August 2006 — The Tugboat

August 30, 2006

A new day dawns, I saw the sun rise today. It burst out of the clouds like a phoenix, fiery red and round to the naked eye. Immediately the old saying came to mind: red sky in the morning, sailor's warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight. I fear a storm on the horizon but nothing major is forecasted. I hope the saying holds true, for history's sake. In other news I dominated at work again today despite a minor error in judgment on my part. It seems that I forgot to bring the picnic tables to the top of the hill for a tour that was to take place that day. I was off-site all day doing other things but was around first thing to complete a task and meet Jeff. The tables were left when we did, but Brian came through in the clutch and moved them with the trailer. Which begs the question: : Why didn't he just do it in the first place?" That is not for me to answer, he is the boss and we were there, thus it was our responsibility, after all, we were asked to do it. Alas, that put a down spin on my morning. I got back and Brian was joking about it so it must be water under the bridge. Jeff on the other hand had no such luck. He showed up at quitting time with little done today. I suppose he is getting the run around from the dealers that he is to deal with but he is taking a long time to get those IRM walks done. I was done mine in 3 days, he is up to twice that now. Then again, I am a champion. Only two days left of work is what all that was leading up to. I have quite a list of tasks to complete before I can hang up my hat for a while. I am on the payroll still for the fall as an hourly worker, just in case my assistance is required. It should be good times. I'm hearing yelps that the food is ready so I will part ways for now, Phillips out.

August 27, 2006

Hello again, I'm back much sooner than the last two times. Just thought I would give a quick update as to my latest deeds done. On Friday I came home to the contents of my garage spewed out onto my front lawn. It was quite a scene actually. I used a stolen city sign that says Caution to warn the neighbours that we were outside. I felt the warning was warranted considering who was involved. We did manage to sort through the garage stuff and make room for what was to stay. We also moved Maggie's stuff in and the Hawken stuff out. During the transition of this maneuver we had room enough to attempt putting the cars in the garage. Both fit, it was exciting. The next day we loaded the garbage into my truck for disposal and re-packed the garage. Soon it will house our weight bench. That should be nice to work out in there. Maggie and Lara moved their stuff in and set it up. They departed soon after. Today was spent primarily lounging around the house. Oh yes, we also removed our air conditioners yesterday after receiving a stern warning from the housing authority. I would like to give those jerks a piece of my mind or fist but that has to be done through proper channels that they set up to keep jerks like me from ever getting to them due to our intense and extreme laziness and lack of motivation. They win this round but the duct tape of the mail-box will defiantly remain, a lasting symbol not to mess with the little guy. I've run out of intelligent material it seems so I will stop here, Phillips out.

August 24, 2005

And yet again another long break between posts. This time I once again have a delightful excuse. Two of them actually. The first being that I lost my access some how. My webmaster Wood relays to me that the server crashed at some point in the last 12 days and destroyed all my work. Luckily for me there was not much work and the work that was done was safe as a local copy. This means that all the archives were not lost. The public history of my life over the last two years has been saved. The second excuse, which I will not do justice, is that I have been out of town for a good week or so. Let's begin at the last point I remember....

The Wednesday and Thursday of last week was spent running plot tours at my home site of Ayr. The following Monday and Tuesday were spent running plot tours at my home in New Liskeard. The time in between was spent half-way between those two vantage points; in Huntsville. Specifically at the provincial park known simply as Arrowhead. This was the setting of what was to be my twenty third anniversary of my birth. The actual time was not celebrated but the entire day was. The time was five something in the morning and no one wanted to be up that early. I received a few gifts from the friends and family that were present. The real haul would come later that weekend. I'll tell the tale of Caumping 2006 first.

Some of the lads left the home town at 3:30 am on the Friday morning. A brief stop at the Toronto airport preceded them arriving in Guelph before ten. They collected me and we were off. I drove Car A because they were understandably fatigued. We arrived about two hours ahead of Car B. Their arrival caused much excitement and tent erecting, the kind on the ground, not in the pants. This was followed by two days of people drinking and carrying on. It was a good time. But like all good times it had to come to an end. Before it did though we enjoyed some lake throwing, beach football, euchre, lying to drunk twenty five year old girls, an educational talk from a conservation officer, hot dogs and hamburgers, oat squares in a beer cup, and a rain storm. But our time did end. I drove home.

