A Few Quick Notes 54

-Another cold day in Montreal today. When I woke up it was almost -20, nearing -30 with the wind chill. This is actually the first day that I have noticed frost on my window. For the next few days it is supposed to be below zero but not quite this cold.

-Yesterday was they day of my first intramural soccer game. We pulled out the win, though only because the other team defaulted. We then played a pick-up game with the two refs filling in on the other team. Though we lost the pick-up it was generally a pretty good experience. Possibly the best thing is that we learned that one of our players is pretty good in net, something I am not. I guess we will have to wait and see how our first real game goes.

-Yesterday while at the grocery store I decided to by a trans-fat laced raspberry pie. In addition to the pie I had normal purchases (frozen green beans, frozen concentrated orange juice, etc.) and a dozen bottles of beer.

When it came time to carry all of these items home I realized that I had a bit of a problem. I had to find a way to keep the pie relatively level and manage to carry a few bags as well as a dozen beer.

The solution I came to would be to cradle the beer in my arms and rest the pie on top. The remaining bags were then in my right hand. At times I drew my right hand up to assist with the cradling. This process quickly wore me out. Just as I was reaching home I was at the end of my limit.

Fortunately, another group was entering my building at the same time as I so they were able to hold several doors for me. I then had the pleasure of dealing with making my way up to the fourth floor. This was somewhat awkward as the groceries and beer were in front of me, just where my legs where each time they took a new stair. Without too many problems I made it to the top.

Possibly with my first step onto flat ground the pie slid from the box of beer and landed upside down on the floor, I was somewhat disheartened. All this effort to keep the pie in good shape, just to drop it 15 feet from my door. I proceeded to my apartment and put all of my groceries down and then went back to check on the pie, expecting the worst.

As I flipped the pie over I learned that it hadn’t really been damaged all that much. None of the filling was any more exposed than it had been before. In some ways this kind of worried me about the quality and nature of my pie. I think that in I would normally expect a pie drop from four feet to take a bit of a beating, not look the same as before it was dropped. Maybe that is what trans-fats can do for a pie, because this one certainly has a lot of those.

-Another comment about the pie was that as I was examining it I looked at the best before date. It indicated that the pie would be best before January 21. I thought to myself this would be plenty of time, literally days away. It was not until I returned home and started to unpack my groceries did I realize I had purchased this pie about 6 hours before its expiry date. Good job.

-There was a pretty long article on Stephane Dion in the Focus section of the Globe and Mail yesterday. Hopefully I will get a chance to read about it in the next few days.

-We had a staff meeting yesterday at Thomson House. Hopefully some of the suggestions I made, as well as those of other staff members, will be acted upon to help increase business. It seems that one major problem is the administrative structure of the PGSS council, it appears to be unwilling to properly delegate authority to regular staff and management.