of things for Wednesday. My wife had yesterday off but I went into work and met Moe and Greg outside. Greg said with a strait face that he had a talk with Lucianne last night how I was bugging him again and he couldn’t let me work this evening. But Moe grinned and they smiled joking with me. I knew he was off for the day anyway. So I got a dialer near the end of the isle and had a pretty good first half puling in $655 and 3 CC’s. The 2nd half was even better pulling in 8 CC’s for another $10 bonus and 8 CC’s for the night. That’s a record. I ended up with $1,300 just $70 shy of where I was Tuesday night. I just need 3 more CC’s to get 20 to get the $40 CC bonus but If I get say 24 CC’s that’s $48 bucks in bonus money. There’s a good chance that I’ll get 20 CC’s for $40 plus the x2 other bonuses for $10 each for $60. Actually one bonus for $15 and 1 for $10 = $24 plus $40 (min) That should be $64 on my cheque next week. So far this year, I’ve made $807/30 weeks, =an extra $27/week. Not bad. I had a decent night for a change.
I felt good going home on the train with a seat to myself and a chance to get some reading in. Judas Unchained is coming along and I’m just closing in on page 200 although I lost my place marker out of my book for the halfway part of the novel.
Ok, so Oil is just under $130, which is good. Making local news here is a story how Edmonton has acquired another 40,000 people. That’s just in the city and not the outlying areas. Right now, were just under a million people. Apparently the City used to do a Census every 3 years but the Feds distribute funds on how big a City is. The only thing is a lot of those people are migrating from other provinces and as easily as we gained the 40K population when we go into a recession, we’ll lose it.
I was watching Star Trek The Next Generation while having my lunch. The episode was Troy having a baby. “The Child” It was one of the shows more lame episodes.
Today is payday and I hope I’ll be able to get my vp on my cheque. I think to me, will be about $385. Out of that, I’m getting the external hard drive and WS, the rest I think I’ll order books or something. I’m not sure yet. But after work if my vp is on my cheque then it’s off to the bank and then to money mart over here. Well home first then to go across the street to Money mart and get a pre loaded credit card valued for $120. I’m ordering WS and a back up disk. I might even get another Gig of Ram. We’ll see.
On Coast tonight is Research scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Dr. Rudy Schild will share new discoveries that are providing hard evidence to explain phenomena like telepathy, remote viewing, ghosts, and past lives. First Hour: Aviation safety expert Christopher Yates comments on recent airline incidents. Tonight’s show is a lot better discussing Nazi’s and the Roswell rock. Good stuff.
So I think I’m going to get the PSR-S500 Yamaha keyboard. I meant to call Giovanni music to see if they had any there but there’s another music book I want to get a hold of there and see if they have the S900. I’d love that or the S900 and the Yamaha Studio upright acoustic piano. This is a beautiful instrument but costs something like 6 grand. That and the PSR S 900 would cost me about $7,800. If I sell a book, or win the lottery, yeah sure.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
I got the manager
to fax my vacation pay over and he said it’d be on my pay cheque for Thursday. I have my doubts.
Rob did the kick off this evening and so were getting results of his trip from Toronto over the weekend. Apparently as of September 30th the afternoon shift will be canceled. There will be mostly a 3-10 shift. No more 12 hour days for people. Also, the national Do not call list takes into affect as well, but I don’t think this is for charities or surveys. But there will still be a 5-9 shift. I wouldn’t mind working from 5-10 anything other then lodge nights. I’d work from 5-10. That’s 30 hours/week. Also, were getting a new back up manager for Moe from Calgary. Rob didn’t sound too happy about that.
I got home about 9:40pm and watched Raw at 10pm. Good show. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it an 8.5. But it seems that our office is going to be returning back to those boiler room days of yesteryear.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Rob did the kick off this evening and so were getting results of his trip from Toronto over the weekend. Apparently as of September 30th the afternoon shift will be canceled. There will be mostly a 3-10 shift. No more 12 hour days for people. Also, the national Do not call list takes into affect as well, but I don’t think this is for charities or surveys. But there will still be a 5-9 shift. I wouldn’t mind working from 5-10 anything other then lodge nights. I’d work from 5-10. That’s 30 hours/week. Also, were getting a new back up manager for Moe from Calgary. Rob didn’t sound too happy about that.
I got home about 9:40pm and watched Raw at 10pm. Good show. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it an 8.5. But it seems that our office is going to be returning back to those boiler room days of yesteryear.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Sunday, July 27, 2008
I was somewhat
tired and waking up on my way into work. I read a bit on the train coming in. No Tim’s as I had the waffles there earlier. At 8:30am. I had a bit of a trouble finding a dialer even though I was in early and nobody was around, “Your in my spot” type thing. A certain someone I was trying not to sit beside today. Sigh. Anyway I sat by the end of the isle away from where I normally sit. I ended up getting one CC. By the 2nd half I was at l/h. The 2nd half wasn‘t much better. I ended up with $866. The funny thing about this week was I opened Monday night with $885 and Saturday I closed the week with $866. Two $800+ totals in the week and 18 CC’s. In other words Rob made his point: A few extra shifts could make or break getting the CC bonus. So, I’m going in for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.
Yeesh! My wife left out of about 6:30pm here for points I don’t know where and out of habit I checked to make sure if the door was locked. She has this disturbing habit of leaving the front door unlocked. She could be gone for hours. So what do I do? I lock the door. Only natural right? I put my ear plugs in my ears and I try to have a nap. All of a sudden (I guessed I must have been in a deep sleep the lights come flashing on and here’s Anne hollering at the top of my lungs like it’s a five alarm fire or something.) She’s saying she was pounding on the door so loud she almost broke it down. I didn’t hear anything with the earplugs in. She said she had to call the caretaker to open the suite because I couldn’t hear her pounding away. So where were her keys? Nice blaming me for locking the door and not taking her keys to get back in. I feel like going out for a walk and to let her stew in her own BS. I think she realizes that as much as it was my fault to lock doors it was her fault to not bring her keys.
Anyway, we figure it out that the sounds of the “jet planes” were not “The Snowbirds” but rather the sounds of the Indy race going on at the Edmonton municipal airport. Other wise known as “The Muni.” Despite Anne’s little blow up earlier things have more or less blown over.
After the shift Moe was able to call my bank report since January. I think it’s pretty nifty that we can get those stats from the computer. It’s all laid out week by week. For the 575 hours since January 1st of this year I wrote: $78, 816 and I banked $56,790. Now I can start playing around with some numbers. My l/h from just what’s banked has been $98.77/hour. Written tells a different story at $137.11 l/h. Moe did some calculations for me and said that I have a72% bank even though the l/h kind of sucked. The numbers look promising.
I ended up taking some more photos of the day as I walked out of the office with the intent of going up to City Center mall for a bite to eat. I took this shot of one of the newer apartment high-rises apartments almost completed. This is Tower A of what’s I think called “The Q.” I think the other one is under construction.
The next photo is of another condo building almost under completion. Trouble with these condo units is that only rich people can afford them. They are out of reach for people like my wife and I. We’re barely lucky we can keep pace with the rent in this building.
The next photo is of another condo building almost under completion. Trouble with these condo units is that only rich people can afford them. They are out of reach for people like my wife and I. We’re barely lucky we can keep pace with the rent in this building. It’s Market day on 104th & Jasper. The dividing meridian across the street where that person is standing is identical where I’m standing shooting this photo. I ended up walking down 104th st past the Great West Sadlery building, which was a warehouse I used to work in for the Army & Navy Dept store back in the good old days. While walking down this street people were looking over head trying to find out where the sounds of those jet engines were coming from. I thought st first it might be “The Snowbirds” kicking off the Edmonton Indy. I walked around past “The boardwalk. Nothing of interest except I past by the new YMCA building. Looks nice.
I went and had a look around at Coles bookstore and they’ve got about 10 Indiana Jones novels a few of the new series Battlestar Galactica and other stuff as well. I could shop there for more then awhile. They’ve also got some Mech Warrior books out as well and a few Magic “The Gathering.” The only problem is you guessed it, Canadian pricing. I don’t see Audrey’s holding this American pricing thing for much longer. For $8.00 a book that’s a pretty good deal. I give it the end of the year.
I went down to down to the food court and got some Taco Bell, for their burrito combo including fires supreme 2 burrito‘s and a drink for $7.99. Good deal. After that I went and checked on “The Source” to see about their Itouch. They have the 8Gb for $300. Not to bad. Future Shop sells theirs for $285. Most likely I’ll get the hard drive at Fs and the Itouch as well. I asked about the wi-fi limitations of the Itouch and the clerk there provided me with an interesting side note that all of the City Center Mall (Edmonton Center for us old timer’s.) is a hot spot. Meaning I can connect to the Internet in Edmonton Center with an Itouch right there. This is very interesting. I had a bit of a dry throat/laryngitis type thing going on and I needed some Halls. I got a package and noticed the back of this shoppers T-shirt “London Calling.” I struck up a conversation with him. He’s a younger fellow as well. He said he got into The Clash about 5 years ago. We had a nice talk. I should have asked him what his favorite Clash song was but I think he was in a bit of a hurry.
I went back up to Coles to take another look at their books selection. I should have brought more cash with me. I am excited about the Itouch and that Internet wi-fi capability to view web pages. All it needs now is cell phone access but that’s why Apple has the Iphone 3G. I just don’t like a contract and a monthly plan. So I decided to get going and I headed down “Rice Howard way.” and took this shot from the direction I came. 
Central Station entrance was right behind me and I took the stairs down and got to the front of the train. It was really busy this weekend what with “Capital Ex,” “The taste of Edmonton” and the Indy going on. Actually, after this weekend, there’s “Heritage days,” coming up next and then there’s, “The Edmonton Folk festival,” and if that’s not enough then there’s “The Fringe” and the “Cariwest - Edmonton Caribbean Arts Festival.” There’s still another 4 festivals left for the summer, one of the reasons why I still love this City. I took the train home and there was my bus waiting under the +29C heat. The sign there flashes temperature and time. Trust me, it was a hot one.
Yeesh! My wife left out of about 6:30pm here for points I don’t know where and out of habit I checked to make sure if the door was locked. She has this disturbing habit of leaving the front door unlocked. She could be gone for hours. So what do I do? I lock the door. Only natural right? I put my ear plugs in my ears and I try to have a nap. All of a sudden (I guessed I must have been in a deep sleep the lights come flashing on and here’s Anne hollering at the top of my lungs like it’s a five alarm fire or something.) She’s saying she was pounding on the door so loud she almost broke it down. I didn’t hear anything with the earplugs in. She said she had to call the caretaker to open the suite because I couldn’t hear her pounding away. So where were her keys? Nice blaming me for locking the door and not taking her keys to get back in. I feel like going out for a walk and to let her stew in her own BS. I think she realizes that as much as it was my fault to lock doors it was her fault to not bring her keys. We kind of “kissed and made up.” We laughed at her Hanna Montana 3D glasses she tried on because she likes the show. It’s kind of a kids show. Again us old timers have seen this before with “The Monkey’s,” among others. The kids like it and she’s got some pretty good little numbers that grab even me. Here’s a shot of my wife about an hour ago watching “The Jonas Brothers” and Hanna.
Anyway, we figure it out that the sounds of the “jet planes” were not “The Snowbirds” but rather the sounds of the Indy race going on at the Edmonton municipal airport. Other wise known as “The Muni.” Despite Anne’s little blow up earlier things have more or less blown over.Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Zen or Itouch?
Looks like I’m going to go with the Itouch 8Gb. The Itouch will let me surf the net as well (Where ever there’s a hot spot.) plus I can hack the device and play some games on it. The Zen will let me expand it’s memory where the Itouch has a fixed amount but there’s no way I have over even 500 songs. Plus I can go right there to YouTube and later when I get into stocks I can check my stocks.
