So all day today and for a half day tomorrow we are being trained on performance evaluation. If you have a hard time imagining how tedious this is, here is an example of one exchange:

Colleague: If we were carpenters it would be much easier to evaluate performance

Instructor: Oh, yeah, I don’t see how

Colleague: Well a carpenter could be evaluated on how many nails he hammers in straight

Instructor: That’s not what carpenters do

Colleague: Well, whatever

Instructor: Carpenters build cabinets, or stairways, or furniture

Colleague: Ok, the carpenter could be evaluated on the number of chairs that he builds and sells

Instructor: So could you

Colleague: Huh?

Instructor: You’re no different from a carpenter

Colleague: Well, yes I am, I don’t know what I’m going to do until I’m asked

Instructor: Same with the carpenter

Colleague: Yes but the carpenter will be asked to do something that makes use of his carpentry skills, I might be asked to organize a meeting, or write a statement, or draft a policy document, or liaise with donors…any number of things which require completely different skills

Instructor: Yeah well a carpenter might be asked to mow a lawn

Followed by general confusion throughout the entire room

Anyway, so there you go, a good two minute conversation to teach us that some people hire carpenters to mow their lawn…and we could be next because we’re just the same

So we spent the weekend tackling long-over due household maintenance - actually renovations. Mostly we dealt with baseboards. Here is what I learned:

1. Always, always splurge and hire someone with a real saw, nail gun, and semblance of know-how to do the installation. I kid you not, it would have taken us at least three days to do what they did in one.

2. Paint the quarter round before installation and then just do touch ups later. Having spent all day Sunday squat-walking around the apartment painting baseboards and quarter round I can barely move today. Oh I know I’m getting old and my knees aren’t what they used to be - but still it is a pathetic state of affairs.

3. When you are not a coffee drinker, be cautious about offering coffee to men wielding air powered nail guns. I think we overdid it on the number of spoons of coffee we put in, the poor guy turned down our offer of a second cup. By the way how many tablespoons of coffee do you put in the machine to make two cups? For next time that is.

4. If you spend a full half hour doing one complicated cut, do not put the cut piece within reach of the dog - she will eat it. The poor guy looked so defeated when, after looking everywhere for his beautifully cut piece, the dog came prancing into the living room with it in her mouth, one corner already chewed off. There were literally dozens of pieces of scrap wood - but no, she chose the piece de la resistance. And a pencil.

I don’t get art.

I don’t get what makes something worth thousands of dollars and something else worth nothing.

I don’t understand why some slaps of paint are brilliant while other intricate drawings are childish and simplistic.

I don’t understand who decides what’s good.

As a bit of a background, Bert and I were thinking about investing our small nest egg in something a bit more tangible than stocks. So we talked to Bert’s brothers girlfriends father - who does art buying stuff - and he gave us a few ideas about what we should look at.

Some of it was pretty, some of it was cool, some of it was cute - but if he hadn’t told me that it’s all worthwhile art there’s no way I would have figured it out for myself.

Is there some sort of trick to seeing talent?

For those of you who may be unaware, the NHL playoffs (hockey) have begun. This is excellent news because, with the playoffs comes justification for staying up late, eating poutine and drinking beer. The only downside is the sense of wasted time that comes with staying up for 4 overtime periods only to have your team lose - ha, ha that didn’t happen last night though - Vancouver won (sorry Dallas people)!

Also soon we will have Singstar 80’s for the PS2 which is also excellent news because it features such unforgettable classics as ‘eye of the tiger’ and ‘ice, ice baby’. The only down side is that our friends are totally never going to come over ever again - at least we’ll soon have the hot-tub up and running.

Now I have ‘ice, ice baby’ stuck in my head…what about you?

I am ready for spring.

The poor tulips in our front garden seem to have given up on growing. The started out when the weather broke a couple of weeks back, they even seem to have survived the snow. But now - well they aren’t dead but they’re not showing many signs of life either.

I don’t blame them, it’s April and the ground’s frozen again.

I am sick and tired of bundling up before I walk the dog in the morning. I put my toque away every night hoping that it will stay put away until the fall.

It’s supposed to snow on Friday - yep, you heard me - it’s supposed to snow!

Anyway, other than the fact that it’s still winter in April, things are going ok.

I am worried about my brother because he’s procrastinating doing his math work and if he procrastinates too much longer he’s not going to be able to go to college this year. He knows this and still he procrastinates.

I am worried about my Mom because it’s not right that we should be financially stable while she has to work two jobs at the age of 57. But she won’t accept any help from us.

I am worried about my brother-in-law because he doesn’t seem to know where he wants to be - and as a result doesn’t seem to be heading in any direction at all.

Ah, sigh…