This is mainly for my own personal archives for whenever another competition rolls around:
I went to my post-board interview yesterday to determine where I went wrong on the competition. In the end, they said I aced the interview. ACED it to the point where I literally got full marks on the questions except for one which I got a zero on which had to do with the knowledge of the department component (which was advertised in the public listing).
Note to Future Palmer: Remember to look at the Annual Report of any given department when you need to have knowledge about that particular department. Another Note to Future Palmer: Do whatever Catherine taught you all those years ago during an interview. Whatever you’re doing is clearly working. Thanks Catherine! Note to others: Hey, if anyone needs help on interview skills for Government competitions, come see me.
In the end, they said they tried to do everything they could to give me some marks, but I was way off target because I was outlining knowledge of the Government and not the department. They did say I would have aced that question also if it had been about the knowledge of the Government. Dang. I wish I would have just babbled on about what the department does. Off the top of my head, I think babbling would have been better than having a well structured answer to another question!
We also went over some things dealing with my written exam and what I can touch up on my briefing notes and work plans. No worries on that one and it’s good advice to have in the future.
If no one has ever gone to a post-board interview, I highly recommend it. Even if you get the position, it’s always good to express interest in improving yourself. Unless you scored perfect on the entire competition, chances are, there are areas that you can improve in.
As for me, I suppose it is a relief inside my head that they told me that I am of the caliber of the level I was applying for and that I was on the right track. I just fell victim to the hiring rules which are in place. I must admit it is strange to hear your interviewers say that I am of the caliber but I still can’t come into the level because of one question I flubbed. Considering the…hiring problems a lot of places are having, one would think they would be less strict on certain elements, but on the other hand, I know very well WHY they have these rules in place.
Alright, I thought I had already outlined my thoughts on St. Patrick’s Day in the years past but I can’t find mention of it, so here it is.
Now, I generally don’t go out for St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t really feel the need to wait in line for a bar on a weekday just to have a beer. Heck, if it’s on the weekend, no problem.
But let’s talk about the lineups to the bar for a moment. I think bars should have some sort of ‘frequent visitor’ club card of sorts.
The way it would work is the following…let’s say you visit the Heart and Crown quite a few times in a year. Let’s even say it’s twice a week, every week, for the year. One would assume that with a client such as this, you would want to honour them on St. Patrick’s Day by being able to let him through the massive lineup into the establishment. I’m not saying that he needs a place to sit and eat, but at least let him in without the hassle of a lineup.
So I think that bars should implement the frequent visitor card where (and I love the age of computers for this…) every day that you purchase an item at the pub, your name gets a little check mark in the database. Then, at the end of the year, they tally all the check marks and they release a list with a Top 100 Visitors, or a Top 100 Guest List on St. Patrick’s Day. You would be guaranteed to not have to wait in line if you show up to the door. Heck, for the Top 10, you could even have a table reserved for them.
As a pub owner, I think there is something to be said for reserving a spot for your regulars. Sure, you get a massive influx of people who just want to party like it’s…St. Patrick’s Day, but you should think about how much your regulars give to your business compared to the random people coming through your door for potentially one day of the year.
Now, some might say that reserving a table for people is a little silly on St. Patrick’s Day so perhaps there would be a variation on the theme like “Your table is reserved until 6PM and your guest list reservations are valid until 10PM.” That way, if you miss out on the table, you can still skip the line until 10PM. Chances are, if you aren’t there by 10PM knowing full well that you can avoid the lineup, then it’s your own problem if you waltz in there around 10:05PM and have to wait in a two hour lineup.
So what do people think of the idea? I think I should market this. Let’s be honest…this is probably implemented in some ways for the regulars. If you were Norm going to Cheers on St. Patrick’s Day, there’s no way he would wait in line.
Anyhow, I hope everyone has at least one beer on this fine day where we celebrate all those good looking Irish lasses out there. They are the cream of the crop.
Saturday afternoon, Mike and I headed to pick up Eric for his surprised birthday event; an afternoon with Don Ross at a guitar clinic.