Yesterday afternoon I shut er down and locked it up and waited to catch my bus. Lots of people were heading out to K-day’s yesterday afternoon. JT was saying that because Northlands is expanding on site K-Day’s grounds were about half of their normal size this year. Because he only goes when he needs to take his mom, he was disappointed that there weren’t a lot of things for seniors to do. It’s mostly for kids and young families anyway and ever sense the City decided to change the name to “Capital Ex” from last year (first year) the whole K-Day’s flavor is gone. We used to have a Sunday Promenade up and down Jasper Ave for the first K-Day’s Sunday but since there’s no more “Klondike” flavor they dropped that out as well. Edmonton has really changed over the last 30 years. Some changes are good like Churchill Square park. Some are not so good like changing the Klondike theme. The only reason why people are here now in the City is for the local economy. And when this boom goes bust most of these people will migrate out of here.
Anyway, I got Gary’s dialer (used to be mine) and good thing I did. That dialer is a CC magnet. I got about 5 in the first half sitting beside JT. He was off ready to go on his vacation, probably on the road right now barely out of the City. He said he has a 10 hour drive ahead of him. I’m not sure where he’s going but some place in BC for a week. He’s most likely clearing $500/week not including bonuses. But he puts in 44 hours/week. He got the hourly rate he’s getting because he was management at one time. Unless your ex management or a foreign worker is the only way to get beyond $10/hour at where I work. But I ended up with a record 7 CC’s last night and a $550 total. Also since we were playing the team CC bonus, our team got 19 CC’s to the other team with 15. So we got a $20 bonus each. Plus I got a $10 bonus earlier during the week. Not bad. I should get $410 on my vacation pay next week plus $265 regular pay (with bonuses) That should give me $675 on my cheque before taxes. I think the Feds will take out about $75 to $101 or something silly like that. In which case I’ll either get $600-$574. Anne gets the first $200 out of that so anything over $200 is mine. I should be able to keep between $400-$375. In which case after work next Saturday, if everything works out ok, I’ll be picking up my external hard drive and the Itouch. Also, if I get at least 4 CC’s today, then I’ll be able to keep the CC bonus as well as any CC team bonus we get today. I should have put in a few extra afternoons this week and I would have at least 20 CC’s if not a few more.
The important thing today is Rob has my vacation pay release form on his desk when he does payroll Monday morning. I think I want to go in for Monday afternoon just to get a head start on the CC race for this week. Even a few afternoons won’t hurt. If I get my 20 CC’s this week, that’s an extra $40 onto my pay cheque. Right now, I’m on top of the Vacation pay percent food chain at 6%. That’s for 5 years of service.
There’s a lot of things going on this weekend. First K-Day’s is wrapping up tonight. doesn’t look like we’re going to get there this year. At $10 admission fee and the price of food is so expensive and we’re not big on rides. If that’s not enough, there’s the Edmonton Indy. Our City is only the third City in Canada hosting this event. If that’s not enough, there’s “The taste of Edmonton.” This is a nice event but again it’s going to be really crowded. Anne suggested I go out and get myself a fast food treat this afternoon and I think I will.
After this weekend, we’ve got Heritage day’s coming up and if that’s not enough to wrap festival season off there’s the “Caraway Festival” and the big one “The Fringe.” Then it’s time to think about hockey with “The Edmonton Oiler’s.” Speaking of pro sports and all, the Eskimos finally won one on the road. Their record is 3-2 right now. Second in the West. Next Thursday BC is here.
After work last night, I went out to Audrey’s. It was very warm, most likely +25C. I went and picked up 2 of the “Stardoc” books. What’s this “Vector Prime” book #1 in “The New Jedi Order” was already there? How did I miss this? Great, I didn’t need to pick it up out of an Omnibus format. All that’s left there for me now is “Mission Earth” book 1 and one of the Stardoc books. I picked up those 3 and went to special order the last two in the series and 2 others oh S.L. Veigh’s Bio Rescue series and the other Timothy Zhan’s sequel to “Night train to Rigel” is in, so I ordered those and the last 3 of Karen Traviss’s Wess'Har series “Matriarch, Ally, Judge.” I’ll get tore ad them eventually.
I went home with my purchase and this time I took the stairs down to the LRT concourse. I was rewarded with a nice little cool back-draft wind rushing up the stairs. I caught the train home and did my admin stuff and settled in to watch Smackdown. Anne came home about 11pm and made me a hot hamburger with instant mash potato and a side of peas. Good. The only thing is I should have bought a bottle of diet Pepsi max for this morning.
For today, it’s off into work for my Saturday shift and put my 4 hours in. It’s no big deal. Then if I’m feeling ok, it’s off to the City Center Food court for some Taco Bell and maybe a look into Chapters and home. Not much going on for tonight. Just relaxing.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Yesterday afternoon I shut er down and locked it up and waited to catch my bus. Lots of people were heading out to K-day’s yesterday afternoon. JT was saying that because Northlands is expanding on site K-Day’s grounds were about half of their normal size this year. Because he only goes when he needs to take his mom, he was disappointed that there weren’t a lot of things for seniors to do. It’s mostly for kids and young families anyway and ever sense the City decided to change the name to “Capital Ex” from last year (first year) the whole K-Day’s flavor is gone. We used to have a Sunday Promenade up and down Jasper Ave for the first K-Day’s Sunday but since there’s no more “Klondike” flavor they dropped that out as well. Edmonton has really changed over the last 30 years. Some changes are good like Churchill Square park. Some are not so good like changing the Klondike theme. The only reason why people are here now in the City is for the local economy. And when this boom goes bust most of these people will migrate out of here.
Anyway, I got Gary’s dialer (used to be mine) and good thing I did. That dialer is a CC magnet. I got about 5 in the first half sitting beside JT. He was off ready to go on his vacation, probably on the road right now barely out of the City. He said he has a 10 hour drive ahead of him. I’m not sure where he’s going but some place in BC for a week. He’s most likely clearing $500/week not including bonuses. But he puts in 44 hours/week. He got the hourly rate he’s getting because he was management at one time. Unless your ex management or a foreign worker is the only way to get beyond $10/hour at where I work. But I ended up with a record 7 CC’s last night and a $550 total. Also since we were playing the team CC bonus, our team got 19 CC’s to the other team with 15. So we got a $20 bonus each. Plus I got a $10 bonus earlier during the week. Not bad. I should get $410 on my vacation pay next week plus $265 regular pay (with bonuses) That should give me $675 on my cheque before taxes. I think the Feds will take out about $75 to $101 or something silly like that. In which case I’ll either get $600-$574. Anne gets the first $200 out of that so anything over $200 is mine. I should be able to keep between $400-$375. In which case after work next Saturday, if everything works out ok, I’ll be picking up my external hard drive and the Itouch. Also, if I get at least 4 CC’s today, then I’ll be able to keep the CC bonus as well as any CC team bonus we get today. I should have put in a few extra afternoons this week and I would have at least 20 CC’s if not a few more.
The important thing today is Rob has my vacation pay release form on his desk when he does payroll Monday morning. I think I want to go in for Monday afternoon just to get a head start on the CC race for this week. Even a few afternoons won’t hurt. If I get my 20 CC’s this week, that’s an extra $40 onto my pay cheque. Right now, I’m on top of the Vacation pay percent food chain at 6%. That’s for 5 years of service.
There’s a lot of things going on this weekend. First K-Day’s is wrapping up tonight. doesn’t look like we’re going to get there this year. At $10 admission fee and the price of food is so expensive and we’re not big on rides. If that’s not enough, there’s the Edmonton Indy. Our City is only the third City in Canada hosting this event. If that’s not enough, there’s “The taste of Edmonton.” This is a nice event but again it’s going to be really crowded. Anne suggested I go out and get myself a fast food treat this afternoon and I think I will.
After this weekend, we’ve got Heritage day’s coming up and if that’s not enough to wrap festival season off there’s the “Caraway Festival” and the big one “The Fringe.” Then it’s time to think about hockey with “The Edmonton Oiler’s.” Speaking of pro sports and all, the Eskimos finally won one on the road. Their record is 3-2 right now. Second in the West. Next Thursday BC is here.
After work last night, I went out to Audrey’s. It was very warm, most likely +25C. I went and picked up 2 of the “Stardoc” books. What’s this “Vector Prime” book #1 in “The New Jedi Order” was already there? How did I miss this? Great, I didn’t need to pick it up out of an Omnibus format. All that’s left there for me now is “Mission Earth” book 1 and one of the Stardoc books. I picked up those 3 and went to special order the last two in the series and 2 others oh S.L. Veigh’s Bio Rescue series and the other Timothy Zhan’s sequel to “Night train to Rigel” is in, so I ordered those and the last 3 of Karen Traviss’s Wess'Har series “Matriarch, Ally, Judge.” I’ll get tore ad them eventually.
I went home with my purchase and this time I took the stairs down to the LRT concourse. I was rewarded with a nice little cool back-draft wind rushing up the stairs. I caught the train home and did my admin stuff and settled in to watch Smackdown. Anne came home about 11pm and made me a hot hamburger with instant mash potato and a side of peas. Good. The only thing is I should have bought a bottle of diet Pepsi max for this morning.
For today, it’s off into work for my Saturday shift and put my 4 hours in. It’s no big deal. Then if I’m feeling ok, it’s off to the City Center Food court for some Taco Bell and maybe a look into Chapters and home. Not much going on for tonight. Just relaxing.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Thursday, July 24, 2008
I'm up earlier then uslual
I had enough sleep going to bed about 3am and listening to Coast and “The other news.” I want to do some blogging and catch the noon markets and get some reading done. The whole idea about getting up early is to get my things done and go into the office as soon as I eat and see Rob to get a form to release my vacation pay for next week.
I decided to go for the Creative Labs Zen and get the external hard drive and WS. This way I can work on that CH story and get it fixed up and sent out. Maybe I can even get myself a cheap laser printer in there as well. They’ve got a sale item for something like $60 for a monochrome laser printer. That’s all I need. The other thing I’ve been wanting to do is to take both Computers over to Fs and get the hard drive from my W98 machine installed into my this computer. The most important thing though is WS, the hard drive, the Zen.
I just checked the markets on the noon news hour and oil is sitting at $132, which is pretty good. Big news is that Ford lost over 8B in sales in the first quarter of this year because nobody is buying SUV’s anymore. I think over the next 5 years we’re going to see less and less SUV’s on the road these days. I hated the minivan and the SUV (Same thing in my books) when they first came out in the 1990’s. They looked cheep and you could tell they looked like they came right off the assembly line. They were a status symbol of the 1990’s along with Rap music, which I never embraced. The SUV reminded me to much of a “Peoples car.” Not like the Volkswagen Beetle of the 60’s and 70’s but something everybody was buying. More bandwagon jumping. Keep up with the Jones’s mentality. Outside of the girlfriend I've had and some minor sucesses, the only thing I liked about the 1990’s was the Internet.
Not much going on today. Before bed I ended up working on my Blogger blog. I’ve got a pretty cool Blog list that gives the name of the Blog and the title and the last time it was updated and an Icon to tell if it’s Blogger or Live Journal etc. I also developed a list of SF resources and some of the online webzines I read. I’m not quite done with that yet. For some reason the Blog list won’t let me enter Elizabeth Bear’s blog or S.I. Viehl’s Blog. I only want to include Blogs that are updated daily or at least a couple of times/week. No more Nick Sagan or Neal Asher type Blogs. Speaking about S.I. Viehl, her Stardoc books seem to be in first person. I prefer first person books. I’ll be reading those books as well this ear.
