Heh. Hehheh. Hehhehheh. Ha! Ha ha ha! Hahahaha!!! Bwahahahahaha!!! ... Oh... Oh, my sides... Oh, God... Deep breaths... Deeeep breaths... Okay. Okay, I'm all right now. Okay... You really do have to be a fan of Homestar Runner to get it.

{glances up a picture} Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!! {falls out of chair} Ow... Hee...

I think our rally at City Hall last Friday went well. (I'm not really certain, as this was my first work-action rally.) Folks were pretty pumped, and loud and boisterous. Which, I guess, is what you want at one of these. Several speakers were there, including one of Victoria's MLAs. There's even footage of it on YouTube. I'm even visible! Just. For about two seconds beginning around 1:20 on the right hand side of the screen.



Oh, wait. Make that around 1:57, counting down. Forgot it did that. Anyway, no more job actions until after Thanksgiving. We're giving them time to "reconsider their position". Here's hoping...

Mutiny update. Arrr! Although we are already technically mutinying against the scurvy dogs, we are still choosing to swab decks and raisin' the mizzenmast, we have had two wee work stoppages. Three hours each, one last Thursday and the other the Friday afore that. But the land-lubbers still refuse to parley, so this comin' Friday, we will be havin' a full day's mutiny. We'll all be meetin' on the main deck at 11 bells, then marchin' to the captain's quarters and then hangin' the officers from the yardarm!

(Non-Pirate Day translation: Strike update. Although we are technically already on strike, we have chosen so far to remain open for the time being, with only a couple of three hour job actions. One last Thursday and another the Friday before. But the powers that be still refuse to return to the bargaining table so this coming Friday, we will be having a full work stoppage for the whole system. We will be meeting at the Central branch downtown, then marching to City Hall for a rally. Anybody in the area interested in helping out woefully underpayed library workers, please come join us on Friday. Arrr.)

I aten't dead. 'Nuff said; moving on.

My mini-golf birthday bash. Wow, that was a long day. In a good way. Nice picnic, a couple of rounds of mini-golf and... the bumper boats. When we'd decided we wanted to do the bumper boats, we though that that would be all there was involved. Boats. Smacking into each other's bumpers. Like bumper cars. When we got into the boats, though, we realized that they had water cannons on them. Oh, boy. The four of us (me, Lynn, Rob and Kama) and a few kids. Needless to say, the kids were merciless with their cannons. Mostly towards Rob, but we all got our share of spray. On the other hand, it was nice to have targets I felt no remorse about soaking back. So, we ended up just a tad wet at the end of it all...




Good news on the work front. I finally score a permanent position with the library, out at the Juan da Fuca branch. It's only half-time, but it's a big step forward. And a relief.

It was all rather whirlwind. Thursday afternoon, I get a phone call asking if I can come in for the interview the next morning at 9! I make it in, do the interview and am told the decision will be known later that day. I got a call right around lunch telling me I got the position! Less that 24 hours. Whew...

Bad news on the work front. A strike seems increasingly unavoidable. This might become my "strike blog" for a while. Heavy sigh.

Ahem. Yes, it's been a while since posting. And I have no good excuse. I have excuses; they're just not good ones.

One excuse is that Lynn and I have managed to get ourselves addicted to World of Warcraft. Really, though, it's a small miracle that we hadn't already gotten sucked into the world of WoW. (I guess that, unabbreviated, that would be the world of World of Warcraft. That's a messy phrase.)

So far, Lynn's got, um, four characters, I think? Maybe five. I'm just sticking to two. Which, in a bit of web weirdness, you can actually see, even if you don't play the game. There's Duglas (so called because Douglas was unavailable on our chose server), the human paladin. And there's Lumiaris (so called because I couldn't think of anything and just went with a randomly generated name), the night elf druid.

Moving on to other happenings... the strike vote I mentioned a couple of posts back? 90% in favour. No strike is imminent, but if negotiations don't improve sometime soon, it looks like we'll be hittin' the pavement.

I hope to have something actually interesting to post soonish. We're going up-island tomorrow with Rob and Kama to mini-golf. There may be photos. And it so happens to be my 39th birthday tomorrow, as well, although it wasn't planned to have the two together. Just turned out that way.

Well, didn't get any of the permanent positions at the new branch. However, this kind of thing usually starts a bit of a domino effect, so there should be a couple of other positions opening up to try out for. Plus, I've got myself two full weeks of work at the beginning of August. 35 hour weeks. Which means guaranteed two-day weekends with Lynn. So that's good.

In more work-related goings on, today is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows day. The day the branches receive copies of the most anticipated book since... well, since ever. We've had e-mails reminding us that the books were strictly off-limits until launch day. I believe the phrase "serious penalties" was used (words to that effect anyway). All the regular copies will, of course, have reserves on them and not hit the shelves proper for months and months. For the Fast Read copies, though, I half-expect fisticuffs. (Fast Reads are high in demand books that you can only take out for one week with no renewals and cannot be reserved.)

It's all quite entertaining really, witnessing a book release with security measures usually reserved for foreign dignitaries and rock stars.

Good-ish and bad-ish news on the work front.

Had my interview this morning for one of the permanent positions at the new Saanich Centennial branch opening in the fall. I feel fairly good about the interview, which is better than I usually feel coming out of these things. Hence the "good". On the other hand, I still may not get the position. Hence the "-ish".

And it looks like this weekend we take a strike vote. Yay. So, even if I do get one of these new positions, we may not be working. And slowly going broke. Hence the "bad". On the other hand, maybe it will be a successful tactic, we won't be out for long and at least some of our demands will be met. Hence the "-ish".

I wonder if it's time to start playing the lottery...