July 2015 Monthly Entry
I need to congratulate our American friends for their Same-Sex Marriage victory! After many years of hard work, you guys reaped the fruits of your labour! I found out about the news as I was going home from work that day (pic above).
I cannot say what I'm going to do for Vancouver Pride weekend this year, July 31 - August 2. I found out Vancouver Men in Leather is doing next to nothing - not even the traditional Friday night social! WTF? Unless there is any other bear/leather event of interest (I think just Bearacudda), it looks like it'll be just the parade this year. With the Knights, I'll be leading our entry with the Canadian flag this year because of my being the President. It'll be the first time so it looks like I may end up being more in the spotlight LOL! I'll talk about the weekend shortly after.
The Knights of Mantra's "Campout 2015" is a no-go again for me this year. My fellow-Knight Wayne T. is currently there on my chapter's behalf. I was prepared to go but a big unexpected expense came up and to save a couple hundred dollars, had to decline going. I mention what this big expense was and the "real cost" of it below...
It has practically been a drought up here lately. June was pretty hot but last weekend, has cooled down a bit. There have been hundreds of forest fires throughout the province that almost two weeks ago, we could actually smell the smoke outside all throughout the Lower Mainland. The thin layer of smoke that even covered the sky made the sun orange-coloured throughout the day. It's gotten so bad that we have a strict water advisory going on right now. It's to the point where you can only water your lawn once a week and even neighbours are snitching if they catch you breaking the rules! The only exception is if you have planted a new lawn but you need a permit to bypass the restrictions. Flower and vegetable/fruit gardens are the exception too but have to be done at certain times and days. This restriction won't be lifted until the end of September but even now, almost all grass here is dead.
I had a couple of incidents at work recently. Throughout June, things have relatively been okay. But on June 30, before noon, I had a strange confrontation with a man from Varley that first approached my co-worker and then when the guy was out walking his dog, my co-worker got me to talk to him about something that he was approached about first. I recognized this guy: he came up to me a couple or few times before in the past and pointed something out and/or whined about something that was essentially out of my control. One thing he pointed out were the lights outside on the Lougheed side of Varley not coming on at night and while my manager and I thought there was some hidden switch for them, turns out that the lights are connected to the city and not our problem. The second time, about some months ago, was his complaint about the dog poop bag dispenser not being refilled and the holder being loose. I said I didn't know what was going on with it as the dispenser hasn't been refilled in almost two years (at the time). Nothing came of that until... now. The guy asks me why the dog poop bag dispenser doesn't get refilled ever but the one a little further down does. I reply that when they were first installed around two years ago, the resident manager on the other side of the Strata was refilling both of them and in fact, gave the refill boxes to my then-co-worker, Ajendra (he was the longest worker to clean Harris/Varley but quit in 2012 if I remember) for a small while but by the time before Ajendra left, the resident manager stopped giving him the boxes. We didn't know why but we figured that it was a message that our Strata had to start buying the boxes on their own and we change them when needed. Essentially, my answer to this guy was that it was overlooked and no one said much about it and would just walk over to the other dispenser and take a free bag there. His reply was that he dislikes having to walk all the way to the other dispenser (to be fair, the guy was walking with a cane though he's in his 40's I'd say) and that, "our Strata dollars are paying for this!" (that is obviously false - if we aren't buying the refill boxes, then the Strata isn't using their dollars for them and in fact, they are saving money by having the other Strata refill their dispenser!). I said the most I can do is talk to my manager about it and he began to be a little more pushy as that answer didn't satisfy him. When that fell on deaf ears, I then (strangely) position my body language in a way to infer to him that there wasn't much I could do and I wasn't going to allow him to push me around. He looked at it as I was being smug toward him but in reality, my body and expression was telling him that I have given him my answer and there was nothing more for me to say. To my surprise, he got so offended by this that he asked for my name, which I gave (just my first name) and said, "you'll be hearing about this" and walked away with his dog. It put a damper throughout the rest of the day and was a little concerned that he would complain to the higher-ups. I was somewhat pissed off to be honest. I wanted to talk to my manager first about it as he was to come much later at the end of my shift for a scheduled "locker-audit". So by 4pm, I went to Varley to wait for him as he called me and said he would arrive in 10 minutes. When I step into the lobby of the building as I planned to sit and relax while waiting, Mr. Whiner from earlier was there and I immediately leave and wait outside the front door instead. Shortly after, he comes out and passes me toward the side where the ramp is. As he gets to the other side of the ramp where I couldn't see him because of a large pillar, he says out of sight, "I hope you lose your job over this!" I reply calmly, "That's nice, sir". I stood in the same place, thinking he was still around out of sight, perhaps having a smoke or waiting to be picked up. After over 5 minutes I walk up to see if he is still around and turns out he was gone, likely he walked toward the mall but I didn't hear him go. My manager came shortly and I asked him if he got any recent complaints about me and he said he didn't. I told him about what happened earlier and what just happened before he came. After all that his reply was, "Don't worry, you're not getting fired". He assured me to not worry about it even when I told him the truth about my replies and body language toward that guy. We then met up with Cheryl of the Strata and walked through all four buildings as I gave access to all locker rooms, doing the final audit. Much to my surprise, my manager (in my presence!) actually told Cheryl about what happened between Mr. Whiner and I during the walk around! I added about the dispenser and why we haven't replaced the bags but only changed the garbage bags when it was full of bagged dog poop and garbage (part of the station). She said for me not to worry about it and that I had a good record working on the property. At the end of the walk around, it was almost 5:30pm and I was given my instructions of what to do eventually (clean out abused lockers soon) and thanked for staying well beyond my shift.
