On Wednesday morning Anna-Maria finished packing up her stuff and moved to Vancouver.
Seems pretty sudden? It was. It just started to really hit me today how serious this situation is. While it was happening I think I was suffering from a major case of denial. It’s going to be okay though, we’ll see each other soon enough.
After finishing my four week stint as a New Media Movie Making Camp instructor at the University of Lethbridge, I’ve been keeping myself busy helping Anna-Maria with various odd jobs at her work and spending the weekend at Banff. We stopped at Lake Louise and Lake Moraine. The thing about those lakes, besides the fact that Lake Moraine used to be featured on the back of the Canadian $20 bill, is that they are both a very rich and almost unnatural shade of blue-green.
Notice the rich but almost unnatural blue-green tone.
The trip was a lot of fun with very little out of the ordinary happening. After a sad goodbye at the airport Anna-Maria and I headed back to Lethbridge and now she is in charge of another group from Japan and the fun activities get to start all over again.
There is a mother that is suing a Walt Disney World worker accused of groping her 13-year-old daughter while dressed as Tigger.
I asked Anna-Maria what she thought about the possibility it was an accident since she has actually tried on some of the Disney costumes.
She says that, “[While wearing the costume] your vision is greatly, greatly reduced. Furthermore, the suit is not just one layer. You have, generally, an under layer of padding followed up by a fur costume with large mittens on your hands that are often three times your regular hand size.
I tried out many costumes. One was a cat costume, the cat from Pinochio and the sleeves go almost all the way to the ground on them so your hands are covered.
Your feet are the same, you have shoes on followed up with a big fur boot, or depending on the costume a giant rubber shoe or boot.
Also it’s so hot in there you don’t function properly. You’re biggest concern is getting enough oxygen. Definitely not groping someone — although I could be wrong. But I don’t think you could even think about that in that costume. It’s like a pure mental exercise just to stand wearing the costume.
If it was one of the face characters, Santa Claus, Aladdin I could see it. But those other costumes are just unbearable.
I danced for half an hour in one and I was gasping for oxygen. Even when I just tried it on I began to sweat and breath heavily as if I had just run a marathon completely untrained.”
So when I asked her one more time if she thought the accused was truly innocent she replied, “Do you think a fat kid with asthma being chased by a pack of wild dogs could think about that? Because that’s what it’s like being in one of those costumes with parents and kids trying to run you down. You are in survival mode.”
About a second after publishing this post I discovered this AP News Story. It turns out “Tigger” was acquitted earlier today.
The acquittal came less than an hour following a three-day trial during which the defense attorney for Michael Chartrand donned a Tigger costume in an effort to show jurors how difficult it is to maneuver and see in the outfit.
[…]
Chartrand’s defense attorney has contended that the girl’s mother was merely after money and planned to sue Disney. The mother also claimed Tigger touched her breast during the visit to Disney World last February, although no criminal charges followed her allegation.
The invites from the contest have been sent. Sorry it took me so long. I’ve been busy travelling to Medicine Hat for Father’s Day and tonight I finally did the taxes. Looks like I’m even getting a refund.
Despite the money and the quality limericks (thanks guys), my head aches. I’m going to bed.
Last time on Jeff Milner’s Roommate Situation:
“…it turns out that when a NSF cheque bounces, they mail it to you — which means I have to wait until I get it in the mail before he will pay me back.”
Now the exciting conclusion!
When I received the bounced cheque in the mail I called him up and later that night he returned me my cash.
The End.
(I love happy endings.)
The picture below was not from today, but it was taken on the same river I was kayaking down today.
The water was cold, ice cold. The kind of cold that hurts your hands when you put them even near the ice cold iciness that is the Belly River. It makes sense that the water is chilly because it’s coming directly from the melting snow up in the Rocky Mountains about a half hour drive from where we put in.
The water level wasn’t as high as it could have been, but there were still plenty of good features. On about the third really big hole I got stuck for a moment while the water thrashed me about like a rag doll. The water is tricky like that, it pulled me in gently then whipped me around quickly wrapping my head on the large rocks below. This is the first time I’ve ever had my helmet save me from serious head injury but, oh my, I certainly felt happy to have it. I came away with a small headache. The helmet came away with its shiny yellow finish marred in several places with large white scratches.
The incident wasn’t actually that much of an incident and we had a great time the rest of the afternoon. We just cruised down that cold, cold river, playing in the waves, and having a blast. My cousin made some short movie clips of us on his digital camera. I’ll post them when I get them.
I’ve been short on roommates lately. I have two empty rooms to rent and I haven’t had any roommates in the last couple months — which makes paying the mortgage pretty hard. So a couple of weeks ago I put an ad in the paper. The very first day the ad ran I had two people call me. The first person, I’ll call him Joe, said he would like to take the room but just needed a couple of days to get the money together. The second person, I’ll call him Victor, told me he loved the place and wanted to take it. Victor couldn’t move in until July 1st, but told me that he would write me a cheque for June anyway to hold the place for him. Things were looking up.