What else? Today is payday and I think I’m going to get the other 3 Stardoc books this weekend. I want to go in today and pick up the “Mission earth” book but I also want to meet up with Rob to get my vacation pay release form. Last night I asked Moe if he could get a bank report for me, year to date but all he could do was to get one since 2000. I wrote over $500,000 and banked something like $373,000 for a 66.7% bank. But I wanted the bank report from January of this year. I think I wrote something like $60K and banked $48K. Something like that. So far this year I put in 147 shifts. 26 of those have been Fridays. That’s been 121 full shifts and 26 Friday shifts. Or 484 hours at 4 hour shifts and 91 hours at 3.5 hours for a total of 575 hours. I’ve written: $82,583, divide that into 574 hours and that’s a line hour average of $144/l/h. Not bad but they want $200/l/h. The big number will be what’s banked. I also wrote up $11,430 in CC’s and if they all kicked in (which I’ve seen they all don’t) I’d say at least $10K of that is CC banked. Out of $82,583 written I’d say at least 50% of that is banked. If not a little higher but I’m low balling it. $41,250 which includes the CC banked. At 575 hours that’s $72-l/h. This means that for every hour I put in, I bring the company $72 bucks. More or less. In a 4 hour shift I bank about $280 for the company.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I decided to go for the Creative Labs Zen and get the external hard drive and WS. This way I can work on that CH story and get it fixed up and sent out. Maybe I can even get myself a cheap laser printer in there as well. They’ve got a sale item for something like $60 for a monochrome laser printer. That’s all I need. The other thing I’ve been wanting to do is to take both Computers over to Fs and get the hard drive from my W98 machine installed into my this computer. The most important thing though is WS, the hard drive, the Zen.
I just checked the markets on the noon news hour and oil is sitting at $132, which is pretty good. Big news is that Ford lost over 8B in sales in the first quarter of this year because nobody is buying SUV’s anymore. I think over the next 5 years we’re going to see less and less SUV’s on the road these days. I hated the minivan and the SUV (Same thing in my books) when they first came out in the 1990’s. They looked cheep and you could tell they looked like they came right off the assembly line. They were a status symbol of the 1990’s along with Rap music, which I never embraced. The SUV reminded me to much of a “Peoples car.” Not like the Volkswagen Beetle of the 60’s and 70’s but something everybody was buying. More bandwagon jumping. Keep up with the Jones’s mentality. Outside of the girlfriend I've had and some minor sucesses, the only thing I liked about the 1990’s was the Internet.
Not much going on today. Before bed I ended up working on my Blogger blog. I’ve got a pretty cool Blog list that gives the name of the Blog and the title and the last time it was updated and an Icon to tell if it’s Blogger or Live Journal etc. I also developed a list of SF resources and some of the online webzines I read. I’m not quite done with that yet. For some reason the Blog list won’t let me enter Elizabeth Bear’s blog or S.I. Viehl’s Blog. I only want to include Blogs that are updated daily or at least a couple of times/week. No more Nick Sagan or Neal Asher type Blogs. Speaking about S.I. Viehl, her Stardoc books seem to be in first person. I prefer first person books. I’ll be reading those books as well this ear.
What else? Today is payday and I think I’m going to get the other 3 Stardoc books this weekend. I want to go in today and pick up the “Mission earth” book but I also want to meet up with Rob to get my vacation pay release form. Last night I asked Moe if he could get a bank report for me, year to date but all he could do was to get one since 2000. I wrote over $500,000 and banked something like $373,000 for a 66.7% bank. But I wanted the bank report from January of this year. I think I wrote something like $60K and banked $48K. Something like that. So far this year I put in 147 shifts. 26 of those have been Fridays. That’s been 121 full shifts and 26 Friday shifts. Or 484 hours at 4 hour shifts and 91 hours at 3.5 hours for a total of 575 hours. I’ve written: $82,583, divide that into 574 hours and that’s a line hour average of $144/l/h. Not bad but they want $200/l/h. The big number will be what’s banked. I also wrote up $11,430 in CC’s and if they all kicked in (which I’ve seen they all don’t) I’d say at least $10K of that is CC banked. Out of $82,583 written I’d say at least 50% of that is banked. If not a little higher but I’m low balling it. $41,250 which includes the CC banked. At 575 hours that’s $72-l/h. This means that for every hour I put in, I bring the company $72 bucks. More or less. In a 4 hour shift I bank about $280 for the company.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Yesterday I began
looking around for MP3 video players. I like the Itouch because of all the features but I don’t like the price. I read lots of reviews even though I don’t like Real audio that much, I think the best MP3 video player out there for my money is Creative Labs Zen. The Itouch 16Gb version is $360. I can afford it with my vacation pay but some people tell me at work is to wait a year and Apple will come out with a 64Gb/128Gb Version. An 8Gb Itouch will cost me $285. The Hard drive will cost me $90.WS will cost me at least $120. I want a MP3 video player and I also want $20-30 for myself. I might go with out the video player and focus on the hard drive and WS. Obtaining WS is going to be a bit more difficult because I need to go get a Money Mart prepaid CC. But WS is an online application. It’s not a physical product but that’s ok. I can be up and running that in minutes. The Hard drive and WS are more useful tools then a video MP3 player. I can always get one next year.
This weekend is the Edmonton Indy race. I’m not a fan of racing because of the noise of the engines and all. Though I am sympathetic towards it. The event is good for the City. Somewhere between the end of K-Day’s and the August 1st long weekend is Heritage days. Actually Heritage days is August 2nd-4th. When I first came to Edmonton 30 years ago it was right after Heritage days. We Didn’t have the Fringe back then. The first Fringe was 1982. I first came to Edmonton Wednesday August 17th 1978.
I’d have loved it if Jeff could have taken a picture of me getting off the Via rail train on that humid sunny Thursday afternoon. I didn’t bring any luggage because I didn’t think I’d be staying. I had a new color TV I had just bought and a new stereo, my UIC had just come in and I had rented a new apartment as well. The only thing 30 years ago at this time, I had no prospects for a job and I had no applications in and there was no way anyone could contact me for a job anyway. It wasn’t like we had cell phones back then.
Anne wants me to stay home tonight because she has the day off. I want to put a full week in because I want to get as much as possible for my vacation pay. I want to get the form from Rob and take my vacation pay out next week. Last night I got 5 CC’s for 7 so far on the week. I’d like to get 5 more CC’s for tonight and hopefully 20 for this week. I’m going in early tomorrow afternoon and Friday. At least I’ll have 29 hours in
My wife gave me $20 from the bottle run from yesterday and I should have another $25 coming in this week where I can pick up the last of those Science Fiction books at Audrey’s. I have 3 more of the Stardoc series. That’s 6/8. Then there’s the Mission Earth book. I have another 8 more to go on that. There are another 2 Karen Traviss books in her Wess'Har series that I need to get as well.
As for tonight it’s in for 4 hours. At least the paper balls have stopped flying, so that’s good news. Lately at the break I move over to bud’s dialer and work there for the remaining 2 hours. Other then that it’s the Dog day’s of summer.
Last night coming home about 9:30pm waiting on the bus at Clairview the Sunset was so beautiful spreading the whole Western sky in a glow of read pink through the clouds. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is why I need my camera charged up but the hours of daylight are dropping dusk at 9:45pm.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
This weekend is the Edmonton Indy race. I’m not a fan of racing because of the noise of the engines and all. Though I am sympathetic towards it. The event is good for the City. Somewhere between the end of K-Day’s and the August 1st long weekend is Heritage days. Actually Heritage days is August 2nd-4th. When I first came to Edmonton 30 years ago it was right after Heritage days. We Didn’t have the Fringe back then. The first Fringe was 1982. I first came to Edmonton Wednesday August 17th 1978.
I’d have loved it if Jeff could have taken a picture of me getting off the Via rail train on that humid sunny Thursday afternoon. I didn’t bring any luggage because I didn’t think I’d be staying. I had a new color TV I had just bought and a new stereo, my UIC had just come in and I had rented a new apartment as well. The only thing 30 years ago at this time, I had no prospects for a job and I had no applications in and there was no way anyone could contact me for a job anyway. It wasn’t like we had cell phones back then.
Anne wants me to stay home tonight because she has the day off. I want to put a full week in because I want to get as much as possible for my vacation pay. I want to get the form from Rob and take my vacation pay out next week. Last night I got 5 CC’s for 7 so far on the week. I’d like to get 5 more CC’s for tonight and hopefully 20 for this week. I’m going in early tomorrow afternoon and Friday. At least I’ll have 29 hours in
My wife gave me $20 from the bottle run from yesterday and I should have another $25 coming in this week where I can pick up the last of those Science Fiction books at Audrey’s. I have 3 more of the Stardoc series. That’s 6/8. Then there’s the Mission Earth book. I have another 8 more to go on that. There are another 2 Karen Traviss books in her Wess'Har series that I need to get as well.
As for tonight it’s in for 4 hours. At least the paper balls have stopped flying, so that’s good news. Lately at the break I move over to bud’s dialer and work there for the remaining 2 hours. Other then that it’s the Dog day’s of summer.
Last night coming home about 9:30pm waiting on the bus at Clairview the Sunset was so beautiful spreading the whole Western sky in a glow of read pink through the clouds. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is why I need my camera charged up but the hours of daylight are dropping dusk at 9:45pm.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I locked everything
up out of here at 4pm and the bus shelter was near empty. It took me a long time to take this shot looking West on 137th. It was warm and muggy out there about +28C when I took this shot about 4:06pm. 
I managed to read a bit heading into work but underground the cars had their interior lights running on a kind of on off standby mode making it harder to read on the train. Mostly they were doing that underground. I got into the office and got a dialer near Lucianne up behind management computers. I figured it be more quieter. It was actually. I ended up with a CC and about $305 by break. Anne called and we had a chat at 7pm. Just after kickoff I got one of the staff to take a full length shot of me but I was smiling, with my bad teeth and all. The photo looked far away too. I collected a lot of bottles and cans. During the 2nd half I got another CC and a $200 sale for a total of $885 on the night.
I got in about 9:30pm and did my admin stuff. I ad a pretty good evening even though my teeth were bugging me a bit, By about 8pm I felt a lot better and all in all I had a pretty good night. I caught the train back with extra cars and a seat by myself and I did a bit more reading.
Of course I settled into watch Monday night Raw. I enjoyed Raw. I’d rate Raw on a scale of 1-10 an 8. The best was seeing Cena doing a double FU on the new Tag team Champions.
I’m about 10 pages off my 15 pages/day schedule for JU. I hope to make better gains overnight and the rest of today. Despite having my teeth hurt periodically I had a pretty good day.
I managed to read a bit heading into work but underground the cars had their interior lights running on a kind of on off standby mode making it harder to read on the train. Mostly they were doing that underground. I got into the office and got a dialer near Lucianne up behind management computers. I figured it be more quieter. It was actually. I ended up with a CC and about $305 by break. Anne called and we had a chat at 7pm. Just after kickoff I got one of the staff to take a full length shot of me but I was smiling, with my bad teeth and all. The photo looked far away too. I collected a lot of bottles and cans. During the 2nd half I got another CC and a $200 sale for a total of $885 on the night.I got Shank to take another picture of me. I think this one looks a lot better but I finally realized I don’t look good without glasses. I’m better looking with them on but since I don’t really need them anymore except for reading and these reading glasses on the other side of a photo lenses make me look even more creepy. But this is a better one then the one taken earlier by Melody. This shot was taken about 9pm:
I got in about 9:30pm and did my admin stuff. I ad a pretty good evening even though my teeth were bugging me a bit, By about 8pm I felt a lot better and all in all I had a pretty good night. I caught the train back with extra cars and a seat by myself and I did a bit more reading.Of course I settled into watch Monday night Raw. I enjoyed Raw. I’d rate Raw on a scale of 1-10 an 8. The best was seeing Cena doing a double FU on the new Tag team Champions.
I’m about 10 pages off my 15 pages/day schedule for JU. I hope to make better gains overnight and the rest of today. Despite having my teeth hurt periodically I had a pretty good day.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Monday, July 21, 2008
This morning
I looked around at vintage keyboards from the 60’s,70’s. Ever since the British invasion of Rock n’ Roll of the 1960’s the keyboard and learning how to play had always been lurking within my consciousness. It was a seed that was planted but I never went on to become a gardener. Until in my later years. I had the attitude “I can do that when I’m older.” I’m learning now before it’s too late. So I discovered some months back a great site on Vintage keyboards. Then while searching for their sounds on YouTube I discovered “The Rhodes Mark 7.” This is an amazing instrument but I always thought it was in the camp of the Vintage Keyboards. It looks vintage but upon doing some research I discovered this is a recent release from Rhodes. The thing about musical keyboards is for the most part, they sound differently. A Vox Continental sounds a lot different then a Hammond. Reed organs sound a lot different then electric keyboards and so on. The Rhodes has a distinct flavor, think Stevie Wonder. The Rhodes has more of a bubbly Jazz type sound to it but it’s really rich and phat. I discovered later that this is a current model Rhodes has had out now for a few years. There’s not a lot of bells and whistles to this thing. I love the sound of a Rhodes piano but the Mark 7 is a little beyond my price range. I was looking at vintage keyboards on Ebay and it looks like some lucky guy on Ebay is going to get a Farfisa for under $500 bucks. So far nobody has matched his bid within the last couple of days. I should place a bid but I have other things to do with my vacation pay.
