600 Km for 68 min.!

I drove all the way to Edmonton for the second time in 2005. I was invited for the interview for a Quality Coordinator position. A lady from human resources and the guy who currently holds the position and is supposed to be moved to the lab, were the interviewers. That was a different interview from the last ones I had. Some of the questions they ask are:

1- What made you to study Industrial Engineering?
2- Why did you choose quality control or why did you switch to quality control field?
3- What’s your definition for quality?
4- Have you read the culture of our company (in the website)?
5- Why did you choose Calgary as a place for living?
6- Are you ready to relocate to Edmonton and if yes why are you going to relocate?
7- Why did you establish a metrology management system for the company? (It’s in your resume)
8- Are you familiar with Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing?

The following are my answers:

1- A friend of mine introduced the major to me, explained the courses and said what opportunities I would face and I was interested.
2- Industrial Engineering leads to different areas of expertise including Production management (Scheduling and planning), inventory management, time and motion study, project planning and management, quality control, material science, etc. As I had my final project with the instructor who is expertise in quality field, I was interested and started my career in that field.
3- Quality is conformance to requirements. This is what we must build in quality to satisfy our customer and comply with his or her requirements.
4- No! To be honest with you I just went through the location and products!
5- I used to be a student there for more than a year and I have friends in there and am a bit familiar with the neighborhoods. Besides this is the fastest growing city of Canada, good weather, job opportunities in manufacturing and oil and gas, good schools, etc.
6- I’m ready to move to Edmonton. I believe that Edmonton is a good place to live. A friend of mine who has been living here and is a student in U of A asked me to move here. She explained about all the job opportunities in here.
7- Metrology management system is one of the requirements of ISO 9001:2000 standard and also as we used to use different tolls and gauges for our inspection purposes, the management felt a need for that.
8- I’m familiar with the basics of Six-Sigma quality plan but haven’t used them practically. We had a plan for application of Lean Manufacturing tool box and were assessing the available resources, necessary funds and everything. As it’s a very long period process (Takes about 10 years to be practically in use) there were concerns about the current situation of the company while I left. So basically we were in feasibility study step when I resigned.

Signs of Spring

I went for a ride yesterday at about 12:53 and returned after almost 2 hours. It was not bad, partly cloudy, and snow was melting but it was windy as usually it is! I was fine in my jersey and short but my toes and fingers was almost frozen, esp. my right hand. It was numb and God! bothered me a lot but as clouds were wiped away and sun started shining I felt a little bit better. You could see the signs of spring everywhere: Flocks of Canadian geese, ducks, squirrels and other kinds of birds and mammals. Calgary Zoo, as I went by, was crowded. Families brought kids and animals were out of the shelters. (I should go and see the Zoo this summer)
I was goin' to call and ask P. M. to join me but didn't, although I was almost close to his place.

(Photo: Canadian goose is a lovely and amiable bird. Every time I see one, I wanna jump, grab it and give it a kiss on its head and neck, but never has happened! They roam around freely everywhere, sleep and graze themselves and if you get too close to them they might attack you and force you back! It happened to me twice almost two years ago while cycling in their territory. At first I thought it happened accidentally but when occurred for the second time, found out that was something I should have expected when I crossed the border!)

New Opportunities

I've applied for at least 3 good opportunities in Alberta recently, all in oil and gas industry and all in manufacturing. One of them, Black Cat Blades, called me yesterday afternoon when I was sleeping on the floor and woke me up! I jumped up and gazed at the Mobile's screen, was trying to find out who the hell it was!
As I found it's a call from Edmonton, preferred not to answer as I knew it's a career related call and I have to get ready for the questions. So I let it ring and thought they leave a message and I call them back and everything will be fine, but they didn't!
I checked my mail-box and read their message, led me to understand that my voice-mail system is not working! I just renewed my contract and the idiot didn't tell me, last week, that I should have reset my voice-mail system!
Therefore I e-mailed them and mentioned I would call them Mon. morning. Hopefully I don't lose this opportunity or the 2 others in here.

Flashback (2): Dave

I had a Canadian guy as my roommate when I used to live in D. H.’s house: Dave. He was a drunkard and worked for a body-shop. He used to come home usually with a bottle. I remember once D. H. and the kids were gone and I was alone. Dave came in and started talking to me. I noticed he was drunk. He took out his wallet and the next moment bills were raining all over the place. Although it has been about 2.5 years but I remember exactly that there were three $100 and a few more bills. I was tempted to grab them but didn’t. I felt sorry for him. He was an ugly short guy with a problem with his mouth, like Jean Chretien’s, who was kicked out of home because of his misbehavior. He used to say that he had a row with her gf and they broke up but I hardly believed it.
Anyway when D. H. and kids came back, I ran to him and said: Dave is here and he’s sober and lucid! He lifted the TV and was about to drop it and I stopped him!
The reason I said so was, first of all I was sick and tired of his misconduct and bullshits, secondly, I had recently watched Basic Instinct and there is a scene where Nick (Michael Douglas) is being interrogated. After the very first questions, the door opens and Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn) enters. A detective asks Nick where he had been last night and what he had been doing. And he says he was home, watching TV. Beth confirms that and says when she was there, she saw that he was sober and lucid, while he really was not, in the movie. He was drunk! So I thought sober and lucid means drunk because I didn’t find any reason for Beth lying about Nick! I didn’t know that she was in love with him and trying to help him, save him! It’s pretty obvious what D. H.’s answer was!
Another time I was home and suddenly I saw two tall cops inside. There were so big that I didn’t notice that Dave came in with them! They asked me if I knew David. (They mentioned his surname and I don’t remember it of course!) I told them that I only knew his name. They asked if he lived there and D. H. stepped forward and told them that he was his tenant. We then found out that the poor guy was drunk and he had been lost! So one of the neighbors called the cops and they took him home!
He also used to order pizza and ask me what kind of pizza I liked. I don't remember clearly what happened in pizza story but remember once he forgot his pizza (Just one slice has been had) and I put it in my fridge and then ate it all! When D. H. asked me about what had happened to that I answered that I had it with a friend of mine who was here to see me, from Edmonton. He mentioned that there was pork in it and I said I didn't know that! So I got off the hook easily!
(Photo: Michael Douglas in a scene of movie Basic Instinct)

Marriage

I stopped talking to N. N. about 10 days ago, may be more. She was one of the girls that I was thinking of for marriage. She's the right one for me. She's kind of - I don't know how to describe that - inatractive girl, both in terms of charachteristics and feature. I'm fine with the feature if the girl is cool. For instance Victoria is not really a pretty girl (I wish I had a photo of her) but she's very attracitive. She got a very beautiful smile, she speaks English fluently with a very sweet accent, she got a very nice body and she's smart and a real athlete. So all the attributes mentioned attract you so much that u don't c anything wrong in her face. N. N. is not pretty nor active and attractive. Doesn't speack (well actually write!) English the way I axpected and is not into anything! Kind of really boring girl! But she literally relied on what I asked her: Marriage!

Now I focus on two girls: M. T., my former colleague in EIED and one of the most beautiful girls that anyone could have seen in his or her entire life and F. J., the young cute girl whom was found by Mom and I'm in touch with trough e-mail. P. K. was another choice for me but she's kind of low-class girl. I may write her story later.