A day or two later I got a call from Joe. He said he couldn’t get out of his current lease as quickly as he had thought and so he wanted to let me know he wouldn’t be taking the room. Joe seemed like a cool guy so I was disappointed but life goes on.
Later I stopped off at the bank to cash Victor’s cheque. They gave me cash and everything seemed cool; so things were still looking up. That day, just after returning from the bank, I found a message from Victor on my answering machine. It said, “About that cheque I gave you — someone gave me a bad cheque and so it might not clear, so if you haven’t cashed it yet I’ll bring you some cash and get it back from you.”
Well I had cashed it already and the bank didn’t seem to have a problem with it, I explained to Victor. He figured he must have had enough cash in the bank even with the bad cheque he’d gotten and advised me not to worry about it. Things were a little odd, but still looking good. I was still getting calls for my other room — they seemed like sketchy characters and I didn’t take them but at least people were looking.
Suddenly the phone rang, Anna-Maria picked it up. Victor couldn’t take the room anymore, he said he was on his way over to get back his $350 and he would explain more fully when he arrived.
I told Anna-Maria that I don’t really have to give him his money back, after all he paid me to hold the room and that’s exactly what I was doing. But I also said that I wouldn’t be a jerk and give him it back since it had only been a couple of days.
His explanation boiled down to the fact that the contract he had signed for his previous place said he had to live there for 6 months before he could break the contract and move out. Also he had to give 30 days notice before leaving. He thought he could give his 30-day notice before the end of the six months but his landlord said no. Even though I thought it sounded like his landlord was just screwing him over he just said he didn’t want the hassle and was sorry for the inconvenience he caused me. He would take back his money but leave me $50 for my trouble. So at least I would have some cash for another ad if needed.
Days past. I was pursuing my bank account status over the Internet and was shocked to discover that I had been debited $350 for a cheque that never cleared! Oh hell — I think I have been scammed.
I called up Victor and explained the situation. Luckily he seems pretty apologetic and sounds like he wants to make everything right. He says we’ll go down to the bank together, get the cheque back, and then he’ll pay me back and any charges the bank may have given me. He specifically mentioned that he needs his cheque back before he will pay me for it. I called the bank this morning to find out if they do, in fact, still have the cheque and if I can get it back. It turns out that when a NSF cheque bounces, they mail it to you — which means I have to wait until I get it in the mail before he will pay me back.
Needless to say this is all a very big headache.
On the other hand I have two new roommates — one of whom moved in on Saturday and another one is moving in on the 25th. We’ll see how this bounced cheque situation works out, but for now things are looking good again.
Anna-Maria went to Fort Macleod on Saturday for an open call audition for a Heath Ledger movie. They are looking for locals to be extras in this Western Film they are making (Broke Back Mountain). She went with some French friends of her’s from the French Association.
In her own words, “We got there at 10:15 and there were hundreds of people lined up. Everybody wanted to be in the movie and I can understand why too. What we did, is we waited in line for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and then we finally got into the gym where they gave us a form to fill out and then they told us to stand in another line so that we could get measured and have our photos taken. So all in all it was mostly waiting and I don’t know when they will let us know or even if they will, but it was a good experience. Everybody was so excited to have a movie shot in their own town that every weirdo, beauty queen, grandma, and two-year old kid showed up. It was very fun / cool / sweet. It was kind of crazy actually so many people showed up with their babies / kids. Kids were just running all over the place. Some of them were crying and many looked extremely bored. They justed waited in line for three hours to get their photo taken. I would never do that to my kids.”
It was another incredible day at Production Management. Weird things happen in that class, its like entering the Twilight Zone. Anyway despite the tension and insanity, I think I at least learned a couple of important lessons.
I did my best and realize my mistake. Well after everything is said and done I can at least say I learned something in Production Management today.
Update: It looks like my prof, Mathew Kabatoff, took the concerns I shared to heart. He updated his web page outline, and in doing so rectified my concerns. That seems so weird given his hostile reaction in class.
Bored with the everyday — and seeing that it was really nice out in Lethbridge today, I decided it would be a good idea to trim the apple tree in my back yard. Let me just summarize: Trimming is not fun, my tree looks much better, the ground is covered in branches and I still have more work to do. Also I love apples, so hopefully my tree will grow some big ones next fall. My next-door neighbor, Steve, came out and helped me. Mostly he let me use his saw and clippers but he also held the ladder which was just leaned precariously up to the tree. He actually was a lot of help. His wife Eira offered me dinner — cabbage rolls, mashed potatoes, and corn. It was the highlight of the day, it makes me happy just thinking about it. I’ll finish pruning my tree tomorrow, or else never.