Finally...

So, yeah, I've been delinquent here at my journal. Hope you guys are starving for some Jago writing...

Now it's been a fairly long time since my last post telling you about some stuff. When it comes to wrestling, it looks like Canton's got it covered. Needless to say, my boss has really shown my friends and I some great matches that have us fearing for Mark's life.

Inventory: Never really PROPERLY done, since Mark and I both had a crapload of commitments that were keeping us from taking a good amount of time to do the inventory. There was about a 19% error in what we had vs. what we should have had, but we were expecting that, with what the previous managers weren't doing. Looks like there might be another one when I'm on vacation. And when Mark's wrestling. Yipes.

Justice's Bachelor Party: A fun time, although I had to leave early due to inventory the next day.

At one point, I was asking Justice about what his dad must have thought of me back in the days where I'd go over to the Engel house for wrestling.

Me: I can just imagine your dad asking, "Adam, who's that driving around the block four times?"

(A very inebriated) Justice: [silently shocked, whispered] You just said the dead man's name.

Me: Oh fer... I was referring to a time BEFORE you changed your name.

Justice: I don't care. I can't believe you'd call me by the dead man's name!

What followed was a five minute debate over the logistics of telling stories from a time BEFORE Justice Gray and what I should call him if speaking as someone in that timeframe.

Since I'm on the subject of Justice, let's skip to the wedding that occurred this Saturday.

Dev and I went, and were afraid there might not be many people from our circle of friends there. We were right. There was our friend Mike ushering, and Justice came by to give us hugs before the ceremony, but otherwise, we were on our own.

I realized during the wedding that Helen's the sister of one of my old Grant Mac Journalism classmates. This was realized when I saw Jo-Jo as a bridesmaid, and wondered if that was indeed her, since we haven't seen each other/talked for five years. It was only when I heard her talk that I could confirm it.

(Funny thing was, I'm pretty sure when I got the invite last month, I saw "Helen Mah" and asked myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if she was related to Jo-Jo?")

Dev had brought his travel mug full of coffee (it was an early noon service), and I snickered when, during the processional, everyone stood up and turned around to watch the bride come down the aisle. When Helen was a pew away from us, Dev instinctively went for a drag from his mug before realizing that he was in full view of the bride at this point.

At the reception, we were pleased to be seated with some people we knew: Mike and my old friend Otis, who's disappeared off my social list some three years ago. There was a lot of catching up and socializing at our table (which, according either to the gods or to people who know us, traditionally is as far away from the head table as we can be.)

Justice's friend Suresh was master of ceremonies, along with Jo-Jo. Problem is, Suresh's style of humour, while fine for Justice, is not the best choice for the dozens of elder family members who prefer their socials to be more, um, socially acceptable.

Suresh decided to improv at times, which led to such precious moments as offending all of the Mah side of the reception when he said "Chinese, Japanese, whatever you are..."

There was a gasp and then a silence. One of the younger Chinese kids broke the silence with an extremely well-placed "Let's get 'im!"

My favourite part of the evening was the toast to the groom, done by his best man, Philip. I was crying. Mostly from the laughing-so-hard-I-couldn't-see-or-breathe aspect.

Philip: "My job is to talk about my friend Justice Gray. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how good at that I'll be, considering I've only known Justice for four years, and that was primarily through e-mail and the very occasional telephone call."

In my mind: "Eh? I thought Philip and Justice met in elementary school."

Philip: "Now, Adam Engel, on the other hand..."

From my table, a loud chorus of "Whoooo!"s and whooping was heard. (Damn. I knew they put us there for a reason.)

Philip then goes into this story of a lot of Adam's prior alter egos over the course of their friendship. I couldn't see I was laughing so hard.

Good wedding, a fun time afterwards.

* * *

A few weeks ago, I was working by myself. I was preoccupied with some paperwork and only noticed the girl who was waiting patiently on the other side of the counter.

I start. "Oh! Hi! How can I help you?"

"Are you hiring?"

I look her over. She's blonde, very cute, and relatively tall. I look her over again.

"Always."

I take her resume. She was professional, wasn't looking like she just stepped out of bed. I consider who Mark would have to fire to hire this girl. I then contemplate if I'd be able to get any work done with her around.

After five minutes of carefully considering if she'd be too much of a distraction, I decided I could be professional about it. Unfortunately, we couldn't justify hiring a fifth person on staff. I faxed her resume into district office.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I'd talk Tannis up in front of Mark, hissing, when I could, "Hire this girl!"

* * *

This past week, I had to hit Rogers training. Even though I've taken the course before. Even though I'm one of the select few that's certified by Rogers. (Sorry, had to take a rain break. It started to storm here, and it's blazing hot inside the house. I went out onto the porch for a few minutes and let the rain cool me down. I am a little damp, but much cooler now. On with the story.) But two days off of work is two days off of work. So I go.

On the first day of training, at the TD Tower elevators, I notice a cute girl standing, looking confused. She starts following me into the elevator, and asks me if I'm going to training. Oh, okay. A very cute girl in the class with me. Nice.

At training, I notice three very good looking girls. Seriously, three in the running for hottest ladies in the district. And they're all training with me. Score!

When we introduce ourselves to the rest of the room, I say, "Hi, I'm Kyle from Westmount. I've been with the company for five years, took this course last year, passed it, and have now been certified by Rogers. So I'm not sure what I'm doing here."

When they get to the cute girl from the elevator, it wasn't until she said, "Hi, my name is Tannis," that I realized it was the girl who dropped her resume off. So she WAS hired. Score!

Over the course of the two days, I was hanging out with all three girls (Tannis - West Edmonton Mall, Eve - Bonnie Doon, Skyler - St. Albert) during lunch time and during the session. I didn't know how bad I had it until the review for the test came.

Guss, our trainer, unbeknownst to everyone in the room (except for me, who suspected he'd do this), was reviewing questions word for word off the test. And even though I knew it was happening, I couldn't concentrate for one reason.

I was...imagining... what...actions of a carnal nature... would be like with these three girls. And I only realized I was daydreaming for a good ten minutes when I brought myself out of the reverie and finding out I missed about 25 questions on the review.

As it was, I'm pretty sure I passed the test. And, hey, I got a very good daydream out of it. A very good daydream.

As I was joking around with Dev over MSN later that night:

Me: So I was with three beautiful girls during training today. Sooo hot.

Dev: So you do anything with them?

Me: Seven times. Twice each individually, once with all three.

Dev: Score.

Me: Now, mind you, I'm not the guy who kisses and tells here...But since there was no actual kissing, I think I'm able to tell in this case.

Dev: Sweet. Do tell.

Me: You're not buying any of this, are you?

Dev: Are you selling anything?

Me: Not half as well as Eve sold that one trick she does that...

Me: Nah, I got nothing.

* * *

Listening to: Sonic 102.9 radio. There's not many songs I don't like on this station. I can only think of one offhand, and I really with The Transplants would just die. But otherwise? I heard the freakin' SHINS today, with a song off the Garden State Soundtrack. Awesome.

Reading: Just finished Jennifer Government, by Max Barry, recently. A very good satire of a world where corporations rule, with enough tongue-in-cheekiness to keep it from getting preachy or too dark. Also, I'm really loving this blog, written by a very well-written bouncer on the New York club scene.