wake up call

7832.5 more hours. Thursday (8) I woke up cause my phone was bouncing around (it's on vibrate). It was my boss calling. I thought, why would he be calling me. Maybe I don't need to come in today? First thing he says to me is, 'Where are you?'. I'm at home. 'Are you coming in today?'. Ya. Then I noticed what the time was on my other phone. It was after 9. I'm supposed to be at work at 8:30. Then I started to freak out. He told me to meet him at the house we were going to be working at so I wrote down the address and started feverishly getting ready. I found the street but not the place so I called him and he said that he wasn't even at the house. He got caught up at the supplier downtown and to go wait for him at the Tim Horton's nearby. So I got a hot chocolate and waited. and waited. I sat there for over an hour and a half and then he finally showed up. Apparently there were issues with his brother, and then the supplier didn't have stuff, and other people were calling him and he was exhausted before we even started working. So out of all the days I could have slept in (because in my sleepiness the night before I left my alarm clock on the set alarm time thing so it never went off) the morning where he had a slue of problems that delayed him getting to work is the one that it happened on. That's not chance. Anyway we ended up at this old Italian guy's house. Oh look the whole house has aluminum wiring. Great. Oh what's that? None of the plugs and switches are rated for aluminum? And the light fixtures were connected with marrettes that aren't rated for aluminum? Awesome. So here's what we get to do. Take off all of the plugs and switches. Disconnect all them. Take a piece of copper wire and pigtail the aluminum wires (with special marrettes and special goopy stuff) to the plugs and switches. Oh and also take down all the ceiling fans and lights and replace the marrettes with the special ones and if there is copper to aluminum connections, use the goopy stuff. I was terrible in chemistry class but there' something about copper and aluminum that when they're put together they oxidize and corrode or something and crumble and fall apart and then your house burns down. So these special marrettes you can use with aluminum and the goopy stuff is Noalox (made by Ideal) which impedes that corrosion. Yay. Anyway it sucks. And the old dude has been smoking for who knows how many years and I can hear him coughing in other rooms and it sounds like a lung is coming out and he has this laboured, slow breathing. It's creepy when you're working and he kinda shuffles up behind you and you don't hear him coming cause of the little slipper things he wears but you hear the breathing getting closer and louder and he just stands there watching you work. just. creepy. he and his wife are really nice and kept offering me ginger ale and then some sort of cake at one point. But ya. Then James left me there to fend for myself all day Friday (9). Then I told him that the next week is not such a good one for me. Monday (12) night was the Switchfoot/Relient K concert in Ypsilanti which I would have to leave early afternoon to get to in time, and then wouldnt get back till the next day. Then Thursday (15) I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled out in the morning and I would need the next day off as well to recover. So Wednesday (14) was the only day I could work. That just happened to be a day he was going to give me off because he had meetings with hydro or something. So I said that I would come in Monday (12) morning to help out for a little before I had to leave. He appreciated that. So the concert was awesome. Wrote about it in my Facebook notes. Switchfoot = so good. Got to meet them again and talked with some of them for a while. Jon played Corey's guitar again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngqmcdgpY7o So then that brings us to Thrusday. All four wisdom teeth ripped from my skull while I'm wide awake. The chloral hydrate definitely failed me. It knocked me out before they started, but once he started injecting me with the freezing stuff, I woke right up. It was horrible. I'm on some painkillers so i don't feel too great right now. If stuff doesn't make sense that's why. I'm tired.

rain, puke, sleep

7847.5 more hours. Ok so once again everytime I would go to write this I got distracted and now I can't remember everything. Ok so we started work on a house that I think was bought by his nephew, or he got suckered into buying it or something. Either way we're fixing up this house on Bristol. Complete rewire again. Nothing too exciting there. Oh wait yes there is. It was the end of the day (22) and James wanted to get going so he told me to just get the wire in the box and not worry about mounting it so i tried to do it quick and my knife slipped and left quite the gash in my left hand. He was standing in the room so I just kept going pretending nothing happened. Once I was done I grabbed some kleenex and got my electrical tape and taped up my hand. Over the next few days the cut would keep ripping back open which didn't make the next few days any easier. The next day (23) was the day that we were to help his old apprentice with some meter changes on some government housing. Sure enough, it rained all day. That would be fine except that meters are on the outsides of buildings. So Hydro showed up cause the shutdown was scheduled for 9 and they asked if we wanted to go through with it and obviously it's not up to me so we worked all day in the rain. I was given a nice cheap pvc rain suit which by time I got home had been heavily damaged. It kept getting caught on the fences. It was not a lot of fun. I gave myself a new job title that day. Electrical bitch. Not only James', but his former apprentices, and his apprentice. I did none of the electrical. All I did all day was get them tools, get them material, clean up everything, and slowly die into a bright yellow lump on the ground. (The rain suit was yellow) Cleaning up involved carrying 8, 2" rusty steel pipes, and 4, 3" rusty steel pipes, 4 old meter bases, and some bricks. Then theres all the drills, saws, and new meters, and pvc pipe(which isn't that heavy), and the generator, and ladders. Sometimes I would have to carry those things long distances to walk from the one place they were working to the other. All while its raining. Happy. Then it was back to Bristol (24), then back to the government townhouses (25) for two more meters. This time it wasn't raining. But still left me very sore. After that I seem to have stopped writing stuff in my notepad for a couple days so I don't know what goes on in there which brings us to the 30th. Time for another concert. This time it was Red, Seether, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace. I wrote out the story on Facebook in my notes read it there. If you can't, comment on this blog to let me know. I have to accept any comments so it'll be like sending me a message without anyone seeing it and you don't need to sign up or anything. Anyway. That brings us to Sunday (4). I wake up. I don't feel so good. Had this really bad pain above my stomach area. Went to church, started feeling sick and spent most of Lane's sermon in the bathroom over the toilet ready to spew. I could still hear him in there. Then we went out to lunch with Mike at BP, had a few fries, felt sick again, went to the bathroom and spent most of lunch in the bathroom over the toilet ready to spew. To no avail either time. I tried too. So we travel home and on the way I really don't start feeling well, so I told my mom to pull over. We turned down a road and I got out and over to the ditch I go and puke. So that felt awesome. Did feel better but I had just puked so there's only so good you can feel. Called James later to tell him that I probably won't be coming in cause of the sickness which mom had diagnosed as stomach flu. So Monday (5) morning I called him again to let him know that I wasn't any better and he told me to take Tuesday (6) off as well. Sounds good. Was feeling better Wednesday (7) so things seemed to be getting better. This morning however, was a different story. To Be Continued... Oh and we saw Mr. Noel at Mandarin.