how to go down stairs

7927 more hours. I'll tell you how not to go down stairs. Falling. It hurts. A lot. Try to stay standing when walking down them, and don't fall back and slide down them. I wasn't totally with it at work and I fell back while going down the stairs in the house we were working on in the Westdale area, and tried to stop my fall by putting my arms back which prbably saved me from smashing the back of my head against the stairs, but gave me some real bad scrapes on my arm and hand. The really bad one on my arm will probably end up becoming a scar like my knee from my little skateboarding escapade in Edmonton. Oh well. Such is life. Just one more injury from work. So last week on Thursday and Friday (11&12) we headed out to Mississauga to help out an electrical contractor friend of James'. They were working on an Aaron's http://www.shopaarons.ca/sa/ and were supposed to hand the store over that coming Monday (15). There was still a lot of work to be done so that's why they called James. I finally got to do some commercial work and not just residential. It's more or less the same, except you only use BX (if you've ever seen the cable that has the metal sheath) instead of the usual Romex (the white bendy sheath). So according to the internets it's not actually called BX anymore and hasn't been for some time. However, just about everyone in the trade calls it BX so I'm just gonna keep calling it that. And Romex is a brand name I know that but whatever. Anyway I haven't worked with BX since grade 10, and haven't done any commercial stuff so the other guys apprentice taught me how to do everything. Thanks Tony. So that was some good experience. I also had to do 20+ plugs in the place. And there were more to do but I ran out of plugs. The whole time James was fixing all the old fluorescent lights from the previous store that was in there. I didn't take the time to count how many there were. I helped him with about 8 but then was made to do other stuff. There was at least... 40. probably more. Not all of them weren't working but a lot of them weren't. That's all he did. And he even went back on the Sunday to help out more. Crazy. I also had to get on the top of a 12 foot ladder to take down some conduit that wasn't gonna be used that was strapped to the ceiling. A little scary when the ladder moves the slightest bit. That's a long way down when my head is almost 18ft from the floor. Other than that me and Tony hung up and wired 10 of the fluorescent lights that are used in drop ceilings. the big ones you see in offices and stuff. That was cool to learn all that. Other than that we finished the house in Westdale on Tuesday (16) so he gave me the next day off cause he had to go to Toronto to get some stuff sorted out for his trip to Jamaica and because we worked hard on that house and needed a break before starting another job. So Thursday (18) I go back and by the end of the day I had installed 7 pot lights. It took me under an hour to do that. We did it at the end of the day. I did nothing all day except for that right at the end. And then today we were supposed to help one of his former apprentices with this meter changing job for some government owned townhouses. Ya you know things are bad when Hydro won't even attempt to disconnect it because it's dangerous. So we didn't end up doing anything. We are gonna have to shut down the whole block of houses but you can't shut off peoples power unless you give the people living there notice. Which we hadn't because we only planned on disconnecting the units affected. So it has been delayed to this Tuesday. Then he took me and James out for lunch and then we went to Stoney Creek, I changed an outdoor light to a motion sensor one and that was it. And I'm getting paid for all of it. Which is not bad after my raise. I got my first paycheck today after I got my raise. Wow. That's a lot of bacon. I don't know where that came from. Bring home the bacon? Isn't that a saying? I was originally thinking that it could buy me a lot of bacon. Mmm bacon. Oh ya. So BX is not always the nicest to work with cause it's all metal and it's real sharp and doesn't bend very easily, but in that house in Westdale there was this stuff that was before BX I guess because it was encased in this metal like substance. Turns out it's lead. Ya. So I tried to touch it as little as possible. I think lead is bad for you. I thought I heard that somewhere.

giddyup

7998 more hours. So much has happened since I last wrote something here. I really should have written it down cause I can't remember a whole lot. We finally finished the house we were working on for 6 weeks down by Ivor Wynne on Lottridge. After doing almost all of the wiring I then had to put all of the plugs on, and all of the switches, and then all of the light fixtures. Oh ya! I think all of the light fixtures were from IKEA. yay. There were these lights that were for the two kitchens in the place and the instructions said not to use a regular bulb. That was apparent since they didn't fit. So we tried the smaller ones that we used for some of the other lights but they were too small. We had no idea what it wanted. James made several trips to Home Depot looking for the right bulbs but kept coming back with either nothing or the wrong ones. So the one day we were out doing a service call in Ancaster and on the way back he decided to stop off at Home Depot to grab some stuff and he sent me to look for the bulbs. 5 minutes later I had them. It's a gift what can I say? He couldn't believe it. He obssesed about it the rest of the day how I found them no problem and they were right in front of him the whole time. Win. That house is done and it turned out a lot nicer than I thought it would. If you would have seen what it looked like when we first got there and what it looks like now. Ya. I should really take a camera to work. Mine is messed up though. gotta look into getting a new one. We did some service calls after that and then this past Monday (10th) we began work in Westdale on Paisley St. I certainly enjoy working in that area. A lot. Because it's not ghetto and... it's a very nice looking part of the city. Yes. That's it. Anywho, we're rewiring the entire house, but unlike the last house which had no walls, this one still has them. So it's back to using the fish tape and getting my hands shredded sticking them into the holes for the boxes trying to grab the tape. Not pleasant. We finished up the top floor yesterday and then started the main floor and then started the basement. Today I finished all the lights and the smoke for the basement and started on the main floor. James had some words of wisdom for me. "Work smart, so you don't have to work hard." Works for me. I hit myself in the teeth with a light fixture. I remembered that the other day. I was working on the wires and it swung around and hit me right in the teeth. I didn’t like that. I got paid today, and he gave me a fancy pen with the the company name and phone number etched in it. Very swanky. Oh, and he decided to give me a raise. BOOYAH! FTW! And the TV is finally back after being gone for a month. My eyes got so used to staring at the little screen we had and now it looks huge. (that’s what she said) AND it’s the long turkey turkey gobbly weekend. Not bad.