Most important is to get an external hard drive for this computer so I can start backing up my hard drive before I get the “Blue screen of death" again. Also with my vacation pay I want to get some writing enhancement software. I know the program I want. I’ve been on their mailing list for the past year now.
I don’t know about Pizza just yet. With 17 CC’s again last week I think what I’m going to do is work a couple of extra shifts this week. Tonight, I’m really going to push for the CC’s. I don’t mind the paper balls, it’s the yelling and laughing the customer can hear in the background where I’ve been sitting. But if I got the 17 CC’s that would have been $35 + $25. $60. That’s about half of what I need for my hard drive. I want to go in for 1pm tomorrow and work those 7 hours and do the same for Wednesday. This way, I’ll have 29.5 hours in.
Now maybe the Rhodes Mark 7 is realistically out of reach for me. Unless I win the lottery. I’d stand a better chance of being a victim in a pedestrian accident here in Edmonton then winning the “Big one.” But the Yamaha PSR. S900 is more within my reach. At $350/month as of August, $1,500 plus my vacation pay. Well that’s the idea anyway. But I have other things to get like 6/49 tickets and Science Fiction books at American pricing while I can. Best I can do is shell out $200/month. I’d be looking at 9 months. Next April. I’ll be popping into the store once a month. It’ll still be there.
As for tonight, it’s Monday night Raw.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Most important is to get an external hard drive for this computer so I can start backing up my hard drive before I get the “Blue screen of death" again. Also with my vacation pay I want to get some writing enhancement software. I know the program I want. I’ve been on their mailing list for the past year now.
I don’t know about Pizza just yet. With 17 CC’s again last week I think what I’m going to do is work a couple of extra shifts this week. Tonight, I’m really going to push for the CC’s. I don’t mind the paper balls, it’s the yelling and laughing the customer can hear in the background where I’ve been sitting. But if I got the 17 CC’s that would have been $35 + $25. $60. That’s about half of what I need for my hard drive. I want to go in for 1pm tomorrow and work those 7 hours and do the same for Wednesday. This way, I’ll have 29.5 hours in.
Now maybe the Rhodes Mark 7 is realistically out of reach for me. Unless I win the lottery. I’d stand a better chance of being a victim in a pedestrian accident here in Edmonton then winning the “Big one.” But the Yamaha PSR. S900 is more within my reach. At $350/month as of August, $1,500 plus my vacation pay. Well that’s the idea anyway. But I have other things to get like 6/49 tickets and Science Fiction books at American pricing while I can. Best I can do is shell out $200/month. I’d be looking at 9 months. Next April. I’ll be popping into the store once a month. It’ll still be there.
As for tonight, it’s Monday night Raw.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Some more photos
taken mostly today. This one is of my "Judas Unchained" book. I'm on pace for 15-20 pages/day. That's my reading glasses on the cover.
This picture is of Sparky & Sporty taken about an hour ago. I hope the flash isn't hurting their vision or anything. Sporty is the white guy.
Uh-oh. Anne took this photo about an hour ago as well. Me at my piano. Hopefully by this time next year I'll have the Yamaha PSR-S900. This is just a practice piano. It has some cute DJ settings as well. That's my left lazy eye there. Pardon me for not smiling, My bad teeth and all.
And this is of Sparky. I love this little guy. Sparky loves chasing bugs the other babies and he loves to cuddle with us in bed in the mornings. 
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now.
e. Jim
This picture is of Sparky & Sporty taken about an hour ago. I hope the flash isn't hurting their vision or anything. Sporty is the white guy.Uh-oh. Anne took this photo about an hour ago as well. Me at my piano. Hopefully by this time next year I'll have the Yamaha PSR-S900. This is just a practice piano. It has some cute DJ settings as well. That's my left lazy eye there. Pardon me for not smiling, My bad teeth and all.And this is of Sparky. I love this little guy. Sparky loves chasing bugs the other babies and he loves to cuddle with us in bed in the mornings. Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now.e. Jim
I went into
work shutting the place down and alone at my bus stop just the way I like it. Weather wise it was +22C some cloud mostly bright and sunny. I was kind of worried about my cat Silky because he was no where to be found after I locked the place up. He’s most likely hiding somewhere. I brought $5.10 and a $20 along with me. At Clairview station as the train was waiting to pull out I cracked open my JU book to read and had a grand old time. At Corona station I got out and worked my way up through the concourse to street level and then across the open parking lot and to the drugstore and a diet Coke. “1 6/49 quick pick with the plus please.” That was for the $5.10.
I found my dialer and small talk with various staff and opened my thermos for a coffee. I scanned through the Metro and various assorted free community papers left lying around from the day staff. They hand these things out at Clairview station for free. I smile and nod no all the time. I have more important things to read then leftist/green news spin in short sound bites. I can browse them at work. Waste of paper.
We ended up doing BOB again. Uggh. After a rocky start it took me 40 minutes to get on the board. It got so loud there between JT, Sundeep,
Michelle, I could barely hear the customer. Thankfully the noise stops at break but I had $140 by break and no CC’s. I got a call from Audrey’s books.
Anne called shortly after that. I got 4 of the “Stardoc” books in. I think I have all of them in the series now. In the 2nd half I think I got 3 sales but we were beating the day shift. I ended up with one CC. I’m thinking that if Rob’s using my fluke 17 CC’s from 2 weeks ago as the new benchmark for 20 for tap shooters, not to many part time tap shooters are going to be getting any CC bonus money. On the cold and semi side they still need to get 12 CC’s.
To get 20 CC’s in one week is doable but not likely all the time. We’ve had 5 new people and one full time part time guy (me) 3 of the people were full time day shift. So because of my fluke 17 CC’s it basically spoils it for all the rest. Rob’s hoping I can get his 17 but best I could do last night was 1 for $40. As of last night I’m on for 14 CC’s. Not to dwell o n this too much but I know where I went wrong. I blame myself mostly for playing onto that CC team game. I get the CC’s mostly for a nightly bonus but Rob is always trying to find new ways to make it harder to get them. I need 6 more CC’s today and if we’re going to do BOB like I think we are, I won’t have much of a chance to get 6 today. So I try to make my CC bonus money in other ways.
After work I leisurely walked over to Audrey’s and there was Trevor. I went down and had a look at my stack of books. “Hey Mission Earth #1” was in. I thought these books were the Star Wars X-wing series but apparently they are “The New Jedi Order.” I checked with the order girl there to see if they were Young Adult. I had the 4 “Stardoc” books and the 2 Star Wars and one Mission Earth. I picked up the 2 Star Wars books. Book 1 and 2 Dark tide 1 and 2. I don’t know why I missed “Vector Prime.” Perhaps it’s out of print. According to the Fantastic Fiction website we looked at there was no indication that these were YA. I picked up the 2 Star Wars books and headed upstairs. Trevor and I went over my next book order series: Warhammer. I can’t believe I missed all these great series in the 1990’s. I could have got a lot of them at “Adventures” in the early 1990’s but I wasn’t into reading too much what with chasing after Mary and just trying to survive. I bought the odd book through out the 1990’s but nothing like I’m doing mow practically buying 1 or even 3 books/week. As long as Audrey’s continues to have the books on at American pricing, I’ll continue to special order. We ordered a few
Warhammer omnibus books. There were a lot of these books that are not in print. I’m sure they are in Ebay somewhere. I paid for my purchase and out the door to Corona station across the street. I don’t know why I don’t just go down the stairs on this side of the street? Amazing how I just only now think of this. It’s a lot of stairs but the stairs are all down. I’ll know better next time.
I got my train home but I just wanted to relax no book reading. I got in the apartment at about 9:15pm. With a bit of relief there was Silky up top looking down on me. And I forgot my reading glasses at the office as well. I did some Xl book keeping and lost track of time barely able to catch my wrestling. Smackdown was great. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 9. Anne came in and made me an Angus beef burger and fries and after that I watched ECW. That was 3 hours of wrestling goodness last night. I went into bed about 1:15am and listened to a bit of Coast. I slept for a good hour and felt totally refreshed, So much so that it was hard trying to go back to sleep. I did some reading and tried going back to sleep but what I got instead was mostly rest.
I got up at 7am with my alarm not going off. Strange. I went and checked Fantastic Fiction and found out that there is an “New Jedi Order” omnibus with the first 3 books including Vector Prime so I’ll be ordering this book Monday.
I think that’s about all for now. I’ll be out of here in about half an hour and I’m taking 5 bucks along with me for my Tim’s breakfast and my insulin. Not much going on for tonight either. I want to get some piano practice in.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I found my dialer and small talk with various staff and opened my thermos for a coffee. I scanned through the Metro and various assorted free community papers left lying around from the day staff. They hand these things out at Clairview station for free. I smile and nod no all the time. I have more important things to read then leftist/green news spin in short sound bites. I can browse them at work. Waste of paper.
We ended up doing BOB again. Uggh. After a rocky start it took me 40 minutes to get on the board. It got so loud there between JT, Sundeep,
Michelle, I could barely hear the customer. Thankfully the noise stops at break but I had $140 by break and no CC’s. I got a call from Audrey’s books.
Anne called shortly after that. I got 4 of the “Stardoc” books in. I think I have all of them in the series now. In the 2nd half I think I got 3 sales but we were beating the day shift. I ended up with one CC. I’m thinking that if Rob’s using my fluke 17 CC’s from 2 weeks ago as the new benchmark for 20 for tap shooters, not to many part time tap shooters are going to be getting any CC bonus money. On the cold and semi side they still need to get 12 CC’s.
To get 20 CC’s in one week is doable but not likely all the time. We’ve had 5 new people and one full time part time guy (me) 3 of the people were full time day shift. So because of my fluke 17 CC’s it basically spoils it for all the rest. Rob’s hoping I can get his 17 but best I could do last night was 1 for $40. As of last night I’m on for 14 CC’s. Not to dwell o n this too much but I know where I went wrong. I blame myself mostly for playing onto that CC team game. I get the CC’s mostly for a nightly bonus but Rob is always trying to find new ways to make it harder to get them. I need 6 more CC’s today and if we’re going to do BOB like I think we are, I won’t have much of a chance to get 6 today. So I try to make my CC bonus money in other ways.
After work I leisurely walked over to Audrey’s and there was Trevor. I went down and had a look at my stack of books. “Hey Mission Earth #1” was in. I thought these books were the Star Wars X-wing series but apparently they are “The New Jedi Order.” I checked with the order girl there to see if they were Young Adult. I had the 4 “Stardoc” books and the 2 Star Wars and one Mission Earth. I picked up the 2 Star Wars books. Book 1 and 2 Dark tide 1 and 2. I don’t know why I missed “Vector Prime.” Perhaps it’s out of print. According to the Fantastic Fiction website we looked at there was no indication that these were YA. I picked up the 2 Star Wars books and headed upstairs. Trevor and I went over my next book order series: Warhammer. I can’t believe I missed all these great series in the 1990’s. I could have got a lot of them at “Adventures” in the early 1990’s but I wasn’t into reading too much what with chasing after Mary and just trying to survive. I bought the odd book through out the 1990’s but nothing like I’m doing mow practically buying 1 or even 3 books/week. As long as Audrey’s continues to have the books on at American pricing, I’ll continue to special order. We ordered a few
Warhammer omnibus books. There were a lot of these books that are not in print. I’m sure they are in Ebay somewhere. I paid for my purchase and out the door to Corona station across the street. I don’t know why I don’t just go down the stairs on this side of the street? Amazing how I just only now think of this. It’s a lot of stairs but the stairs are all down. I’ll know better next time.
