Black Friday & Bowling

A busy week and fulfilling work week for me this week as have been designing some more marketing flyer's and a new 'stand up' for the showroom, plus working on some new new company processes to hopefully make things run a little smoother in certain areas. I have to say at this juncture that I really enjoy my job. Since switching locations I have been thrown into so many challenges and risen to them that feel I have been empowered and seemed to have carved out my own little role that covers such a cross section of departments. My problem solving abilities have been recognised and my design background has really come into play. In the past I have always lacked confidence and doubted my skills but I finally think that I am slowly but surely getting past this. I have always been afraid of change as I like the safety of routine. I can safely say that moving to a new country and working for a company that is constantly changing and evolving seems to have sorted that out as well.

In other good news, my images on Getty are still selling moderately well and and I have been able to save up a little bit of money and by then end of next month I am hoping to invest those dollars back into a new camera which I am very excited about.

This weekend was the Black Friday sales event something that I don't usually take that much notice of, but my favourite clothes shop Penningtons was having a special event on Saturday morning with 40% off everything between 7 and 9 am, so I made the effort to get my arse out of bed and attend. I picked up at top and some much needed underwear for nearly $100 off the normal price. Exhausted from trying stuff on, I headed home and had every intention of getting stuff done around the house, I went upstairs, put my new swag away got all the laundry out of the bin popped it on the bed, thought I would just sit own for five minutes and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the the morning and most of the afternoon. Damn!

Saturday night Myself, Rob, Smiffy, Anne, Darrel and Rachel (a new member in the photo club and a fellow Brit) went bowling. After a faltering start at the first location where all the lanes were pre-booked, we headed off to Beazely Bowling in Dartmouth. The Brits outnumbered the Canadians on this little outing by 4 to 2 and this became very apparent when we got to the bowling alley. Smiffy and Anne were the first to get there, Smiffy didn't know the size he needed for the bowling shoes, once he had sorted that out and got his shoes, he asked the chap, do you want just one or both of mine, to which the man looked utterly confused, as did Anne. Turns out you don't hand in your shoes at the Alleys over here. So then the rest of us arrived, oblivious to what had just transpired, I take off my shoes put them on his counter and along with Rob and Rachel as we attempt to swap our shoes for bowling shoes, Once again the man behind the counter looked somewhat bemused as did Darrel as to why we were giving this poor man our manky footwear, thankfully Anne appeared at this moment and said 'you don't hand your shoes in here, apparently you only do that in the UK', we all found this highly amusing and the giggling continued for quite sometime. Once in there, we found that the shoe thing this wasn't the only difference! The balls themselves are smaller, (skittle size balls as opposed to the normal 10 pin bowling size) and there are no finger holes...there is no electronic score board, just a paper score sheet and each person bowls 3 times not twice. The pins aren't bottle shaped either, just straight looking. When you are done bowling your turn there is a button you press to reset the pins...Which, in my case was a sod to remember. We all played together in the first round and I believe it was Smiffy that came out on top, in the second round we split up and did boys versus girls, and sadly the boys hammered us. It was great fun, and something I would like to do again! You pay on the way out not on the way in, and it was such good value at $8 each for unlimited bowling after 9 pm.

In unrelated news, I am very sad this weekend at the news of Larry Hagman's death. I loved him as JR and I didn't have any idea that he was ill with throat cancer. It such a sad loss and the new series of Dallas won't be the same without him but I am glad he got to do the first series as he loved that role so much.

The Bowlers left to right - Smiffy, Anne, Rob, Rachel
and Darrel

WTF? Small Balls

RIP Larry!