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1 February - In the month of January in the year 2006 Vancouver apparently had its rainiest month on record. Good thing I was off for half of it but those two dry days were also when I was off as well so as far as i'm concerned it rained every day last month. Some pig farmer is going on trial for killing 27 people and the NDP is saying that it will work with the Conservative party as long as its own agenda isn't compromised but apart from that all is quiet on the Canadian front. Reasonably miserable day but nothing like yesterday (although I did make a lot of money yesterday, well, a lot of money compared to the usual days) and I did feel good enough at some points to sing ditties to the city crowds. I can't remember ever being so happy at a job before that i'd want to sing out aloud while I was doing it (still, is a pity that I don't know more than two lines of most of the songs I like to sing). Had the usual tantrums when the dispatcher, lee, tells me (about a twenty times a day), 'Sax, synchronise your pager', which means I have to synchronise my Blackberry (often after I kick a wall and scream, 'It's not a pager, it's a Blackberry!!!!) and all of the jobs disappear for about five minutes while it refreshes. When it comes back half of the things he's put on my screen to pick up are gone and i've got to completely rebuild the route I've designed in my head. Lee doesn't design the routes nearly as elegently as chris used to and although he's getting better I still pine for the good old days. I'm certainlygetting better at doing it myself now because I have absolutely no help from Lee whatsoever. After chris used to dump a load of stuff on me I would always recite the route I planned to do and he would either agree or give me a better alternative. The few times i've done it with lee he just pauses and says, 'Sounds good' or if I ask him which of two alternatives he wants me to do he just pauses and says, 'whatever you like'. There isn't much that's mentally challenging in this job so I suppose I should enjoy the few bits that are.