I got my train home but I just wanted to relax no book reading. I got in the apartment at about 9:15pm. With a bit of relief there was Silky up top looking down on me. And I forgot my reading glasses at the office as well. I did some Xl book keeping and lost track of time barely able to catch my wrestling. Smackdown was great. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 9. Anne came in and made me an Angus beef burger and fries and after that I watched ECW. That was 3 hours of wrestling goodness last night. I went into bed about 1:15am and listened to a bit of Coast. I slept for a good hour and felt totally refreshed, So much so that it was hard trying to go back to sleep. I did some reading and tried going back to sleep but what I got instead was mostly rest.
I got up at 7am with my alarm not going off. Strange. I went and checked Fantastic Fiction and found out that there is an “New Jedi Order” omnibus with the first 3 books including Vector Prime so I’ll be ordering this book Monday.
I think that’s about all for now. I’ll be out of here in about half an hour and I’m taking 5 bucks along with me for my Tim’s breakfast and my insulin. Not much going on for tonight either. I want to get some piano practice in.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Friday, July 18, 2008
I had a
nice relaxing ride into work as I read more from Judas Unchained. JU. Sure enough I barely sat down and here comes Rob asking me how many CC’s I got last night. Yeesh. I said how I got 5 and he remarked in a better maturated towards me that he wants me to get more bonus money. He wasn’t being snide or miserable towards me. I noticed him carrying his Iphone and I asked him about is Apple Iphone hoe much Gb it had and he answered me nicely. The first half was pretty good doing BB as I had 3 CC’s and I have 13 on the week. I need another 8 more to get 20+1 so they all kick in. So I hope I get 4 more for tomorrow and another 4 for Saturday.
In the 2nd half it was slow and I got one more CC and a low total of $271. I got a few cans and bottles and headed for Corona for the train home. 3 cars on the train because of Capital X. Anne called me on the train as I was reading JU. I read a bit more on the bus as well waiting to pull out of Clairview station.
I opened everything up at home and did my admin stuff feeling a bit better about this evening. Anne came in about an hour ago saying she wants to go oover to Safeway and then order us a Pizza Hut. I get $10 for my allowance as well. Anne called me about half an hour ago or so saying Pizza is ordered be prepared for the five minute set up tray etc warning. She said it looks like we’re in for some kind of a system moving through here. It’s 10:55pm as of this writing and the wind is picking up out there. I worry about here when she’s out late like this getting a pizza.
It's shortly after 1am as I write this. nne buzzed up and I hit the door button in the intercom only to notice the front door open about 6 inches. I thought, oh know. Someone went off with the cats. In a panic I accounted for everyone. Whew. As always Pizza hut was great. We watched the news and a bit of ET, which leads me to this:
Hard to believe it was 1973 35 years ago. That was the year I met Charles. I was 20 years old about to break away from the nest as it were. I think when I met Charles I was at the Beach house there just off of Indian Arm in BC. At that time I was working with the Vancouver Golf club. I think I barely lasted a week. I worked at Western Technical supplies that year with Dave Winfield and later at the VGC. I recall staying with Charles and Bev in their home in Burnaby. Otherwise I would have been on the street. I didn’t stay long there as I got the place in the Bench & Gavel Building and the job at A&N.
My paycheque was right. No bonuses though. Anne gave me $10 bucks os I have enough to get 2 of those X-wing Star Wars books later today. Tme to read some JU.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
In the 2nd half it was slow and I got one more CC and a low total of $271. I got a few cans and bottles and headed for Corona for the train home. 3 cars on the train because of Capital X. Anne called me on the train as I was reading JU. I read a bit more on the bus as well waiting to pull out of Clairview station.
I opened everything up at home and did my admin stuff feeling a bit better about this evening. Anne came in about an hour ago saying she wants to go oover to Safeway and then order us a Pizza Hut. I get $10 for my allowance as well. Anne called me about half an hour ago or so saying Pizza is ordered be prepared for the five minute set up tray etc warning. She said it looks like we’re in for some kind of a system moving through here. It’s 10:55pm as of this writing and the wind is picking up out there. I worry about here when she’s out late like this getting a pizza.
It's shortly after 1am as I write this. nne buzzed up and I hit the door button in the intercom only to notice the front door open about 6 inches. I thought, oh know. Someone went off with the cats. In a panic I accounted for everyone. Whew. As always Pizza hut was great. We watched the news and a bit of ET, which leads me to this:
Hard to believe it was 1973 35 years ago. That was the year I met Charles. I was 20 years old about to break away from the nest as it were. I think when I met Charles I was at the Beach house there just off of Indian Arm in BC. At that time I was working with the Vancouver Golf club. I think I barely lasted a week. I worked at Western Technical supplies that year with Dave Winfield and later at the VGC. I recall staying with Charles and Bev in their home in Burnaby. Otherwise I would have been on the street. I didn’t stay long there as I got the place in the Bench & Gavel Building and the job at A&N.
My paycheque was right. No bonuses though. Anne gave me $10 bucks os I have enough to get 2 of those X-wing Star Wars books later today. Tme to read some JU.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Thursday, July 17, 2008
More of the same
My bsl reading the last couple of days have been quite high. Time to start taking the stairs more whenever I can. Exercise helps to lower it down. Maybe taking my insulin to early might have something to do with it. I’ll check it when I get into the office. I feel like going out for a walk right now but Anne’s up in 20 minutes.
We went to bed at our usual time Anne half an hour before me and I was in at 4am. I’m kind of curious as to where Rob’s going with this credit card sales thing by “Friday?” I’ve got 10/20. He said “I better see more then 9 by the end of the week.” The only thing he can do is remove me off taps and put me on semies. Last night Greg had “somewhat confirmed” that it’s against the Law to reduce my hourly rate. So I have with me the phone number for the Alberta Employment Standards and I’ll be contacting someone in that office here in Edmonton about of an employer can at anytime reduce an employee’s hourly rate of pay? If the answer is no, as I think it is, then I know Rob can’t do anything there. All he can do is remove me from taps. Oh and last night I got a $10 bonus for 5 credit cards. That’s the only incentive for me to get CC’s is bonus money. The things I don’t go through with.
This morning however I managed about half an hour of piano practice. I’m doing half an hour each day. A little bit at a time.
I didn’t win on my 6/49 last night. Two winners each won $7,379,200.00 out of $15 million. Two winners won $204,238.00 (I’d settle for that.) 5 numbers + the bonus number and 223 winners got 5 numbers right for $1,513.10. Most likely these winners have been playing for years.
After my piano practice I was able to read a bit more. Before bed and the cbi thing. When I got up at noon after a good 8 hours of sleep I ended up completing my reading page quota of 15 pages/day. That doesn’t mean I stop there. I’ll read maybe 3 more pages on the train going in and another 3 more pages on the train coming back and maybe another 4 before the news. So that’s between 15-25 pages/day.
Anyway, today is payday. That’s the only thing I care about over the next 5 hours. Well reading my book going in and coming back. COH: $14.34 plus I get $10 for an allowance. With any luck at all, I’ll be able to get 2 of the x-Wing Star wars books this weekend. I’ll be going into work tonight focused on my work for CC’s and the job. For the 5 hours I’m away from home, the only things that give me any pleasure is reading going into work, waiting for Anne to call me at break and reading on the train going home.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
We went to bed at our usual time Anne half an hour before me and I was in at 4am. I’m kind of curious as to where Rob’s going with this credit card sales thing by “Friday?” I’ve got 10/20. He said “I better see more then 9 by the end of the week.” The only thing he can do is remove me off taps and put me on semies. Last night Greg had “somewhat confirmed” that it’s against the Law to reduce my hourly rate. So I have with me the phone number for the Alberta Employment Standards and I’ll be contacting someone in that office here in Edmonton about of an employer can at anytime reduce an employee’s hourly rate of pay? If the answer is no, as I think it is, then I know Rob can’t do anything there. All he can do is remove me from taps. Oh and last night I got a $10 bonus for 5 credit cards. That’s the only incentive for me to get CC’s is bonus money. The things I don’t go through with.
This morning however I managed about half an hour of piano practice. I’m doing half an hour each day. A little bit at a time.
I didn’t win on my 6/49 last night. Two winners each won $7,379,200.00 out of $15 million. Two winners won $204,238.00 (I’d settle for that.) 5 numbers + the bonus number and 223 winners got 5 numbers right for $1,513.10. Most likely these winners have been playing for years.
After my piano practice I was able to read a bit more. Before bed and the cbi thing. When I got up at noon after a good 8 hours of sleep I ended up completing my reading page quota of 15 pages/day. That doesn’t mean I stop there. I’ll read maybe 3 more pages on the train going in and another 3 more pages on the train coming back and maybe another 4 before the news. So that’s between 15-25 pages/day.
Anyway, today is payday. That’s the only thing I care about over the next 5 hours. Well reading my book going in and coming back. COH: $14.34 plus I get $10 for an allowance. With any luck at all, I’ll be able to get 2 of the x-Wing Star wars books this weekend. I’ll be going into work tonight focused on my work for CC’s and the job. For the 5 hours I’m away from home, the only things that give me any pleasure is reading going into work, waiting for Anne to call me at break and reading on the train going home.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
It was nice
waiting out at the bus stop there for a few minutes. My bus took me to Clairview station I cracked open my book and I read for a few minutes. Minimum of 15-20 pages/day. I met Gary and Terrell
Outside. JT was off to Starbucks. I grabbed my dialer. We did “Battle of the Badges” and I was doing pretty good there then in the 2nd half I got moved to do CCSD. I ended up doing $580 on a slow night but got 4 credit cards for our team bonus. That gives me more incentive to get the damn things then a friggin $2. I also got a nice collection of cans and bottles to take home. It was pretty busy at the Corona station Concourse. Lots of people out and about tonight due to the “Street Performers festival.” That’s over as of I think Friday but Capital X begins Thursday with the parade. It’s still K-days to me.
Anne called on the train reminding me to turn the oven on for the spuds. When I came in I opened all the windows and turned the oven on. She was on her way home anyway and maybe half an hour behind me. She tossed the Barbie on for the chops and we had a nice dinner watching the news.
Some good movies have been out or are coming out of Hollywood this year. Of course, the recent Indiana Jones movie. Then there was Iron Man and coming up next is The Dark Knight (Batman) movie. Add Hancock and The new Mummy movie and if that weren’t enough there is The Journey to the Center of the Earth and a new X-files movie is also coming out. Then in November there’s a new James Bond movie and even an Harry Potter movie coming out. And if all that isn’t enough there’s a remake of “The day the Earth stood still” and the best for last an new Star Trek movie coming out in December. Despite the upcoming Star Trek movies negative buzz I’m still going to see it but like everything else, when it comes to the dollar theater or cable.
All in all, I had a good day. No Rob. It was into work do the job and head home. I hope today will be an encore of Tuesday.
On Coast right now, Time travel and later UFO’s. I’m listening right now.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Outside. JT was off to Starbucks. I grabbed my dialer. We did “Battle of the Badges” and I was doing pretty good there then in the 2nd half I got moved to do CCSD. I ended up doing $580 on a slow night but got 4 credit cards for our team bonus. That gives me more incentive to get the damn things then a friggin $2. I also got a nice collection of cans and bottles to take home. It was pretty busy at the Corona station Concourse. Lots of people out and about tonight due to the “Street Performers festival.” That’s over as of I think Friday but Capital X begins Thursday with the parade. It’s still K-days to me.
Anne called on the train reminding me to turn the oven on for the spuds. When I came in I opened all the windows and turned the oven on. She was on her way home anyway and maybe half an hour behind me. She tossed the Barbie on for the chops and we had a nice dinner watching the news.