I was introduced to Don Ross by Troy. Don Ross (of Ontario) is a finger style guitar player and is quite amazing…so amazing that he has won the North American finger style championship twice in his life; a feat that has not been duplicated as of yet. I find his stuff amazing and he puts all those other guitarists you see on YouTube to shame (alright, not to shame but he is pretty darn good.) He uses the guitar like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
So a few weeks ago I was walking through University of Ottawa and saw a poster indicating he was giving a guitar clinic over at Carleton University. I asked Troy if it’s worth going to see and he responded with an enthusiastic YES! So then I realized that it was the same weekend as Eric’s birthday and knowing that Eric shares the same likes as Mike and I, I realized that he probably would find Don Ross to be impressive.
The plan was hatched. First, I had to get in touch with his wife to see if she would be at home on Saturday or not. Unfortunately, she was working but in the end, managed to find a baby-sitter. Excellent! Tickets were ordered, the date approached.
Saturday morning I realized that there was a kink in the plan…what if Eric was out with his kid when we went to pick him up? I quickly called him and arranged to ‘jam’ with him after lunch, ensuring he would remain at the house.
At 12:30, we headed over, gave him some instructions on the event we were going to, headed out after the babysitter came along and voila, we were going to see Don Ross!
He was playing at the Southham Hall at Carleton University (where we also saw the Trews last year). It’s a nice auditorium with about 444 seats inside. We managed to snag a seat about 7 rows from the stage, but there is no bad spot in the house. It’s the size of a classroom…not some concert hall.
Don Ross came on stage and started out with one of his tunes, Dracula II Mikrokosmos. Troy once told me that he names his songs about things he’s thinking about at the time…Lord only knows what he was thinking about at this time! He then also played another tune (to which I don’t remember the title). He then began the guitar clinic portion of his show and started explaining the difference between his regular guitar and his baritone guitar (both constructed by Marc Beneteau…I believe the same guy that Troy got his custom made guitar from). Essentially (and this will get technical for some readers, and at the same time, was too technical for me to comprehend at some parts), a regular guitar has equally spaced frets along the fret board and everything is all about harmonics and the stretching of the string, yada yada yada. But this baritone guitar was constructed in a way that the fret board does not have equally spaced frets…in fact they looked like they were fanning across the fret board where some the frets closest to the bridge fan from left and then to right as it hits the top of the fret board. It had something to do with the fact that…ah man, I don’t even know if I can explain it. It had something to do with putting the guitar in a more natural state…more in tune with nature, so to speak. Something to do with the fact that nothing in nature is equally spaced (like the frets) and that the intervals between the frets should be spaced differently. If I find some information on what he was talking about, I’ll send it out. Either way, he said that this style of guitar is getting more and more popular as the regular stringed instrument was kind of a ‘best they could come up with’ solution but ‘not perfect’.
He then played another tune (unknown?) and took some questions from the audience. One guy talked about the tune he just played and how his high string ALWAYS snapped when tuning it and Don gave him some tips as to how he can avoid it. He then went into the fact that he has all sorts of different tunings for his songs. Later on in the guitar clinic, he talked more about the different tunings and how he went about finding a different tuning. He would start out with a melody in his head and start playing it…for example he was playing a tune that resembled a Bruce Cockburn tune. But then at one point he realized that in order to hit one of the finger positions on the guitar he would have to stretch the heck out of his hand to match the tune in his head. So he would just tune the bottom string a different way to make it more convenient. Then he would go along and realize that he would need to tune another string to make it easier. I found this fascinating (but sometimes bewildering to understand…talks of fourths, fifths, relative minors…I know them fairly well but there was some stuff which went right over my head. I noticed Eric had the same feeling at some points and he was lost completely in what Don was talking about.) It was still great to hear a guitar God talk about things we don’t understand.
He also talked about the importance of theory and how he wanted to join the music department at a University but failed the music theory exam, and subsequently had to move with his parents to Toronto (from Montreal). He then realized that he needed to brush up on some music theory, went to a music shop and they gave him a booklet which was 20 pages long. He never realized that music theory could be so easy! He said he understood a lot of what was written inside it, but never knew it properly.
There were also questions about his seven string guitar. He said he loves the seven-string guitar but it’s very hard to get pickups made for them and does not like bringing it out on the road for that reason. He hopes to find a pickup manufacturer in the near future to accommodate his needs.
