It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... in THAT order!!!

Ok, so today was NHL trade deadline. I, unfortunately, had to work most of the day. The deadline was to end at 1pm. I receive text message updates to my cell phone about any Oilers news, and I was anxiously awaiting such a message most of the morning. At about 1:30pm I took my lunch break, and realized that I hadn't heard anything yet, which would be just fine with me, except that there were a few players I'd be reasonably content with trading, so long as we got the better end of the trade. As I'm sitting there, enjoying my Chicken McNuggets (McDonalds is the devil), I feel a little vibration from my cargo pocket on my pants. I reach in, pull out my cell phone and see "Oilers updates" on the screen. I open the message and my jaw dropped as I read "Oilers trade Ryan Smyth to Islanders for Ryan O'Marra, Robert Nilsson, 2007 pick (1st Round)." I don't mean to sound like a whiner or a sourpuss, but that's pathetic! This is Smitty we're talking about! The man who by all accounts (other than his, of course) SHOULD be the Oilers' captain! I suppose I shouldn't be to surprised, I suppose. After all, this is the team that's famous for the "train 'em and trade 'em" philosophy. I guess I just thought that in this new era of the NHL, they might be able to hold on to some of their stars, rather than seeing Smyth follow the likes of Messier (who's being honoured by the team tonight by retiring his jersey), Gretzky, Weight, Guerin, and many, many more to other teams while in the prime of their respective careers. Needless to say, I'm NOT a big Kevin Lowe fan today. I just hope there's some stipulation that hasn't been made public that would make this more of a rental situation than a full on trade. I'd sure like to see Smitty back with the Blue and Copper before too long.

I feel sorta guilty, so I have to vent...

So I feel like I should be a restaurant reviewer today. This evening I went to dinner with some friends at East Side Mario's.

I arrive in the place at about 7:45pm and join my friends' table in the middle of the dinning room. I sit down and the waitress promptly asks me for my drink order. I ask for a ginger ale and continue my conversation with my friends. The drink arrives shortly and we ask for a couple minutes before we order food. I notice that the waitress seems to only be working two or three other tables, so we should be good for service. Boy was I wrong! So after sitting around for about 20 minutes, long enough for me to completely forget what the waitress even looked like, I finally noticed a waitress walk up to our table (again, in the middle of the dinning room), ready to take our order. I was really in the mood for a steak, and I figured I had brought lunch to work today, so I figured I could splurge. It just so happens that the steak (they only have one) is the most expensive thing on the menu. I order it anyway. Now those of you who have been to East Side Mario's should know that they give out free bread while you wait. Well, after the orders were finally taken, we waited a good 20 minutes and no bread. Finally one of the guys at our table knew one of the guys working there, and called him over to chat. While he was at the table, I asked him if we could have some bread. He brought it over quickly. We munched on the bread for about another 20 minutes. (Let's do some quick math here: 20 minutes to order + 20 minutes to get bread + 20 minutes eating bread = 1 hour of wasted time.) Anyway, it occurs to me, through all of this, that the soup for my meal still hasn't arrived. The waitress finally starts to bring out the food, and I mention that I still hadn't gotten my soup. Without a word of apology, she mentions that she forgot, and that she'd bring it right out. So here I am with my steak dinner, with pasta on the side, AND a bowl of soup in front of me at the same time. All this, remember, after ordering the most expensive dish on the menu. Needless to say, I was NOT impressed. If only that was the end of the bad service. However, after a few bites I realize that my ginger ale has been empty for the best part of an hour. I look around and can't see a waitress anywhere. I wait a minute, and see her walk by to help one of her other tables, I see her look at my empty glass and walk right back by. Maybe she didn't see that it was empty, so I move it to the corner of the table to make it obvious. Again I see her walk right by and look at the glass, yet nothing. A few more minutes and she's off in the corner talking with some co-workers. I look intently at her with my glass in my hand and wait for her to glance over. Finally she looks over and walks over, after first walking into the kitchen for a few seconds. She forgot what my drink was (no surprise after an hour), and I had to tell her that I had ginger ale. I think she thought I was drinking water, and so I could just refill with the pitcher at the table. Anyway, as you might be able to tell, I was NOT the happiest customer today. She brought our bills, and mine came out to $22.66. Not I should note that I'm generally a very generous tipper. With good service I might even leave $30 at the table for that bill. At least $26 or $27. I left $23 even, only because I didn't want to wait another 20 minutes to have her come by so I could get change. I don't expect to have someone pay more attention to me just because I ordered the highest price entree they offer, but I do expect decent service for everyone, and perhaps a little more awareness of the service offered when one DOES order the highest priced entree.