Some good movies have been out or are coming out of Hollywood this year. Of course, the recent Indiana Jones movie. Then there was Iron Man and coming up next is The Dark Knight (Batman) movie. Add Hancock and The new Mummy movie and if that weren’t enough there is The Journey to the Center of the Earth and a new X-files movie is also coming out. Then in November there’s a new James Bond movie and even an Harry Potter movie coming out. And if all that isn’t enough there’s a remake of “The day the Earth stood still” and the best for last an new Star Trek movie coming out in December. Despite the upcoming Star Trek movies negative buzz I’m still going to see it but like everything else, when it comes to the dollar theater or cable.
All in all, I had a good day. No Rob. It was into work do the job and head home. I hope today will be an encore of Tuesday.
On Coast right now, Time travel and later UFO’s. I’m listening right now.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Not a lot
going on today.
last night a piece of my tooth lower left jaw dislodged itself out. It caused me some considerable pain overnight but I'm feeling pretty good right now.
This morning Anne went over my resume and I left out a few things like skills, hobbies and other stuff. I'm going to give it the once over before I send it out. We went over the resume before bed and the cbi thing. I'm not in too much in a hurry to send this out to Pizza right away. I want to see what will happen this week and early next. If Rob is going to drop my hourly rate of pay and put me over to semis, then I'll put my name in at Pizza. If he leaves things the way they are, I'll still put my name in at Pizza. if I get on Pizza and I can keep my current job until mid September, I'll quietly get out but say some nice things to Rob so I don't go off and burn my bridges or anything.
Judas unchained is starting out on a good note. My goal is to read 15 pages min./day.
Speaking of books and such, SF Signal has a discussion about book endings and if they matter. I'll do a Blog this post following this. My take on this is that book endings don't matter so much because a lot of editors pass the books along to print anyway. When purchasing a stand a lone novel, I like to get a 2nd or third opinion from Amazon reviews or even SF Signal reviews. But book reviews are often subjective anyway. What might appeal to the masses might not appeal to me. Still a book review is a good indicator that the book overal is worthwhile.
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
last night a piece of my tooth lower left jaw dislodged itself out. It caused me some considerable pain overnight but I'm feeling pretty good right now.
This morning Anne went over my resume and I left out a few things like skills, hobbies and other stuff. I'm going to give it the once over before I send it out. We went over the resume before bed and the cbi thing. I'm not in too much in a hurry to send this out to Pizza right away. I want to see what will happen this week and early next. If Rob is going to drop my hourly rate of pay and put me over to semis, then I'll put my name in at Pizza. If he leaves things the way they are, I'll still put my name in at Pizza. if I get on Pizza and I can keep my current job until mid September, I'll quietly get out but say some nice things to Rob so I don't go off and burn my bridges or anything.
Judas unchained is starting out on a good note. My goal is to read 15 pages min./day.
Speaking of books and such, SF Signal has a discussion about book endings and if they matter. I'll do a Blog this post following this. My take on this is that book endings don't matter so much because a lot of editors pass the books along to print anyway. When purchasing a stand a lone novel, I like to get a 2nd or third opinion from Amazon reviews or even SF Signal reviews. But book reviews are often subjective anyway. What might appeal to the masses might not appeal to me. Still a book review is a good indicator that the book overal is worthwhile.
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
Monday, July 14, 2008
One more from
last night but I missed this one of Sparky on my beat up desk. I've had this desk for almost 8 years and it's about ready for the bins. Under Sparly's mouth you can see my Pandora's Star book. I finnished it last night.
Here is a bit of a "review" of the book:
Here is a bit of a "review" of the book:
Skinny: A multi cast production in true Space Opera fashion. It’s starts off with an astronomer discovering a solar system that has been enclosed by a strange object. The anomaly is called the Dyson pair. The Commonwealth builds a ship to investigate it only to learn a horrible truth of a group mind alien called The Prime. You can figure the rest out from there.
Pros: Just when you think things are slowing down, they build up when you least expect it. Peter F. Hamilton’s saga of the Commonwealth has a lot of characters but handles them very adroitly. The book stays true with it’s theme and never deviates.
Con’s: Some long passages of description but necessary to the overall story. Other wise there are no Cons in the story.
Bottom line: I was expecting big things from this story and Hamilton delivered. I really enjoyed this book from cover to cover. Even the long passages of description. Buy the sequel together because you won’t want to wait for the next one.
5 e. Jim’s out of 5
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
Sunday, July 13, 2008
New pictures today
I took a few photos earlier this evening. This one is of Silky and Sporty on our balcony. Silky (1997) is the dark one. It's amazing how these two cats from two different litters can take so well together. Their each other's best friend: 
I don't think I ever posted a picture of just Pledges. He's in pretty good shape for a 17 year old cat:
Nothing profesional about this shot. It's of the flowers on our balcony. I just aimed and clicked. The photo didn;t turn out that bad after all:
Today was just laid back. Anne made another outstanding breakfast. I watched a movie called "Where Angles go/trouble follows." The best part about it was Tommy Boyce and Bobby Heart. Also, I read more from "Pandora's Star." I've got another 20 pages to go and I hope I can finish this tonight and begin to read "Judas unchained."
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
I don't think I ever posted a picture of just Pledges. He's in pretty good shape for a 17 year old cat:Nothing profesional about this shot. It's of the flowers on our balcony. I just aimed and clicked. The photo didn;t turn out that bad after all:Today was just laid back. Anne made another outstanding breakfast. I watched a movie called "Where Angles go/trouble follows." The best part about it was Tommy Boyce and Bobby Heart. Also, I read more from "Pandora's Star." I've got another 20 pages to go and I hope I can finish this tonight and begin to read "Judas unchained." Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
Saturday, July 12, 2008
It was with some
hesitancy I decided to stay home today. Anne came in from work/late and handed me $20. What? No $35? I was a little put off by all of this until she reminded me about the $20 earlier. Right. She even suggested that this maneuver of mine to stay home is in way of protest to Rob’s changing the rules on me, again. It was my own fault because I ended up doing more then the required 12 CC’s by doing 17 last Saturday. He took a look at that Monday morning and though, “Shit, if he can do 17 he can do 20.” That’s all that was about. In response to this, I took today off.
Anne gave me my sleeping pill about 2:30am and we were in bed by 4am after I did the cbi thing and spent time with my wife. Other then getting up to pee every hour I had a pretty good sleep. I woke up at 1pm. Lord! Anne shortly afterwards. The pill was still in my system as I could have slept for another 2 hours easily.
I read some more and spent some time with Anne out on our balcony. We each talked about what we were going to do this afternoon. She’s going down to “The bread basket” and then to “Giant Tiger” and finally to the farmers market. Or the farm as she calls it. As for me I got dressed in my red T-shirt and genes and a gene style ball cap with my bus pass holder and $20 in my pouch with the intent of going out to Audrey’s for a book.
We waited outside in the beautiful warm weather for awhile and she decided she’d go feed the birds in the Superstore abandon lot across the street from us. The weather report earlier said the wind was coming in at about 19 kmh. Excellent. She made a hand signal to me that she was going on her way. My bus came and took me to Clairview station. I got a diet Coke to have on the way in. A bit of a wait for the train so I read “Pandora’s Star” until my train came in. I got to the front of the train. Three cars on the train today and it was packed. Most people were heading down to the street performers festival anyway. Great time of year just before “Capital X.” K-days. Lots of things for people to do this summer. I got to Corona station and the escalator up to the upper concourse and 3 flights of stairs to the street. Audrey’s was twenty feet from the subway stairs. I checked the special order books and there were only 2 of the Stardoc books there for me and 3 of the X-Wing Star Wars books. Plus the 2 Vanguard books. At the special order desk I pondered over which was the first one in the series. Maybe I should have checked this before I left. I paid for my purchase and crossed the intersection and down the other way. I initially thought about Tim’s and a coffee but then against it. The train ride home was uneventful but the weather was nice waiting for a #183 while reading my book. Then home.
It took me half an hour to write this entry. Initially I thought this book was other chracters not in TOS. Yet this being my 4th Star Trek book I bought in this decade and upon closer examination the back cover told me differently. It’s 2 books and I feel better about getting them. What was I thinking?
Tonight, I’m going to work on the Pizza resume after supper and sort that out. The idea is to have it emailed hopefully Monday night after work. I’m going to keep both my current job and Pizza and then if Pizza is something I’m comfortable with then I’d love to say to Rob, something like ”I’d like to get my vacation pay out and give you my notice. My last day is Friday January 2nd.” This way I get my cheque and one more will be waiting for me with my stat pay for the following week. In theory. Also tonight, I’m going to do some more piano work we’ll be having supper about 7pm and lunch around midnight and that will wrap up Saturday. So far it’s a decent weekend shaping up. COH: $12.66. I might even swing us a half case of beer as well.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Anne gave me my sleeping pill about 2:30am and we were in bed by 4am after I did the cbi thing and spent time with my wife. Other then getting up to pee every hour I had a pretty good sleep. I woke up at 1pm. Lord! Anne shortly afterwards. The pill was still in my system as I could have slept for another 2 hours easily.
I read some more and spent some time with Anne out on our balcony. We each talked about what we were going to do this afternoon. She’s going down to “The bread basket” and then to “Giant Tiger” and finally to the farmers market. Or the farm as she calls it. As for me I got dressed in my red T-shirt and genes and a gene style ball cap with my bus pass holder and $20 in my pouch with the intent of going out to Audrey’s for a book.
We waited outside in the beautiful warm weather for awhile and she decided she’d go feed the birds in the Superstore abandon lot across the street from us. The weather report earlier said the wind was coming in at about 19 kmh. Excellent. She made a hand signal to me that she was going on her way. My bus came and took me to Clairview station. I got a diet Coke to have on the way in. A bit of a wait for the train so I read “Pandora’s Star” until my train came in. I got to the front of the train. Three cars on the train today and it was packed. Most people were heading down to the street performers festival anyway. Great time of year just before “Capital X.” K-days. Lots of things for people to do this summer. I got to Corona station and the escalator up to the upper concourse and 3 flights of stairs to the street. Audrey’s was twenty feet from the subway stairs. I checked the special order books and there were only 2 of the Stardoc books there for me and 3 of the X-Wing Star Wars books. Plus the 2 Vanguard books. At the special order desk I pondered over which was the first one in the series. Maybe I should have checked this before I left. I paid for my purchase and crossed the intersection and down the other way. I initially thought about Tim’s and a coffee but then against it. The train ride home was uneventful but the weather was nice waiting for a #183 while reading my book. Then home.
It took me half an hour to write this entry. Initially I thought this book was other chracters not in TOS. Yet this being my 4th Star Trek book I bought in this decade and upon closer examination the back cover told me differently. It’s 2 books and I feel better about getting them. What was I thinking?
Tonight, I’m going to work on the Pizza resume after supper and sort that out. The idea is to have it emailed hopefully Monday night after work. I’m going to keep both my current job and Pizza and then if Pizza is something I’m comfortable with then I’d love to say to Rob, something like ”I’d like to get my vacation pay out and give you my notice. My last day is Friday January 2nd.” This way I get my cheque and one more will be waiting for me with my stat pay for the following week. In theory. Also tonight, I’m going to do some more piano work we’ll be having supper about 7pm and lunch around midnight and that will wrap up Saturday. So far it’s a decent weekend shaping up. COH: $12.66. I might even swing us a half case of beer as well.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Friday, July 11, 2008
I got up on
the grumpy side of bed about 11:35am this morning. I wanted to sleep in but I kept on getting up to pee like every hour. Prostrate cancer? Who knows, I’m sure I’ve got something else going on.
I’m reading Peter F. Hamilton’s “Pandora’s Star” and with about 100 pages left in this huge read a surprise: One of the characters is taking something like a train circuit and the prose lists Edmonton as one of the stops. My city. I had to smile at that one. Usually on the international scene Edmonton is always missed because of Calgary. This time Calgary gets the snub. About time. I’m surprised a non Canadian international best selling author would even take the time to mention Edmonton. We’re usually off the radar screen here. Kudos to Peter F. Hamilton.
I assume Anne is going off to the bank this afternoon before she heads out to work. I’d like to go over to Audrey’s tonight to get my books if she gives me the $35 and I can get my 2 6/49 tickets and a bag of Cheese Pleasers would make the weekend complete. Even more so if I take Saturday off. Thing is Brandon is going to be there and it’s like a weekday shift.