Let’s see…someone asked about his nails. It turns out that he plays with a thumb pick, and then glues Shopper’s Drug Mart nails onto his hand to help with his playing! He ends up gluing two nails per finger before every gig and he also talked about how it is a little embarrassing to go into a nail salon and request to get nails on three fingers of his right hand but he always says “But it’s because I’m a guitarist!” I thought this was hilarious.
There were a few requests in the audience which I thought was amazing in the fact that he had no problem with playing them and just had to remember what tuning they were in. One kid in the front row asked if he could play Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. Everyone had a great laugh at that and Don said “Well I’m sure I could play it, but I don’t know how it goes.”
Someone also asked him about the gear he has on stage and literally talked for 30 minutes on the subject. At one point I must admit I was getting a little overwhelmed at the details, but at the same time, I enjoyed his enthusiasm! He talked about the pickups in his guitar which split into stereo channels and how the pickups really picked up the wood sound of the guitar. He also talked about his new effects rig which he was still playing with.
He also talked about YouTube and how it’s changing lives in the finger style guitarist community. For example, his friend Andy McKee (whom he has recorded a new album recorded with) ended up on the front page of YouTube one day and it just happened to be the same week that Time Magazine published a front page about YouTube. In the end, his video received 12 MILLION VIEWS and he now is writing music for TV shows and traveling as a touring musician for other bands. Quite incredible! He also talked about how his record company (or marketing? I’m not sure) just slapped some footage up on YouTube of him playing and it wasn’t professionally done or anything but still gets an enormous amounts of hits. We also noticed that he had a video camera set up for the show so no doubt he probably takes a look at anything that could go up on the Internet later on.
He also talked about how he created a studio in his home from computers, mics, etcs…essentially the new-age studio and how he didn’t know if it would work out well but in the end, he brought his wife’s new album down to New York to some professional mixer (can’t remember his name but he was big in the business) and Don was really worried about any comments he may have about the recording quality. In the end, the guy finally did ask him where he recorded it and Don sheepishly said “Uh…our house?” and the mixer thought it was amazing and he was surprised that it wasn’t from a regular studio. Just goes to show that I am on my way to making some high quality recordings here guys!
All these anecdotes are definitely out of order…he played this amazing tune called “The First Ride” and I fell in love. I must hunt down the album it is on and learn it.
We got out of there around 4:30 and were amazed at the sheer amazing things we saw and heard. It was great to take part in a guitar clinic like that and I definitely would like to see him in full performance mode someday. Eric ended up picking up a DVD so we’ll have to look at that. Mike and I also picked up an album.
Don Ross…go see him. Be amazed! Some pictures were are included here are the best we have but they aren’t the best in quality considering I had to shut my flash off.
I trust Eric had a great birthday. Too bad there was no beer. 😉
Carrie’s birthday party was a classic one. Mike and I took our time heading over to Carrie’s as we sipped on a few beer after a hard week of work. I was also setting up Leopard to its optimum capabilities which was no easy feat with two external hard drives and some stuff on my old computer. The only victim of the move was all the videos I took at Katie’s back in January. This was quite disappointing actually as they were on my SD card in my camera and I said to myself “Well, it’s not like I need them anymore. They are on the computer!” and I formatted the card.
Once Mike and I arrived, we spied a cooler of beer on the back porch so I braved the snowbank to raid it. Carrie caught us red-handed but it was all in good fun and we have more than enough of our to share.
After ordering a few pizzas, the night descended into madness involving some euchre, some jumping into snowbanks (it’s so tempting!) and some good tunes (including Uncle Greg’s mixed CD which was hilarious because he ended up making the same copy twice!). The video games also came out near the end of the night and Rob and I tried our hand at Contra but failed miserably. Clearly, it was the wonky Xbox control pads and not our superior video game skills which messed things up.
I would also like to point out the fact that I met an…interesting girl at the party who was friends with Carrie and Amanda, who proceeded to point out that I have…feminine arms! Ha ha…we al had a good laugh at this throughout the night. Anne-Marie sure has some balls.
All in all, everyone had a great night, Carrie had a great birthday (and she especially enjoyed the new Snoop Dogg album Vero and I picked up for her) and all was well in the world. The ride home was a little hairy as it was storming out…I thought we would have definitely got the extra 25cm we needed to break the winter snowfall record in Ottawa!