On the way home, I got this text message from Cheryl: Thanks so much for walking through with us. And thanks for checking the lockers before we did the walkthrough. It must be such time consuming job. Thanks for doing all that!! We do appreciate all your work!!!!
I reply: No problem! Just keep me in the loop of what you guys want hauled/cleaned and I'll set aside Tuesday/Wednesdays for it (the better days). :) I'm just concerned about that Varley guy just blowing things out of proportion. He probably thought I didn't care and gave him a slight smug attitude. Didn't realize those dog poop bags were his fundamental right on the property instead of a privilege.
Her last reply: Oh, no worries. We encounter these type of people all the time. We will deal with him. You have worked with us all these years and we know your work ethics. And what people with issue says won't have much influence. I will email the rest of strata to explain what happened. Our strata council are nice and reasonable. So all's good!!
As of late last week, my manager says he has heard nothing from this guy nor has anyone told him they got an email or whatever from him. Either the guy was bluffing or he sent his message to the wrong person unrelated to any of this. It's not common for me to run into this guy but it does suck to have an enemy on the property from now on...
The other problem I had at work was my manager coming by two Wednesdays ago and telling me that some guy, who is the intern-property manager of the other strata, will be a real shit-disturber. He also happens to be a position higher than our current property manager, Emil. In fact, he is a regional director for First Service. My manager essentially was warning me what this guy was like and made it clear that he did NOT like this guy! It turns out he was intern to the condo up at SFU that I go to Monday and Thursday mornings and that he worked my co-worker, Harry, like a dog! He would walk around the building and pay special attention to rooms and places not frequented by people and if they are not cleaned regularly, he will raise a stink. It is essentially a janitor's nightmare to deal with people like this because if a janitor doesn't clean rooms or areas that aren't a big deal, it means they are devoting their time and energy to places that should be cleaned until they find time to do the uncommon areas. Maintenance rooms are a good example of this. We can leave them for weeks or months until we are ready to sweep/vacuum/dust them. But this guy wants us to even wet mop them! As you all know, mopping a pure concrete floor doesn't produce much results as a lot of spills are absorbed into the concrete for good, requiring power washing. But tell it to this dipshit who thinks such rooms are worth the time! This also includes stairwells and storage locker rooms too. What made me so angry was this guy being the intern property manager on the other strata side and thinks it's his right and duty to come to our side telling us what to do. Since he is above Emil in position, he can bypass him and even bypass what our strata thinks is right. Even if the strata is okay with my work, he wouldn't care and can still complain to my manager or I if there is something he doesn't like. It's hard to know how long he will be intern but I became angry and depressed from that warning throughout the day. After going through Mr. Whiner above, I now have this long-term shit to deal with? I pondered what I was going to do about this... either try to catch up on some jobs and hope it'll satisfy this guy or prepare myself to look for another job if I can't handle the stress. As of last week, I have vacuumed all maintenance rooms which was long overdue. This week, I want to dust the hallways and stairwells as I've noticed dust buildup. Looks like I won't leave without at least trying.
July 3rd as I was at my folks place, telling my sisters about the incident with Mr. Whiner above, when my older brother-in-law stumbled to the side door with blood on his shirt and holding a red towel up against the side of his chest! He was bleeding from a wound on his upper chest and throwing up. He saw some specialist earlier in the day and turns out she did a poor job with the surgical sewing and the cut or puncture re-opened itself. My two sisters and I drove him all the way to Peace Arch Hospital while I put pressure to the wound. We had a few bags and cloths for when he needed to throw up. He was admitted practically immediately as it wasn't busy. He was still throwing up once in a while but there were these cardboard bowls around for such situations. Very smart of them! My sisters and I spent some time chatting, especially about our childhoods and the things my parents - we had to admit - screwed up on despite the overwhelming positives. My younger sister and I had some alone time to talk about recent things in our lives. Anyways, my brother-in-law was cleaned and bandaged up but we didn't get home until around 11pm. He's since been okay.