Tonight it’s 3 hours of wrestling goodness. 2 hours of Smackdown followed by an hour of ECW. I’m in my glory.
I’m surprised what with the big fire going on in New Westminster the other day Dennis in his blog doesn’t even mention it this week. Since smoke drifted out of the old Woodlands school Wednesday right past his balcony. Woodlands was New West’s biggest fire to date and the building was one of it’s Heritage building sites. Yet Dennis doesn’t even mention it.
This summer has been a big year for the Superhero movie genre. First up was Iron man and then the Hulk and now another Batman movie. Add Hancock to the list and that’s 4 Superhero movies out this year. Yeesh. Superhero is a kind of like a sub genre of Science Fiction but I think there’s way to many of them. It seems Hollywood is running out of ideas. The big blockbuster this year of course was the recent Indiana Jones movie. I don’t go to a lot of movies anymore, what with ticket prices being $8-12 ticket. If I decide to go see anything it will be at the dollar theater. I never really was a big “Going to the movies” type of guy.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I’m reading Peter F. Hamilton’s “Pandora’s Star” and with about 100 pages left in this huge read a surprise: One of the characters is taking something like a train circuit and the prose lists Edmonton as one of the stops. My city. I had to smile at that one. Usually on the international scene Edmonton is always missed because of Calgary. This time Calgary gets the snub. About time. I’m surprised a non Canadian international best selling author would even take the time to mention Edmonton. We’re usually off the radar screen here. Kudos to Peter F. Hamilton.
I assume Anne is going off to the bank this afternoon before she heads out to work. I’d like to go over to Audrey’s tonight to get my books if she gives me the $35 and I can get my 2 6/49 tickets and a bag of Cheese Pleasers would make the weekend complete. Even more so if I take Saturday off. Thing is Brandon is going to be there and it’s like a weekday shift.
Tonight it’s 3 hours of wrestling goodness. 2 hours of Smackdown followed by an hour of ECW. I’m in my glory.
I’m surprised what with the big fire going on in New Westminster the other day Dennis in his blog doesn’t even mention it this week. Since smoke drifted out of the old Woodlands school Wednesday right past his balcony. Woodlands was New West’s biggest fire to date and the building was one of it’s Heritage building sites. Yet Dennis doesn’t even mention it.
This summer has been a big year for the Superhero movie genre. First up was Iron man and then the Hulk and now another Batman movie. Add Hancock to the list and that’s 4 Superhero movies out this year. Yeesh. Superhero is a kind of like a sub genre of Science Fiction but I think there’s way to many of them. It seems Hollywood is running out of ideas. The big blockbuster this year of course was the recent Indiana Jones movie. I don’t go to a lot of movies anymore, what with ticket prices being $8-12 ticket. If I decide to go see anything it will be at the dollar theater. I never really was a big “Going to the movies” type of guy.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
It was a lot
more relaxing going into work this afternoon. I was able to crack open my book and read on the way in. Extra cars on the train because of the Esks game. The first half of the shift was really tough because it was so noisy. I could barely hear the customer. Apparently somebody complained to the Labor board about the paper balls. Good. At 7pm the afternoon shift left. It was quieter in there thank God. I got my paycheque for exactly the ammount I was expecting and got a few CC’s and $500 on the night. I was glad to get out of there and on the train home.
Anne had set some instructions to put the casserole into the oven for supper when she left for her job. I got dinner in the oven when I got home and she came in shortly later. I got in to listen to the radio for the football game and the Esks were ahead by about 3 points. Anne accidently had the game on Sports net. The only Home game the CFL allows us to watch on TV. So I caught the last half of the game and the Esks just blew the Argos out of the picture. Good stuff. I think the score was 28-49 something like that.
An hour later we were eating dinner and watching ET. The way ET displays Hollywood, it’s like half of these Hollywood stars are either recovering from rehab, or having babies for photo ops, or going through high end prenup divorces. Yessh! Don’t they make movies any more? Oh right with writers and actors strikes it’s almost all these celebs have to do. I’m just sayin.
Coast has a lame weekend worth of shows coming up. Saturday, about stuntmen and Sunday athletes and the paranormal.
Seems our housing market here in boom city Edmonton has relaxed a bit. It’s getting easier for people to find homes. At least according to some of the new people I’ve been talking to recently. This is the place to be though because of the jobs.
Today Anne’s going to cash my cheque and I get $35 plus I have a COH of $14.90>$15 So I almost have $50. It’s also possible that Audrey’s might have some more of my book orders in. I hope. If not I’ll pick up two of the Star Trek books.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Anne had set some instructions to put the casserole into the oven for supper when she left for her job. I got dinner in the oven when I got home and she came in shortly later. I got in to listen to the radio for the football game and the Esks were ahead by about 3 points. Anne accidently had the game on Sports net. The only Home game the CFL allows us to watch on TV. So I caught the last half of the game and the Esks just blew the Argos out of the picture. Good stuff. I think the score was 28-49 something like that.
An hour later we were eating dinner and watching ET. The way ET displays Hollywood, it’s like half of these Hollywood stars are either recovering from rehab, or having babies for photo ops, or going through high end prenup divorces. Yessh! Don’t they make movies any more? Oh right with writers and actors strikes it’s almost all these celebs have to do. I’m just sayin.
Coast has a lame weekend worth of shows coming up. Saturday, about stuntmen and Sunday athletes and the paranormal.
Seems our housing market here in boom city Edmonton has relaxed a bit. It’s getting easier for people to find homes. At least according to some of the new people I’ve been talking to recently. This is the place to be though because of the jobs.
Today Anne’s going to cash my cheque and I get $35 plus I have a COH of $14.90>$15 So I almost have $50. It’s also possible that Audrey’s might have some more of my book orders in. I hope. If not I’ll pick up two of the Star Trek books.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Not much going
lately. It's the dog days of summer. It’s a pretty nice day out there with some storm systems lurking around here and there. Again, we went to bed about 4am. Anne was in bed half an hour before me. 4am is when I like to do the cbi thing these days. The only time it changes is on Saturdays.
I’ve got Anne’s resume to use here and I’m calling a few people tonight to see if I can use their names as references. Anne doesn’t think that anyone is going to call them or anything. I’ll be working on that tonight and sending it off this time tomorrow. It kind of ruins my weekend because they do their training on the weekends but it’s just a one shot thing. If people already have another job nobody wants to work weekends.
Before bed Anne and I were watching a great program on the National Geographic channel called “Atom Smasher.” About the LHC and the massiveness of the project. The program was a year old. The system is ready and cooled down. What they are waiting for I have no idea. There are a lot of parts to this thing. The camera ATLAS is said to be able to take 40,000 pictures/second.
On Coast last night they were talking about Witchcraft, which is basically like Wicca with a bit of alchemy tossed into the brew. It’s an interesting topic. I would have listened to more but Anne was tired and didn’t that on all night.
Tonight it’s into work for my 4 hours and get my pay cheque. Of course minus the $34 I was expecting. I’m expecting about $235. Not great but I get anything over $200 is mine.
Still reading Pandora’s Star. I don’t ordinarily like big reads but I’m enjoying this one. I’d like to find a Peter F. Hamilton interview on The making of Pandora’s Star. I’ve read some PFH interviews before. I think I’ve got about 115 pages left to go and I should have it read by next weekend. Then I go on to the sequel.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I’ve got Anne’s resume to use here and I’m calling a few people tonight to see if I can use their names as references. Anne doesn’t think that anyone is going to call them or anything. I’ll be working on that tonight and sending it off this time tomorrow. It kind of ruins my weekend because they do their training on the weekends but it’s just a one shot thing. If people already have another job nobody wants to work weekends.
Before bed Anne and I were watching a great program on the National Geographic channel called “Atom Smasher.” About the LHC and the massiveness of the project. The program was a year old. The system is ready and cooled down. What they are waiting for I have no idea. There are a lot of parts to this thing. The camera ATLAS is said to be able to take 40,000 pictures/second.
On Coast last night they were talking about Witchcraft, which is basically like Wicca with a bit of alchemy tossed into the brew. It’s an interesting topic. I would have listened to more but Anne was tired and didn’t that on all night.
Tonight it’s into work for my 4 hours and get my pay cheque. Of course minus the $34 I was expecting. I’m expecting about $235. Not great but I get anything over $200 is mine.
Still reading Pandora’s Star. I don’t ordinarily like big reads but I’m enjoying this one. I’d like to find a Peter F. Hamilton interview on The making of Pandora’s Star. I’ve read some PFH interviews before. I think I’ve got about 115 pages left to go and I should have it read by next weekend. Then I go on to the sequel.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
This afternon was looking
good until Anne decided to come downtown with me.
I brought a loonie along with me as Anne and I went out to wait for our bus at the bus stop and some yokel stopped me and asked me if I had any spare change. Sorry. He held his hands on the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. Anne looked at me as if I took a risk even making eye contact with him. He seemed harmless enough. I didn't realize until on the train I had forgotten my 2 cans of diet Coke at home. What with her tagging along kind of interrupted my usual routine. She asked me if I'd wait and at Tim's at Corona she'd get me change for another diet Coke I could use at the pop machine in the office. I wanted to wrap this up about the guy earlier and his exposed hands. So I said again his hands were exposed I didn't feel threatened. Then she tore up and down at me as if to say what the deal has that to do with anything. She went on and on ragging on me up the escalator.
I parted company with her at Tim's and let her dwell on it for the rest of the night yesh. She picks the most stupid things to fight about.Rob was in the office probably waiting for me to see if I'd go grab a semi dialer but I didn't. I'm laying low there for now. Anne's got her last resume and I'm using that as a template and tonight I'm going to work on the resume and submit it over night for Pizza. I collected some cans and bottles. Anne never called. She was probably still soar at me. I called the home number and no answer.I had a pretty good night as we did AES. I ended up with $865 and 6 CC's. Not to bad for a Wednesday evening. That's about all for now.
Coast looks really good tonight:
COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
I brought a loonie along with me as Anne and I went out to wait for our bus at the bus stop and some yokel stopped me and asked me if I had any spare change. Sorry. He held his hands on the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. Anne looked at me as if I took a risk even making eye contact with him. He seemed harmless enough. I didn't realize until on the train I had forgotten my 2 cans of diet Coke at home. What with her tagging along kind of interrupted my usual routine. She asked me if I'd wait and at Tim's at Corona she'd get me change for another diet Coke I could use at the pop machine in the office. I wanted to wrap this up about the guy earlier and his exposed hands. So I said again his hands were exposed I didn't feel threatened. Then she tore up and down at me as if to say what the deal has that to do with anything. She went on and on ragging on me up the escalator.
I parted company with her at Tim's and let her dwell on it for the rest of the night yesh. She picks the most stupid things to fight about.Rob was in the office probably waiting for me to see if I'd go grab a semi dialer but I didn't. I'm laying low there for now. Anne's got her last resume and I'm using that as a template and tonight I'm going to work on the resume and submit it over night for Pizza. I collected some cans and bottles. Anne never called. She was probably still soar at me. I called the home number and no answer.I had a pretty good night as we did AES. I ended up with $865 and 6 CC's. Not to bad for a Wednesday evening. That's about all for now.
Coast looks really good tonight:
COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e. Jim
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
SF Signal: Books Received for July 2008, Week 1 (Pick Your Favorite Cover!)
I like this. My comment is #11. SF Signal: Books Received for July 2008, Week 1 (Pick Your Favorite Cover!)
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e.Jim
Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now
e.Jim
I had a headache
going into work yesterday afternoon but maybe something to eat and a coffee will cheer me up. I got in feeling very happy. Broke but happy. I found my end dialer and had a chat about music with Fran as she was ready to go home. Hey, the CC report is up, lets go check it for my bonuses. My 17 CC’s were displayed but what’s this? Did that Shithead Rob screw me around again? I got my $15 CC team bonus for Saturday but where were the $34 CC bonus? By this time my head was pounding. I was in a bad mood and I wasn’t going to ask for CC’s at all because of this and I was letting people know it. There was talk about GST cheques coming in. I went on that when mine comes in I’m taking the day off (alluding to the CC mishap.)