Thanks for the grand times Carrie. Happy birthday! Also, thanks for the dance.
Well I’m sure you all know my friend Carrie. She is the wild child who is never really satisfied unless there is a Labatt 50 in her hand.
All kidding aside, we all know that Carrie and I met through my friend Rob and a bond over beer, obsessions with obscure movies (FUBAR, Soul Plane) and our love for Kraft Dinner cemented our friendship.
When she got a job in Ottawa, I quickly offered up the option of crashing inside the dungeon which was our basement at Bayshore. She said she would be there a maximum of 6 weeks.
Six months later, she was talking about moving out with her friend Michelle and I decided to tag along. Moving into a place with two women was…interesting, but Carrie kept me sane along the trip and it was fun to hang out with her 24/7. Of course, most of those hours were spent at the Heart and Crown and not at our own house!
Anyhow, this shouldn’t be a recap of our life together, but what Carrie means to me. Carrie has been a kind friend to me and in some ways, she is the female version of me (except her taste in music is horrible) and she understands what I value in life – to have a good time. That’s what makes us click together. Plus, as a bonus, as she gets older, she still hasn’t gotten uglier. That’s an amazing feat.
But really, I love her. She’s the best friend any one of you can have and you’re lucky because she doesn’t just reserve that friendship to just me. She spreads it out to anyone who’s worthy.
Here’s to you old-timer. I’ll see you tonight with a beer in hand. And a gift. That’s right. A gift.
The other day at school, Jen and Craig pointed out a poster up on the bulletin board. The gist of it was this:
Looking for Roommate
To Live with 2 Males
Yada yada Yada
(and then inserted in pen of all things)
Must be Christian and Male
We had a good laugh at this one. We couldn’t even comprehend where to begin ridiculing this. Did they really mean to write this? Was this added on afterwards? We didn’t think so as it matched the penmanship of the phone numbers at the bottom of the page.
Let’s talk about the gender part first. First of all, maybe this one is excusable because they may have had harsh dealings with a female in the past (can we all hear it for no access to the bathroom for hours in the morning!).
Now, the religion thing. Where can I begin? Is this for real? These guys must be some hardcore Christians if they won’t allow any other religions to live with them!
Anyhow, I thought I would share that laugh with you guys this morning. Let it be known that we laughed at the sheer ludicrous statements found on a bulletin board in the 21st century.
Well, clearly the experiment worked. Trent has raked in over a million bucks for the release of Ghosts, and it hasn’t even hit the stores yet where I’ll be buying a copy.
As everyone already has this marked in their calendar, we all know it’s Eric’s birthday today!
Let’s be honest…he’s pretty well in the running for being one of the most entertaining (well, if you call sitting and drinking scotch all night entertaining…) gentlemen (well that’s not a real fair use on the term gentleman. Let’s be honest here. This is the man that who wants to train his child to burp on command (which is an excellent skill by the way lads!) on the planet (in the running against me that is) and I’m glad to call him a friend (not a good friend mind you, he used to give me toilet seats as Christmas gifts and let’s not forget the fact that any concert we go to together usually ends up in chaos…like when we missed the bus from Kapuskasing at 3AM in the morning and had to wake up his Dad to bring us to Cochrane, or the time where he forgot his Everclear tickets back in Kingston) and you would be lucky (not so much) to have him as your own friend.
He also has a smoking hot wife and his kid is cool too.
Yesterday I filed my taxes through Telefile. I personally love Telefile. Mom got me hooked on it. Much more convenient than throwing stuff into an envelope and mailing it in. Faster also! In the end, the process took me 20 minutes to complete over the phone. If you have never used the telephone to file your taxes AND you don’t bother with filing them through the Internet, then you should try it out! It does involve doing your taxes beforehand though. 😉 It’s not like Quicktax or anything.
Either way, if calculations are correct, I’m getting a cool $1,000 and that’s without any contributions to RRSPs. Nice. I really don’t understand how some people end up paying money. I mean, I understand if an HR section who issues out your paycheques just doesn’t take off enough taxes and then that messes you up, but if everything is on the up-and-up, wouldn’t you generally either hit the zero mark, or get a little refund depending on factors you control (like RRSP contributions, etc.)?
This is mainly for my own personal archives for whenever another competition rolls around:
