24 Km a Day

Last Sat. which was a off days for most of us, of course, made the 4th month that I have been working. Our supervisor said that we would be employees soon but hasn't said when. One of the guys said that it would take 4.5 months. Why? I guess because the agency needs to benefit from the person as long as they can. While I'm being much better at what I do on daily basis, compared to the time that I started, I still doubt that they keep me on. At the same time if they wanted to hire someone else and train him again, that would be a hassle. I know everything now and I even provide suggestions although they barely accept it. 

But the question is: Is that a job that people could consider until their retirement. From what I see, that is. We have at least 5 employees over the age 55 which I highly doubt they go anywhere but they are in a different department with less or next to zero physical job. I also have heard, both from manager and one of the employees that the company provides good benefits. So I can see why they intend to keep their " easy " jobs. 

As per me, I have to wake up early, which is fine but that's the drive, with mostly crazy drivers which bothers me, not even the cold. They speed, they use their high beam, they tailgate you, you name it. And I'm on the road for nearly 12 Km, one way. Beside that the amount of time I walk is so much that by the end of the day I barely can stand on my feet. Let alone the heavy stuff that at time I have to lift or the tension and stress I'm under when I use one of the machines. 

Luckily I have been scheduled for a job interview in a few weeks. Neither the interview nor the training after that is easy but I will have to beat both of them. That would be a separate post.

Cowboy Taphouse

This past weekend we decided to check a bar after probably 10 years or so! Yes! The last time I had been into a bar was probably even more than 10 years! First of all I'm not a drunkard and even if there was a time I drank it was at a social event or The Chef's house. 

Now that The Chef has been kicked out of his home and there're not any parties of any kind (except for the past Christmas party that I didn't go) I don't drink. So we decided to go to this place called Cowboy Tap House in the northeastern part of the town. What Cowboy? The customers were mostly old Caucasian fellas, a few Blacks, East Indians of Sikh faith and a number of Afghans! 

The bar is just a regular one that mostly workers after their daily labour go there to play a game of pool, drink a Beer or too and have a chat with waitresses. It was not even busy although most of the tables were occupied but it was not crazy busy in a way that people were in each other's faces or something like that. And sadly no women and girls except a few old ones with their boyfriend and husbands! Waitresses were not bad but I don't know if you could make a move on a waitress or not in a bar when you go there for the first time! I don't know what the bar etiquette in that regard is! 

We ordered a jog of Beer and then two baskets of Wings. The Beer was just OK. Nothing extraordinary that I would go for it again to that place. I suspect that it had even been diluted before it was brought to us! The Wings were both super dry but thoroughly cooked. But again I wouldn't go for that again. We chatted a little bit and ordered the second jag and the second couple of baskets. I was a little hungry and that helped me to overcome that but then we got bored because there was no activity especially when a couple of Afghans approached us and started bull-shiting.

The bar has a nice fireplace with comfortable armchairs around it which makes it a good spot to eat and drink in winter 

When we ran out of both Beer and Wings, the waitresses appeared at our table one after another. Obviously you can't just hang out in a bar, especially on a night which it's not very busy. That could be the case with Cowboy Tap House every night! You need to order or get the hell out. So when the waitresses appeared I told them that we were just taking a break and the Afghans were being really annoying. So we decided to leave before we had to throw them back to their freaking table! Our entire bill was a little over $36 and I gave the waitress a total of $40 to make it right. I guess she was happy and we got the hell out. I haven't to many bars in Calgary lately so I can't compare them. It's just an OK place for hanging out, having a drink or a light supper. Nothing special about the place and nothing bad either, except for the bugs I explained them above!
(Photo: The inside of the bar in a not busy night)

McDonald's's Reaction to Wage Increase

First of all I hope the double S and apostrophe is correct grammatically. Second of all you all probably know that minimum wage went up in a number pf provinces, including Alberta, lately. Wrong decision that I don't know if enough thinking had been behind that or not but it originally led to more than 80,000 job losses in the country! 

I've never been a business owner but I've watched every business I've worked for or dealt with closely. There's lots of waste and unnecessary work as a lack of organization, system and competent management. However that is a different subject that I will probably post about it later but I wanted to briefly refer to the reaction of one major international business, or to be specific, a certain location to wage hike and I hope I'm right.

Typical McDonald's customer. This guy has either consumed so much narcotics that can not keep himself up or has been up all night looking around and hunting(!) and now where's better than McDonald's to relax?

There's this McDonald's that I used to go to a lot and I don't any more, as part of my money-saving plan and although that location being nasty and full of drug addicts, hobo and troubled people. I was there once about a week ago or so and I wanted to sit and work on my studies. My computer was low on battery and I wanted to charge it. I realize that all of the outlets are blocked! I don't know how much electricity a computer charges if it is plugged in for its battery but compare to what McDonald's wastes on daily basis, it's nothing. And I know that every branch is managed individually but they all must follow certain standards dictated by their head office. For that reason I'm going to find out if McDonald's Canada authorizes that or not.

(Photo: An outlet in a McDonald's location in Calgary is blocked to prevent customers consuming electricity!)

As Cold as -29℃ (-20.2 ℉)

I woke up around 06:00 hours today to go to work and when I pushed the curtain back, I noticed a thick layer of ice on the window. That's my thermometer! I immediately realized that would be a cold day. On the street, where I park my vehicle, I found it very hard, for the first time ever, to scrape ice form the windshield and windows! It was just not working! Fortunately there was no problem with this fantastic car again. One twists and boom! The engine started. I let it idle, unlike every other day that I have had this vehicle, while I tried harder to remove the thin layer of ice from the windows and windshield. I guess I probably spent 10 min. on the car before I could leave. I checked the car's thermometer and it showed -27 ℃ and considering that my vehicle's thermometer always shows 2 degree warmer than what it actually is, I read the temperature as -29 ℃, the coldest I had ever felt and that was without considering wind-chill of course! 

The roads were not bad. Same traffic and not slippery in a way that you wanted to take extra caution. At work it was different. We had someone who we had to help him outside and it became a little problem. My fingers were frozen and if I had to spend a little longer than I did, I would have gotten frost bite. I ran to restroom and kept my hands under hot, boiling water for 30 sec., maybe.

It was very uncomfortable until around 15:20 hours or so because the gates and doors were opened off and on and left open for minutes. Then it changed and the temperature went up to nearly -7 ℃ (19.4 ℉) around 16:30 which is considered a spring day here in Alberta!
(Photo: I took this picture on the weekend. It was of course not as cold as this morning but it was chilly and as you can see beautiful)

A Real Beautiful Winter Day

It has been cold since the start of the week. When I say cold, I don't mean -1 ℃ and not even -10℃. This is not considered cold in Alberta unless you're a whining wimp(!) like many here in Calgary! It barely went up -12℃ and was mostly bellow -15℃ without considering wind-chill. 

I had to be out for a few minutes at work and that is separate from the time I normally have to spend outside in the morning to clean the vehicle before I start and go to work. That is because I don't want to pay $50 to the bastard landlord for the damn parking and I've never regreted that. 

I felt really cold when I was outside but it was OK because it was not more than, perhaps, 20 min. and I frequently went back in and came outside. I went for two walks of at least 1 hour on Sun. and Mon. and I was almost OK. It was so beautiful and I wish I could take a few photographs but I needed my good Canon camera and my tripod and bringing them out of the closet and preparing them required patient and motivation. Two things that I don't have at the moment!

Today, though was the most beautiful one. I saw probably 20 cm (0.65 foot) of snow on the car(!) and the roads were very slippery. The temperature never went above -17℃ during the day. Not for a minute. In the afternoon when I got the car again to leave work, there was another, at least 5 cm of snow on it and the roads where more slippery but beautiful at the same time. The vehicle didn't have much problem except for a few spots that slid. This means that if I survive this winter, I will really have to prepare it for the next one.
(Photo: Cars are basically buried under snow and there's a frozen wall next to them, at least 50 cm. Almost impossible to get out of this spot. I hope I can update this picture in a future post)

What's Wrong with this Photograph?

Apparently a day like this last year someone went bananas and attacked a mosque in Quebec City. A number of people were killed. I did not follow that but obviously the Prime Minister and other people on the top of the hierarchal Capitalist society of Canada(!) condemned the terrorist act and sent their condolences to the family of  victims. 

There was an article about the incident in McLean's which I still have to read it(!) but this damn labour job of mine makes me so tired that I even doubt that I can finish the course I've taken, on time! But here's my question from the politicians and everyone who is reading this post and looking at the picture: What do you think is wrong with this photograph? 

This clearly shows the result of decades of wrong immigration policy of Canada. There's a lot to write about this but in a sentence it shows that the Government have let people in, in the past 5 decades or so that they don't care about the country which gave them the opportunity to start a new life they never had! In this picture you see that the coffins of the dead are all covered with the flag of the countries which they were born in. They didn't even bother to put a small Canadian flag on the coffin or cover them half and half. 

But one might question why they are let in, in the first place? The answer is simple: Cheap labour! In order to turn the wheels of economy in a Capitalist country, cheap labour is an inevitable factor, particularly where other costs are too high, such as land, lease, etc. It seems a logical fact but there's more to it that requires a separate post.

Money is the only thing that Capitalism thinks of and obtaining that gives them the right to do everything possible. In fact greed, lust and individualism are the three sides of the triangle which builds the structure of Capitalism and as I read that once, Capitalism, which by the way is not way different from Imperialism, is similar to the air that we breath. We would be dead without that!

Hierarchical society in ancient Egypt. This goes back to 3000 BC but is seen in today's world with little changes and different terms and definitions

Now they have built a society which its base has lost trust. Caucasians, mostly do not like the people who come from Muslim countries and the gap between them gets deeper and deeper every day. Would we have more of what happened in Quebec City? Probably. Would we have the same type of violence from the other side, or even worse than what happened there? I can't see why not, unfortunately. The society has been built in that way. It, unfortunately and automatically is going toward that direction: The deep division between Canadians and non-Canadians. And don't forget that in my opinion Canadians are the ones who came from Western European countries more than 150 years ago and built the country of Canada that we see today. All those worse-than-racist pieces of shit Sikhs and Chinese who you see herds of them, especially in British Columbia (or as I would like to call it Brit"SHIT" Columbia but I mean the disgusting Lower Mainland only) are not Canadians. They were just born in Canada because their parents were either brought or came as hungry labourers to this part of the globe. Canadian is not a nationality. Canadian is a culture. By saying this I don't intend to downgrade other cultures. There are things in Canadian culture that I don't like them but what I hate the most is the people who brag about their culture, background and original country while live in Canada and benefit from everything available! The other fact that we should not forget is in the past cheap labour was brought to the country by force. Now the Westerners create chaos and unpleasant situation in those countries which make the cheap labour to come here by its own will! So you see whose fault it is. Don't you?!
(Photo: Muslims pray on the corps of the people who were killed in Quebec City mosque. This is a traditional respect to the dead, whether he or she is killed or passed away by natural causes)