Finally, I get to the crux of things... my good friend and fellow Knight, Peter Hanson, passed away on July 1st. I'm slowly writing my entry about him but I've been obviously busy this month. Before he died, he transferred his car to David and we even met up with Peter's older brother, Lee, to do it. Just before it happened though, David told me he wanted to do a year's worth of car insurance instead of monthly. He approached me about it as he couldn't afford either. I said I would be willing to float him a loan for the first month's worth of insurance. He later comes back to me saying he wants the year's worth and that he would pay me back slowly but when I charge my credit card, he will NOT pay for any interest charges!. WTF? Like that's fair! I said I'd think about it (though I certainly wasn't liking the idea of shelling around $1000 for it!). Just a day or two before we were to meet Lee, he asks me again and I reply that I just didn't know about it. He then - as his usual manipulation tactic - declares that he will have to tell Lee to scrap the car as he cannot afford the insurance. I then reply, "FINE, I'll pay the damn year's worth of insurance!" I should have expected he would pull this on me again. If this didn't affect me, I would have said no. But having the car does affect both he and I. He needs the car as Peter used to do David's monthly grocery shopping and other odds and ends. I relied on Peter to get me home late at night after a leather event or whatever and get me to/from the airport when I take a trip (like my recent Midwest trip). Peter was not to blame for this obviously and while my best bear buddy scolded me recently when I told him, he understood that we needed the car and it was just bad timing. Besides, the car was free outside of the insurance. Speaking of which, the insurance for the year wasn't quite as bad as David thought: $890. It was a combination of a good driving record and being a senior that helped his discounts. David has already made a couple of small contributions to repay me but still has a long way to go. Once I saw the charge on my credit card, I immediately paid it so I would avoid the interest charges that he would have stuck me with.
Earlier today, David and I met up with Lee and his wife to pick up items from Peter's place. I got some of my stuff back (including my collection of bear porn magazines!) that Peter held onto plus his collection of Knights items for archiving. They brought everything down to us to make things faster but to be honest, I was hoping to see Peter's place one last time. June 3rd was the last time I was there and it wasn't exactly a fun visit... Anyways, it was nice to have my things back and was thankful for Peter holding them for 3 years.
One of my favourite movies I saw earlier last week on Netflix is The Secret of NIMH. Animator Don Bluth's post-Disney masterpiece, I originally saw it on VHS when I about 7 years old as my dad copied it from the one we rented. Looking back, at a time when Disney was struggling financially throughout the 80's before the release of The Little Mermaid saved them, this was a movie that everyone would agree that Disney should have attempted. A movie that is great for kids (though some dark scenes and bits of violence so I suggest 8 years and up) and thought provoking for adults, the production values are high and it's still a great movie over 30 years later. It is also shamelessly underrated. It's original release just hardly made beyond its budget due to competition from other summer blockbusters in '82. Wil Wheaton, as we all know played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was about 9 or 10 years old when he did the voice of Martin in the movie. The best scene with Martin is when he gets into an argument with Auntie Shrew and Wheaton's voice acting pulls it off quite well for such young talent (a short scene but hilarious)! Like many underrated classics, the rental and sales of tapes and discs through the years have kept the movie alive. The problem is that this movie doesn't get the same love in digital preservation compared to how Disney treats their animated movies. While Netflix used the HD transfer, likely taken from the Blu-Ray release, the movie seems to not have much digital-enhancement. This is a shame given how beautiful this movie looks and how much better it could be if it were cleaned and sharpened better. But it seems no one is willing to put the time and money into it. Here's hoping the movie will get that kind of love and attention someday.
To see the Nostalgia Critic's insightful look into the messages of the movie, go here or below:
Click to viewAnd don't get me started on the unnecessary straight-to-video sequel! You can watch the Nostalgia Critic's hilarious and oh-so-true review of the movie in Part 1 and Part 2 or below:
Last night my sisters and niece watched Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman on Netflix. I've seen some of it on YouTube before but not the whole movie. It's okay and I like that villains Rupert Throne, Penguin, and Bane are featured since they are some of my favourites. I revealed the early spoiler that there are 3 Batwomen which helped in making plot sense early.
I've been making some good progress in Lightning Returns but don't know when I'll be done. Kirby Mass Attack.... still working on it but now in the final levels. Still early in Star Wars: KOTOR II but it's looking to be a fun experience. I'm over halfway through Season 5 of Star Trek: DS9 and my review should be up soon. Mere Christianity has been slow too and looks like I won't have it done until Fall season unless I step it up.
Last Movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron 3D (Theatrical), Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (Netflix)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - Revelation
Last Game: Suikoden (PSone)
Current Book: The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Mere Christianity
Current Games: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) & Kirby Mass Attack (DS) & Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (Xbox)