Anyway, I generally like to leave decent tips, and I feel a little guilty about leaving a mere 34 cents, and so I had to vent.

Hockey talk...

So, the Oilers are having a rough road trip so far. I'd sure like to see them turn this around, but they took a step in the wrong direction today, in my opinion. That is, unless they're just prepping for a better move. Here's the scoop...

They traded Marc-Andre Bergeron today to the NY Islanders for some prospective defenceman named Denis Grebeshkov, who's not expected to play at the NHL level at all this season. I mean, I'm as impressed with their calling up Zach Stortini as the next guy, but they've been struggling on defence all season. And I was just starting to warm up to Bergeron, after the grudge I had against him for being responsible for the injury to Roli in the finals that, in my opinion, as well as many others opinions, made the difference in allowing Carolina to take the cup. Anyway, I'm just hoping that the reason they've made this trade is to open up some salary cap room to do two things: re-sign Ryan Smyth, and acquire a bigger defenceman. What I really hope they haven't done is give up on the season and resigned themselves to
rebuilding for next season.

Another month...

Alright, it's February, and I know you've all been rapt in anticipation of my next instalment so here it is.

I really don't have a whole lot of news, except that I tore a muscle in my shoulder at work the other day. I was lifting a desk into a car (when are people going to learn to bring a truck or van when shopping for furniture, or else let us deliver, since we do it for free) into which it refused to fit. This happened to be a rather heavy desk (it said it was a two man job on the box) but I'm a stud do I figured I'd do it myself. Anyway, it didn't fit, so I put it back on the dolly and wheeled it back into the store. On the way back in I noticed that my shoulder was hurting, but I figured I just strained the muscle a bit, and that I'd be fine. Within about five minutes I realized that the pain was only getting worse, and that I couldn't use my left arm at all. I filled out a WCB form, went home, iced it, went to the clinic, got told by the doctor that I tore a muscle, and now I have an excuse to be a wimp at work for a week or two. (I can't lift anything more than 10 lbs with my left arm. Doctor's orders!) I'll be fine, it just hurts a bit, and I might pick up some muscle relaxants if it continues to bug me.

Aside from that, the new Windows OS is out (Windows Vista). I get to play around with it at work, and as amazing as it is, with all the great new features and enhancements, I just like the new ink-ball game that's included. I'm such a dork!

In recovery mode...

Ok, so I figure I should write on here again to update on the remainder of my vacation. So on Friday, I hit the highway and headed back up north to the remote tundra town of Grande Prairie. Ok, so maybe tundra is a bit of a stretch, but it sure is a long drive to the northwest. I think the most challenging part of the drive is the fact that the road was fairly wet, not snowy, but wet for the last hour. This caused quite a bit of my washer fluid to be used, as there was also a lot of traffic on this highway. It actually surprised me just how busy the highway was. Lots of trucks, especially. Anyway, when I finally got there (about 4.5 hrs later) I noticed that, especially on the side streets, they don't clear the roads very well in G.P. Instead, they just plow all the snow into the middle of the road, leaving about a 4 ft. tall barrier between lanes, and making it tough to find enough room to park safely on the side of the road while leaving enough room for cars to drive by. I survived though.