While at home I met the young lady, Nat, who has been residing with my parents. I also took in some of the local agriculture, by guiding my boss and co-workers on a string of tours to begin the week. I played cards with my grandmother and had a solid visit with her. I saw some old friendly faces and worked it hard in the barn. I also blew out my candles on a truck shaped cakes, three cakes actually. That was when the real gift haul began, and by gift haul I mean cash haul, most people just gave dough. I like that, it works. I rode home to Guelph with the other Monsanto employees and got back just in time to sleep up for work the next day. Everyone had a good time discovering my home in the North. This week has been spent meeting up with dealers and growers organizing IRM walks for the government. I have the most done in the shortest time. It's like I was meant for this kind of work or something.

Sorry for the inconvenience of not having something available to quench the addictive thirst for insight into my life; for those of you out there that are strangely mired in my daily affairs to the point that you have been checking this page more than your email or at the very least daily. You know who you are, and as for the rest of you, you could learn something from these dashing role models for a better society, a Chase society. I don't even know what that means or where I was going with that but just take it as an egomaniacal glimpse into the oblivion that is my current mind state or possibly state of mind. Either way. Phillips out.

August 12, 2006

Hello. It has been a long time since my last entry to this web based unit. This has not been entirely my fault. We lost internet access nine days ago under suspicious circumstances. We were able to connect one of the computers in the house, not mine obviously. This provided trying times for everyone on board. Yesterday we finally managed to corral a nerd who came through and fixed our internet. He didn't do much in that regard but he did tune up a system or two and did some solid work for us. As you have guessed not much has happened in the past few days. Thankfully the heat has subsided and left us with great temperatures. Work has been going swimmingly and we have been very busy of late and are getting many tasks done ahead of schedule. This past weekend I didn't do too much. I watched a lot of Futurama and did hit golf balls and dine with Brown and his family. That was enjoyable. This week was going to be uneventful until I got a call from cousin John. He was in Kitchener for the week on work related business and was stuck in his hotel. I met him for dinner and we drove around for a bit and shot some pool. It was good times, if not rampantly exciting times. He did manage to put one over on me though. For some reason I paid him $20 for a bill he was going to expense. We'll have to rectify that in the future. Last night was also out of the ordinary as Will stopped in for awhile. We had a good visit and plans were made for next week. He is unable to join our camping trip in celebration of my birth but will be there in spirit. Pasan "Big Dong" Dangalle also called me last night and we talked for close to an hour. Another good visit, over the phone. He is considering coming camping, but is unsure due to work. And the previous night I went with Rich to force him to buy a new guitar. I had to do this or he would have backed out and he didn't want that to happen, hence my presence. He got a nice one and we came back and "jammed". He taught me to play a riff I've been wanting to learn and then I requested songs that he played. It was good times. He really does like that guitar, plugging it into the amp was just a bonus. Anyways, I can't really think of anything else that happened in the last 12 days that I should mention. There is likely something and someone out there will be left out and get offended but I apologize, it's 6:30am and I'm half asleep. I blame that fact for all the incoherent portions of this entry and for any and all mistakes made. Now I have to get to some cold pizza that is calling my name, Phillips out.

August 1, 2006

Well, it appears as if we're in the middle of a heat wave here in Canada, at least in Ontario. It is sweaty to say the least. Yesterday was very hot, at work we have this device called the Kestrel 3000. We use it to measure humidity, wind speed, temperature, dew point and any combination of those things. We used it yesterday to see what the temperature was when the humidity was factored in. The highest it got to was 44.5 degrees. Today we did it also just for fun. The result was not funny. The temperature affected by humidity was 51.4 degrees. I've never even heard of heat like that. It is enough to broil you alive. Yesterday was worked until 5pm, doing odd jobs and trying to stay cool. I think we may have had a safety meeting or something later in the day so that we could be out of the sun. Today we started off hard and I mowed all morning. Jeff did all the auxiliary mowing and cleaning up. Our site still looks exceptional and I invite everyone to see it. It is really and truly primed for tours. The afternoon was spent in the office working on the computer as I imagine tomorrow afternoon will be spent. We updated a bunch of programs but it takes so long because the computer is so terrible. Anyways, enough about work. I happened to miss out some of my life's content from Sunday. I pretty much listened to my audiobook and farted around the house all day. Rich made his return in the afternoon and we smoked a cigar to mark the occasion. He had been gone for two weeks. He regaled us with tales of the north and of many adventures and mis-adventures. Sounds like he had a good time. The three of us chatted on the patio for an hour or so and all was right in the universe. I don't remember what happened into the evening but I do know that the TV was involved. Likely watching some program or another. I did some emailing and what not recently and got prompt responses. That was unusual. That is about the size of it. Phillips out.