Calgary Flaimers
Wow… what a week…I got tickets to 2 preseason Calgary Flames games… and I had the time of my life..
Last week went to the Battle of Alberta “Flames vs. Oilers” and who would have thought that I would pick up a dude at an NHL game??? I mean back home I could never get any of my gay friends to go to a Leafs game… but wow
Ok let me tell you the story….
I was at work proctoring some web based training.. which basically means once I show the nurses how to log onto the computers I just sit there and do nothing for 8 hours… mind you it takes them 2 hours to actually log on…
My conversation usually goes like this:
“ ok ladies now we are going to log onto the computers.. so type the word TRAINING into the password field…
the word TRAINING
nope.. just the word training…. The word TRAINING…. No .. just type training
no… just type the word training in the password field… that empty space beside the word password.. type training… no don’t type the word type… just the word training….
Type T R A I N I N G…. nope… type the word training
For the love of buddah… for fucks sake type training..no training…. No training… not the word NO… watch me spell the password on the board… t r a i n i n g”
But once they are logged on its easy… they just hit the next button till they are done..but getting some of them logged on can be like pulling teeth on badger
So I was just sitting there like always chatting away on msn web messenger when I went on line to ticketmaster and found tickets to 2 preseason games…
So I found a str8 friend who wanted to go to the game… and before the game we found a hole in the wall bar that had $2.50 drink happy hour before the game… well $20 latter in gin and tonics.. I was a bit HAPPY… and off we stumbled into the Saddledome…
While in line for some popcorn.. we met tons of people and starting to make friends who were also sloshed… its soo much easier to make friends when everyone is completely trashed… well when we got to our seats we were surrounded by gay friendly dudes who kept buying me beer… which I know is bad to mix with gin…but even before the start of the 1st period we became great friends with everyone in our section… all 30 of us were soo obnoxious.. we were heckling the zamboni driver and the Flames mascot… I couldn’t for the life of me actually follow the what was happening on the ice.. the puck was far too small.. and I must say our section was totally crazy and joking.. it was like we were in a very cold pub.. and hockey just happened to be going on beside us…it was great… the str8 dudes sitting near us kept buying me more beer… everyone was soo friendly… I kept saying.. “ dudes where have you been the past 5 months..” it seems most of them work the oil patches and rarely get into the city..
Anyways… during the second intermission,.. I decided it was my turn to get some beer so I went down to the concession stand and while I was in line.. the place was totally spinning… and I turned around and starting to chat with the college guy behind me.. and we got laughing and talking.. and next thing he takes out his cell phone and asks me for my phone number…and says he is going to take me out for dinner sometime..
I was like WOW.. I cant believe I was totally picked up at an NHL game…the dude was from Edmonton.. which is probably why we got along really well… Edmonton is more blue collar… kinda like what Hamilton is to Toronto…. Edmonton is like to Calgary,…
Well the game apparently was really good too.. although the Oilers won in OT.. I had a blast…
I cant wait for the next game this Wednesday…and my date from Edmonton will be coming down to visit again on the weekend..
So this week.. I guess there is no big life lessons.. other than logging on to computers is hard.. and mixing gin and cheap hockey arena beer can actually be fun
Cheers :)
Calgary Rocks when your with Non- Calgarians
OMG you have not partied until you have partied with some Nova Scotians and girls from ThunderBay…
… one day I was in a room with a bunch of CSIs (clinical systems instructors)… and this one lady (born and raised here in Calgary).. started to rant and rave about how evil people from Ontario are and how stupid everyone from the East coast was…
As I looked around the room I quickly realized.. she was outnumbered… in fact… everyone else in the room was from either Thunderbay or Nova Scotia .. and so we totally teamed up on her… and we have formed a new “East Coast Posse”…
That evening my new group decided to go bar hopping in Kenningston.. which is a trendy area in this red neck hick town and has some real cool pubs..
WOW..we had a blast… they are soo very friendly… the complete salt of the earth people who truly fit the east Coast Stereotypes of always smiling and being so real … we went from one pub to another.. and drinking and laughing and meeting people.. there was a group of 8 of us and we were soo loud and would go to people and introduce ourselves… if the people we were talking to were from out of the town.. it was guaranteed they were friendly.. it seemed anyone who was a local Calgarian was very cold and mean. They just ignored us… but it didn’t matter... as we had a blast anyways..
Im so happy to have met cool people.. it sure beats dealing with Tim and his unfriendly group.
Its been sooooooooooo COLD here in Alberta… I couldn’t believe on Sept 15th we had 5cm of snow.. nothing stayed on the ground but still .. a snow storm in Sept ?!?!….it just made the pub crawl more fun… nothing like partying it up in shorts and a t shirt in minus 5C weather with heaps of snow… gotta love being in the artic..
Even the physicians have been inviting me out every Monday evening to go watch football at a local Irish pub down the street. And my new roommates and I have been going out too…
Its actually kinda funny.. my one roommate actually went and hooked up with my old roommate Tim… and on Tim’s blog he posted this about my new roomie Ron:
He was totally hot and totally dumb. Like I've always said you can either be pretty or smart, he chose pretty.