I got to spend the best part of a day in town, hanging out with my friend and his wife. We played some computer games, had a good chat, caught up on all the news from old friends, and generally had a good night staying up 'till 3am. We had a good venison roast for dinner, and then had some nachos for a midnight snack, and then in the morning he fed me so many pancakes, I thought I was going to turn into Aunt Jemima. Anyway, I got back on the road around 1pm and started the trek back to Edmonton.

Upon arriving in E-town, I caught up with my roommate who was up for a couple days on business, and we went to the Oilers vs. Flames game. The game didn't go so well. Kipper was on his game, and the Oilers, namely the defence, were having a bad night. Flames won 4-0, and that's all we'll say about the actual game. After the game, however, is a different story. We went down under the stadium seats, into the lower concourse, where the Oilers broadcast control room is. It's also right outside the Oilers locker room. After HNIC (Hockey Night In Canada) they have an interview segment called After Hours. When the late game is in Edmonton, they broadcast that segment from that control room. We stood just beside the big glass wall that divides the room from the rest of the concourse. We had a front row view. The hosts, Kelly Hrudey and Scott Oake, had on the Oilers' star forward Ryan Smyth. It was so cool to be that close to three people I've watched for years on tv. At one point, during a break, Kelly Hrudey (who was once an NHL goalie, and a pretty good one at that) looked out at us, and as he looked at me, I pointed to my HNIC T-shirt, which are apparently quite rare, and was a gift from my sister for Christmas '05, and he responded with a thumbs up while saying, "Hey, I like it!" So now I have this incredible claim to fame. While I may no longer be the biggest Oilers fan to never have been to a game, I can now say that Kelly Hrudey liked my T-shirt!!! (Hey, I'll take what I can get.)

Anyway, after heading back to Sis' place for the night, she showed me the taped footage of After Hours, and on four separate occasions you can clearly see me as they panned a camera across the crowd watching them shoot the segment. So, for a grand total of about 15 seconds, I got one sixtieth of my fifteen minutes. (And I'm going to hold out for my remaining 14:45!!!)

Finally, Sunday I drive myself and my roommate back to Lethbridge. This was a bit of an adventure in itself. We left Edmonton with almost a full tank of gas. We drove straight past Red Deer, then Calgary. As we worked our way out of Calgary, I noticed the gas tank was almost empty. I figured I'd have enough to at least get to Nanton. Well, we pull into the station at the south end of Nanton, where the price was 5 cents less than at the north end of Nanton. (And if you've ever been through Nanton, you'll know it only a few blocks away.) As a result, there was a substantial wait to get into the pumps, and it being a full-service station, the cars tend to take even longer to get through the pumps. I decide we'll have enough gas to go the added 40 kms or so to Claresholm. Well, I was right, but barely. As we came up a gradual slope, about 4 km north of Claresholm, the car started to stutter a bit. I eased off the gas a bit, though I was already going below the speed limit to conserve gas, and that seemed to help a bit. As we came over the crest of the slope, the car still stuttering a bit, the few drops of gas that were left in the tank moved back to the front of the tank, and we got our power back, at least temporarily. At this point, with about 3 km to go, we hit a gradual downhill slope. I put the car in neutral on more than one occasion to coast as far as I could. As we rolled into town, I didn't touch the brake to slow down to 50 km/h, but rather just slowly coasted down to speed. Again, if you've driven in to Claresholm from the north, you'll know how easy this is through the long 70 km/h zone before finally getting to the 50 zone. Anyway, the only light in town was green, so I cruised right on through, and right up to the 7-11/Petro-Canada station. I think if I had to go just a couple kms further, I wouldn't have made it. Anyway, a quick fill and off we went.

Overall, it was a good trip. One bad hockey game, but at least the sting was reduced by the whole After Hours incident. The roads were pretty well all clear, maybe a bit wet at the worst, at least on the highways. It's really not that bad of a drive, especially for someone who enjoys being behind the wheel, like myself. I think I may have to do this trip again sometime, though I'll have to plan for a longer stay in G.P. as that was the only thing I would want to change about it, at least that I can control (stupid Flames).