no longer be responsible for it.
Back at Brentwood Gate, some people were happy to see me again. The guy who took my place did an okay job on my buildings considering he only worked part-time in them. There were two things he did that were questionable though. I noticed in my main building that two separate bulbs that are over a couple of suite doors had their sockets come out. This has never happened before and because the sockets are connected to the wires, it will require an electrician to come in to fix them before I can replace the bulbs. Also, the wringer on my mop bucket in the same building was broken! The backside that holds the handle and wringer came apart. What the hell did this guy do to it? Sigh... at least my supervisor just got a replacement for me. Besides that, it's great to be back at my buildings and work with Larry again.
Halloween was very uneventful this year. We only had three kids show up at our door though it seemed there were quite a few of them out. One reason is that they thought we weren't handing out candy as our front light wasn't on when in reality, it was burnt out. We had our lights on in the lobby which meant we were home. The last kid to knock on our door was so impatient that he/she disappeared to our neighbour right next to us within 12 seconds for me to go downstairs and open the door and not see him/her. It was nice just having only two knocks on the door as I got few interruptions watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Blu-Ray. While I saw the UK version as usual, I did the opening of the movie in B&W this time (becomes colour when Brad & Janet enter the party room in "The Time-Warp"). Once again, it was the highlight of my Halloween just like in previous years.
I saw Disney's Peter Pan, another good classic animated Disney flick and as most of us know, the late Michael Jackson's favourite all-time movie! Extras were pretty good and there was a tribute to Disney's "Nine Old Men" from their surviving children. You can watch Doug Walker's review of the movie here or below (I agree with Walker that I didn't think the Indians were a racist portrayal and thought they were cool but you know me, I hate today's PC bullshit):
Click to viewI've been very slow with TMNT and I think I'm on Season 7 now. The subseason in which they go to different places in Europe was pretty sub-par in terms of scripting and animation quality. Season 7 has the Turtles back in New York and it's a vast improvement! The artwork and animation are back to normal and the scripting doesn't make you scratch your head as much. I'm well over halfway through the series and once it's done, most likely will start Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
I am almost done Folklore and the review should come out tomorrow or this weekend. I've hardly played Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and need to step that up.
Bible reading has picked up more and I got through 1st and 2nd Kings pretty quickly. King David passes away and his son, Solomon takes the throne. At the beginning of his reign he assumes God's promises to David and brings splendour to Israel and peace and prosperity to his people. This all came from a prayer asking for wisdom and guidance so God grants it to him as his prayer is sincere and humble. He astonishes the people with his wisdom in the deciding fate of a child with two mothers claiming the child as their own. The Queen of Sheba visits King Solomon and is awed by how blessed he is. He answers all her questions and she leaves him with gifts before returning. The centrepiece of Solomon's reign is the building and dedication of the First Temple. He has numerous wives and concubines but this ends up being his flaw. Because of them, he follows other gods and oppresses Israel. As a consequence of Solomon's failure to stamp out the worship of gods other than Yahweh, the kingdom of David is split in two in the reign of his own son Rehoboam, who becomes the first to reign over the kingdom of Judah. The kings who follow Rehoboam in Jerusalem continue the royal line of David (meaning they inherit the promise to David); in the north, however, dynasties follow each other in rapid succession, and the kings are uniformly bad (they fail to follow Yahweh alone). Two major prophets are featured: Elijah and his disciple, Elisha who eventually succeeds him. A famous event with Elijah is having a test to see which god was real and more powerful than the other. The people of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah are summoned to Mount Carmel. Two altars are built, one for Baal and one for Yahweh. Elijah then invites the priests of Baal to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They pray from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridicules their efforts. They respond by cutting themselves and adding their own blood to the sacrifice (such mutilation of the body was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law). They continue praying until evening without success. When it's Elijah's turn, he asks God to accept his sacrifice. Fire falls from the sky, consuming water, the sacrifice, and the stones of the altar itself as well. Elijah seizes the moment and orders the death of the prophets of Baal. This pisses off the evil Queen Jezebel who wants Elijah dead! But she eventually meets her end when her subjects push her out a window. She falls to her death and is eaten by stray dogs - all prophesied by Elijah. Elijah departs from the earth in front of Elisha by a chariot of wind and fire, making Elisha the new prophet. Hezekiah, the 14th king of Judah "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" and institutes a far reaching religious reform, centralizing sacrifice at the temple at Jerusalem and destroying the images of other gods. God saves Jerusalem and the kingdom from an invasion by Assyria. But Manasseh, the next king, reverses the reforms, and God announces that he will destroy Jerusalem because of this apostasy by the king. Mannasah's righteous grandson Josiah reinstitutes the reforms of Hezekiah, but it is too late: God, speaking through the prophetess Huldah, affirms that Jerusalem is to be destroyed. God brings the Babylonians, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, against Jerusalem. God deserts his people, Jerusalem is razed, and the Temple is destroyed. The priests, prophets, royal court, and citizens are led into captivity. This is what is known as the "Babylonian Exile".
In Christian Bibles, this is where the order of the books in the Old Testament become different compared to the Tanakh - the Jewish Bible. With the exception of reading the book of Ruth earlier in Christian Bibles, 1st & 2nd Chronicles is next for me in my Bible while in the Tanakh, it would be Isaiah. 1st Chronicles starts with about ten chapters of nothing more than genealogies before getting into referencing back to the events of the book of 1st Samuel. Perhaps by next month's entry, I'll be done both books but there isn't much to mention.
Last Movie: Despicable Me 2 3D (Theatrical), Disney's Peter Pan (Blu-Ray)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - 2nd Kings
Last Game: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)
Current Book: KJV Holy Bible - 1st Chronicles
Current Games: Folklore (PS3) & Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)