Kevin's Ramblings…

As I am sure that I have logged, I decided to join Big Brothers shortly after I arrived in Calgary.  I had previously been involved when I lived in St. Catharines with sort of mixed results.

The first time I did this I think I was 18 years old so that would put this in the late 80’s.  My first “little” was a good kid but we had very little in common.  The only real activity that he wanted to do was fishing.  I don’t mind fishing, but, unless I am fishing from a boat, I could do without.  Well, since he liked to fish, we went fishing.  Now, in saying that he liked to fish, this means he liked sitting there with his line in the water but baiting the hook or getting the damn fish off once caught, well, that was my job.

I had an un-official little brother next – he was in the program but they didn’t match him and I coached him in fastball so that is how we met.  He played for me for two years and we stayed friends for a number of years until he went off to college and what not and we lost contact.

A few years ago, I was matched again with a kid from Pelham.  It didn’t work out well – he never wanted to go out or do anything, he wanted to stay around the house.  The match didn’t last long – perhaps part my fault and perhaps part his.

My “little” in Calgary was/is a good kid but I don’t think he was really interested in being matched up.  First of all, he lives with his Dad.  That made the match a little awkward from the start.  I almost felt as if the Dad was too lazy to do anything with his son, who knows.  The other issue was that this “little” was 14, nearly 15 when we were matched and really was a bit too old for the program.  He had more interest in hanging out with his friends than hanging out with an old guy such as myself.  After not having much contact with him for a few months, I spoke with the case manager at BBBS and we decided to end the match.

So, I am waiting for another little brother.  I have asked for someone a bit younger, doesn’t matter to me.  There are a lot of cool things to do in Calgary and the surrounding area and I know that they have a lot of kids waiting for matches.  I think that I do have a fair amount to offer so I really hope I get a good match.  I have coached baseball since my late teens and enjoy working with kids.  I think the only thing that kept me from becoming a teacher is that I didn’t enjoy going through university.  Oh well…

So, hopefully a match will occur in the next few weeks and I will take it from there.  Summer in Alberta is short and before we know it the snow will fly.  It will be nice to be able to get out and have some fun while it is still warm enough to be outside.

I have started an entry a couple of times in the last month and then have selected “Move to Trash” for one reason or another – I am feeling more lucky this time around.

Let’s see, what has happened in the last month.  Well…

June 20 – it started raining around noon, possibly earlier.  This lead to the worst flooding in Calgary, ever.  Apparently, there was a bad flood in 2005, that didn’t compare at all.

In the Banff and Canmore Alberta areas, they received more rain in a 24 hour period than they normally would in a month.  That, combined with a heavy snow pack that was melting turned the normal docile Bow River into a menace that took out low lying neighbourhoods along its path.

As bad as the flooding was in Calgary, it was worse downriver in High River where a majority of the town was wiped out and residents are only now, 3 weeks later getting to see their houses and businesses.

Through nothing other than dumb luck on my part, I was high and dry in one of the higher areas of the city.  I am sure that if I had found a place right beside the river, I would have thought, “wow, a view of the river” and would have taken it.  No flooding here at all, no backed up sewer – I was lucky.

The office that I work at is downtown, in the west end of downtown away from the river and away from the areas downtown that were flooded and closed for 5 days or so.  We didn’t even lose power in the office, it looks like we were on the opposite side of the street from where the power loss ended – I guess we must have been just on the other side of the grid.

A few of my co-workers were not so lucky.  One of them who is a friend of mine lived within 2 blocks of the river in one of the hardest hit areas of the city.  She and I visited her place on Saturday, June 22 and her basement suite was flooded, she lost a LOT.

The street out front of her place was partially dry but towards the end of it, towards Memorial Drive, it was completely under water.  The median that divides the street could not be seen at all and the signs were nearly under water.  It was something that I had only ever seen on TV or in movies.  I was reminded of the devastation in New Orleans after the hurricane destroyed that city.

In the three weeks since the flood, the city has done a LOT of works towards righting itself.  The Calgary Stampede is currently a go.  The downtown area was opened within a week and the south-west transit line that carries over 100,000 people per day was opened in less than 2 weeks – remarkable when you see what the damage to the area and infrastructure was.

As I said, I was one of the lucky ones, looking at all of this from the outside.

I will get some pictures together and will post shortly.  I am sure you’ve already seen a lot of this from the news which traveled around the  world but it is still something to see and take in.

I am referring to a 3 day training course that I took for work this week – ITIL Foundations.  It is “best practices” for IT and the way an IT Department should operate.  I am not exactly sure why I was selected for this training, I presume that my boss decided to torture me for some unknown reason.

As I mentioned, it was 3 days long.  Tons of information, terms and what not being thrown out at us, a jumble of diagrams being drawn on white-boards and flip charts and a seemingly unending PowerPoint presentation showing us slides of the various topics being discussed.  It was a bit overwhelming actually.

Anyway, it ended with a 40 question multiple choice exam/test.  I am not sure how I did.  I will get the results either tomorrow or Monday, so I am told.  I am not worried about it – nothing I can do to change the result now.  Apparently, the instructor doesn’t accept bribes.

Speaking of the instructor, he was pretty good actually.  Had he been a monotone type, it would have put us all asleep I am sure.

So, the end of the week is nearly here – this is a good thing.

I am umpiring four games this weekend – weather permitting of course.  Will be a good end to an otherwise dry week.

So, I am contemplating at trip back to St. Catharines to correspond with our annual IT conference at work which is the first week of October.

The conference is Monday through Thursday and I think that we fly to Toronto on Monday and then fly-out on Thursday afternoon / evening.  I will have to see how much the cost of my flight will change if I leave Toronto either on the Thanksgiving Monday or the Tuesday – I presume that it might be cheaper to return to Calgary on Thanksgiving – I mean, who wants to fly somewhere on Thanksgiving, right?

So, presuming that the flight costs are ok (my employer pays for the flight, I may need to pay any difference if my return is more because I am returning on a different day), the only other consideration is Zeus and Blondie.  Putting them in the kennel that I take them to will cost me $80 per day for the two of them.  That will add up quickly.  I think that if they stay for 10 days, I save 20% so even if it would be a 9 day stay, guess what – they will be in for an extra night.

OK, after a quick check, it is only 10% off.  Dang.  Oh well, I guess I will have to see.  Anyway, details won’t be available until mid-August at the earliest I am sure.  I’ll figure it out then.

I was on vacation last week.  I decided to take the week off and since it started with Victoria Day, it only cost me 4 days in total which is nice.

Started out very well.  Great weather, sunny and nice temps.  Thursday and Friday were another story as it rained steady for 2.5 days.  Oh well, I was able to do what I was looking forward to doing – nothing.

I purchased a washer/dryer – had been looking around at a number of places and finally settled on the Brick – they had a pretty good price and the extended warranty was way cheaper than other places.  It wasn’t like the laundry room for the complex that I live in was far – it was about 90′ from my door, it was at times pretty gross in there though.  I guess when you have a bunch of people who don’t care doing their laundry, things go downhill sorta quickly.

I was supposed to umpire a bunch of games but the rain wiped those out – oh well.  I ended up doing one on Wednesday evening.  Bought myself a new pair of plate shoes as well – haven’t had the chance to wear them as yet.

So, back to work this week and next week I am in a 3 day training course.  It will be pretty dry, I am sure.