The irony of this statement is soo funny.. if you actually met these two… my new roomie is a college professor with tons of ambition and life and very friendly where as Tim is 30, ex-drug addict, high school drop out who just sits in front of the tv and veg all day.
I am so excited too… my friend Tom and Neil from Burlington are coming to visit… Tom is coming for a conference so that weekend I am taking them out to the bars and then up to Banff weather permitting..
And the following day Im joining a group of hikers for a very difficult climb/hike up Sentinel Pass.. It’s a full day hike… and I will take heaps of pics I promise.
Rx: Hugs Q4H prn
Rx: Hugs Q4H prnDudes- how’s it going? I am totally having a blast now here in Cgy…for starters.. I have begun to look for “
good” in Cgy.. and although one has to look kinda hard for “
good”… it’s there… just hard to see “
good” at times
The other day I was at a Home Outfitters store shopping for curtains for my new room…I was just standing in front of a display.. when a lady cross checked and pushed me from behind because she wanted to look at the same “Sale Section” I was. If this was a hockey game she would have been given a 5 minute penalty for that, because I was knocked right over.. she was a big lady at least 200+ lbs.
So instead of getting mad and angry at yet another example of how evil people can be in this city.. I decided to look for “
good”… Surely this city has got to have “
good” I said to myself.
The next day I was teaching yet another group of nurses at SAIT.. and of course they were just being completely nasty to me…but I was trying my hardest to remain positive… someone asked me a workflow question that I wasn’t too sure about and in the room next door the other trainer ( Rosita _
I love to roll the R when I say her name) used to be a staff nurses at Rockyview General and so I thought maybe she would be able to answer the question…
When I walked into her room.. I was in awe… it was like I was watching a saint in action.. her students were just like mine… but the way Rosita responded to their angry retorts was soo different from my own…the way Rosita walked around the room comforting the students with a hug or touch.. it was like what I would expect Mother Teresa to have been like with the homeless… except Rosita wasn’t comforting people suffering from Leprosy, she was comforting foul mouthed Calgarian nurses.. it was soo amazing to see how Rosita could show such compassion even when her students told her “
to go sit on a monitor and rotate”.. it really said a lot about her as a person…
After class we talked about that and other stuff going on… and I was again in awe…she made a good point… “
we cant control others and how they act… we can only control ourselves”…. She used to be a nurse up in Fort McMurry- which is about 8 hours north of Cgy…the only thing up there is: oil, money, bears and beer
She was telling me about the problem of the Oil Kids and drugs is a big problem… so many of the kids from families of Oil end up heavily in the drugs and have little or no ambition in life… I was then able to put my ex-roomate’s situation into better context for me to understand where he was coming from….
But it isn’t always like that… that same evening I met a guy who’s family made millions in the oil and gas industry… at 21 he has more money than he knows what to do with… but instead of wasting away doing crack or pot and doing nothing with his life… he has decided to put his new found money to a good cause…..after hearing about all the orphaned kids in Africa because of the AIDS crisis… he is opening up a school in Malawi- a small improvised country in Africa for these children. One of the burdens many of these children face is that once their parents and elders die or get sick.. it’s the children who end up fending for the families by working the farms or taking jobs in the cities…and as a result many children get no education because they are forced to work at such early ages.. and since they have no education they are unable to get better jobs- which will result in a nasty cycle of poverty for soo many. So this guy is opening this school which will allow the kids to continue to do what they need to do for their villages/ family and at the same time get an education. He is completely funding this school with the millions in extra cash his parents are giving him…
Don’t worry I haven’t entertained the idea of rushing off to Africa to save the world… but I wanted to share this story… because it really made me believe again.
As for the work front.. Things are improving daily… the physicians continue to love me.. I spend a lot of time in the doctor’s lounges now.. I feel like they have adopted me into their exclusive club…these lounges are amazing.. it feels like an upscale airport lounge… they have everything from leather couches to cigars and big screen tvs…some of the surgeons even have special “hooker” rooms…I haven’t used that and I’m afraid to even ask what they are used for… but I have made use of the free pizza.. if we have the pizza delivered to the lounge we can just charge it to the hospital… we do work hard though… but its nice that I can make use of the doctors lounges… it certainly makes the nurses all jealous..
And the hours I have been putting in have been insane…. Most days I’m at the hospital by 6am and stay till 1030 at night…. So my boss this week.. told me I had to work on a “ special project” at home this Friday… and I was like “Ok sure” and kept asking her what the project was….. I can be a bit dense at times.. and didn’t realize she was giving me the day off with pay… which is nice… so I will probably head back up to the mountains…
Anyways I’m outties…. Gotta help the Psych docs order some Form 1s…. which is kinda scary in a way..its a form that allows a doctor to hold you in a hospital for up to 72 hours to complete a psychiatric assessment even against your will.
Hmmm… there are a few nurses here I would love to sign a Form 1 for… hehehe jk
Oh and for those of you who don’t know
Rx: Hugs Q4H prn = I have prescribed hugs to be given every 4 hours as needed.