All that and I had a decent 7pm total as well when Anne called at break and we had a talk. I let her know what happened with my CC sales. I wasn’t very happy to say the least. I mentioned to Greg I had a huge headache and he offered me some Advil. Half an hour I was feeling a lot better and I cheered up.
Greg’s putting together an NFL office pool for the regular season and the playoffs. It’s a $20 fee. 15 people 30 teams. Should be fun. I hope I get San Francisco and Pittsburgh. This next time I’m keeping the $300 if I win.
I left and had a little talk with the Security guard who knows all about XL and says that Rob changed the rules on the CC (again) now it’s 20 to qualify. She said Cathy R was so disappointed about it she almost cried. I’m not playing the CC game at all unless there’s a team bonus on a Saturday but I’m going to keep Xl and hopefully get Pizza and I’m going to take Saturday’s off from Xl and Pizza and let Xl just up and send me a “Services are no longer required.” notice. This is how they fire people now. They send them a letter. Once and if I get on at Pizza and do well this is how I want to leave Xl.
All this and I ended up on a high note closing out at $650. Ha, and no CC’s on the night although I had 2-3 CC options I never even mentioned it. On the way out after the Security guard I met Moe and Tom and I asked Moe about the change in CC sales and why I didn’t get mine and he said he would look into it for me. I refuse to have anything more to do with Rob.
Over at Keith Graham’s Blog he’s been having a nifty little widget called “Bloggers Blog This.” By clicking on the icon it opens a link post of his Blog entry directly on ones Blogger Blog page. I tried this out and it posts automatically as a separate Blog post and allows you to add HTML and comment. I’m wondering if this is his own java invention or something Blogger has dreamed up. What ever it is, it’s pretty cool but Blogger has had something simmilar on their toobar for quite sometime now called "send to" but it sadly only works in Blogger. I did this July 1st and I got a ton of hits. Since my Blogger site went live a month ago, I’ve had 282 hits. My website has had a lot more then that of course. I put different things on each site. Blogger is great for photo’s so this is where you’ll see more of my day to day photo’s.
I’m really disappointed in my “Bloglines” widget. It keeps popping up like ever ten minutes and I have no idea why it’s doing this. It’s really beginning to annoy me. I like the service because when my website goes down I have all my Blogs on a separate location but now that I have my Blogger account up live and running again I don’t really see the use of having Bloglines. I’ll keep it running just in case but will delete this service if it’s bugging me to much.
I checked the LHC countdown clock again and seems they have reset this thing for another 30 days until activation. Now it won’t be until August. WTF? I apologize for harping on this thing way to much.
Anyway we got our GST cheque in $120/quarter. The next one won’t be in until October once every 4 months. That’s like 6.6 bus passes for us. Speaking about taxes and all, Liberal Leader Dion was in Edmonton today speaking to a youth conference on Climate change. The idea is to tax GHG polluters but we know where the “Green Shift” will end up hurting Albertans more then anyone else. His tax will take something like $14.5B out of our local economy and send us into an economic rescission because “Why should only Alberta be enjoying a boom right?” Spread the wealth around. What Dion and the rest of the have not Green’s don’t fail to understand is that indirectly we are spreading the wealth around. We’re spreading it around every time some yokel from Manitoba comes out West and gets a job here that pays $12/hour. There’s lots of work here but the boom won’t last for ever. Even more so when Shithead like Dion and Jack Layton get their way. And what about the auto industry in Ontario? Do you think they are going to toot Dion’s carbon tax horn? We can only hope that Dion won’t get elected Oct 19th 2009. That’s the next Federal election here in Canada. If he does watch for the carbon tax to be enforced almost immediate. A lot can happen over the next 16 months though.
Oh and Monday night Raw was pretty good last night.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
All that and I had a decent 7pm total as well when Anne called at break and we had a talk. I let her know what happened with my CC sales. I wasn’t very happy to say the least. I mentioned to Greg I had a huge headache and he offered me some Advil. Half an hour I was feeling a lot better and I cheered up.
Greg’s putting together an NFL office pool for the regular season and the playoffs. It’s a $20 fee. 15 people 30 teams. Should be fun. I hope I get San Francisco and Pittsburgh. This next time I’m keeping the $300 if I win.
I left and had a little talk with the Security guard who knows all about XL and says that Rob changed the rules on the CC (again) now it’s 20 to qualify. She said Cathy R was so disappointed about it she almost cried. I’m not playing the CC game at all unless there’s a team bonus on a Saturday but I’m going to keep Xl and hopefully get Pizza and I’m going to take Saturday’s off from Xl and Pizza and let Xl just up and send me a “Services are no longer required.” notice. This is how they fire people now. They send them a letter. Once and if I get on at Pizza and do well this is how I want to leave Xl.
All this and I ended up on a high note closing out at $650. Ha, and no CC’s on the night although I had 2-3 CC options I never even mentioned it. On the way out after the Security guard I met Moe and Tom and I asked Moe about the change in CC sales and why I didn’t get mine and he said he would look into it for me. I refuse to have anything more to do with Rob.
Over at Keith Graham’s Blog he’s been having a nifty little widget called “Bloggers Blog This.” By clicking on the icon it opens a link post of his Blog entry directly on ones Blogger Blog page. I tried this out and it posts automatically as a separate Blog post and allows you to add HTML and comment. I’m wondering if this is his own java invention or something Blogger has dreamed up. What ever it is, it’s pretty cool but Blogger has had something simmilar on their toobar for quite sometime now called "send to" but it sadly only works in Blogger. I did this July 1st and I got a ton of hits. Since my Blogger site went live a month ago, I’ve had 282 hits. My website has had a lot more then that of course. I put different things on each site. Blogger is great for photo’s so this is where you’ll see more of my day to day photo’s.
I’m really disappointed in my “Bloglines” widget. It keeps popping up like ever ten minutes and I have no idea why it’s doing this. It’s really beginning to annoy me. I like the service because when my website goes down I have all my Blogs on a separate location but now that I have my Blogger account up live and running again I don’t really see the use of having Bloglines. I’ll keep it running just in case but will delete this service if it’s bugging me to much.
I checked the LHC countdown clock again and seems they have reset this thing for another 30 days until activation. Now it won’t be until August. WTF? I apologize for harping on this thing way to much.
Anyway we got our GST cheque in $120/quarter. The next one won’t be in until October once every 4 months. That’s like 6.6 bus passes for us. Speaking about taxes and all, Liberal Leader Dion was in Edmonton today speaking to a youth conference on Climate change. The idea is to tax GHG polluters but we know where the “Green Shift” will end up hurting Albertans more then anyone else. His tax will take something like $14.5B out of our local economy and send us into an economic rescission because “Why should only Alberta be enjoying a boom right?” Spread the wealth around. What Dion and the rest of the have not Green’s don’t fail to understand is that indirectly we are spreading the wealth around. We’re spreading it around every time some yokel from Manitoba comes out West and gets a job here that pays $12/hour. There’s lots of work here but the boom won’t last for ever. Even more so when Shithead like Dion and Jack Layton get their way. And what about the auto industry in Ontario? Do you think they are going to toot Dion’s carbon tax horn? We can only hope that Dion won’t get elected Oct 19th 2009. That’s the next Federal election here in Canada. If he does watch for the carbon tax to be enforced almost immediate. A lot can happen over the next 16 months though.
Oh and Monday night Raw was pretty good last night.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Monday, July 7, 2008
It's a beautiful
Monday out there. As for me it’s the same old Monday routine: Into work come home watch Raw. I woke up with a headache this morning and went to bed with another soar tooth in my lower right side of my mouth. At the moment I’m working on my first coffee feeling pretty good.
I got up late so I missed the markets this morning. I think Oil is still at around $145/barrel. I recall back in 1995 Oil was at $17/barrel and we were in the heart of a recession here. My father was still alive in 1995 and I was still living in my bachelor apartment. Despite all that the 1990’s were good to me. I liked everything about the ‘90’s except the music. I was working most of the time from 1990-1994. I had to use welfare the odd time in between unemployment cheques to get that started. 1995-1999 I had about half a dozen different jobs and did some post secondary education while on UIC. I went on a weekend Amway trip to Minneapolis in 1997 and that was fun. I was working with Royal Oak furniture at the time but it was only a temporary project. I could have got on with my current place of employment right after that but I thought they had nothing but part time hours. I got Pledges and Silky in the 1990’s. I had Veronica as my girlfriend. I should have kept her longer then I did. The Oiler’s won their last Stanley Cup in the 1990’s as well.
Coast has another boring show on tonight. A medium and “healer.” Oh brother. The LHC will be activated today. The most anticipated scientific event in the world and Coast has a flakey medium on? Maybe they might preempt the show for this important occasion but I doubt it. Maybe George will have something about it the first hour.
Even despite the challenges of the 2000’s I’m doing a lot better then I did in the 1990’s or at any other time of my life. The local economy is a lot better. I got married and joined the Lodge, I’m even learning how to play piano. I’ve got a better computer then I’ve ever had before. We got Sparky and Sporty within the last 8 years and I published a short story last year as well. The down parts of the 2,000’s have been my vision loss. We didn’t know what was going to happen until last June when the laser surgery worked. Before that I had learned I have diabetes and I was in the Royal Alex hospital for a week. I’m taking 2 shots of 18 units of insulin everyday. Sure I miss living in the 1970’s and 1980’s and who wouldn’t want to live at a time when they were younger but for what it’s worth life in the 1990’s and in this decade have been a lot better.
I think we all have had events in our lives where we wish we could go back and maybe change something. But by changing the past (even if we could) we could miss out on the good things that have happened as well. I need a connection with my past but not to dwell on it. My past helps me appreciate what I have now. If that makes any sense. The only things I miss about the 1990’s is gaming with my friends over “Starfleet Battles” and playing “Advanced Squad Leader.” I’m missing one ASL rule book change and about 8 modules. The last ASL module I bought was Croix de Guerre and that was in 1995. Alright enough of that.
I’ve been checking the LHC countdown clock on their website over the last few days but it’s been down lately. Today is ground zero anyway for the activation of the LHC. It’s not going to be the end of the world. The real-world spin-off application of the LHC will be “The Grid” and that excites me more then the remote possibility of finding the Higgs particle. I’m not suggesting that they won’t find the Higgs or even find traversable wormholes but I’m not going to hold my breath expecting any big news like: “We have found wormholes and are finding ways to keep them open for longer then a billionths of a second.” They’ll be turning the LHC on today but we’ll never be updated about it until the make an important discover, whenever that’ll be. So don’t hold your breath waiting. “Bring on the Grid for the rest of us,” is all I can say. I’m still trying to find a site that says “We’re activating the LHC in one minute.” But so far nobody’s saying anything about it.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I got up late so I missed the markets this morning. I think Oil is still at around $145/barrel. I recall back in 1995 Oil was at $17/barrel and we were in the heart of a recession here. My father was still alive in 1995 and I was still living in my bachelor apartment. Despite all that the 1990’s were good to me. I liked everything about the ‘90’s except the music. I was working most of the time from 1990-1994. I had to use welfare the odd time in between unemployment cheques to get that started. 1995-1999 I had about half a dozen different jobs and did some post secondary education while on UIC. I went on a weekend Amway trip to Minneapolis in 1997 and that was fun. I was working with Royal Oak furniture at the time but it was only a temporary project. I could have got on with my current place of employment right after that but I thought they had nothing but part time hours. I got Pledges and Silky in the 1990’s. I had Veronica as my girlfriend. I should have kept her longer then I did. The Oiler’s won their last Stanley Cup in the 1990’s as well.
Coast has another boring show on tonight. A medium and “healer.” Oh brother. The LHC will be activated today. The most anticipated scientific event in the world and Coast has a flakey medium on? Maybe they might preempt the show for this important occasion but I doubt it. Maybe George will have something about it the first hour.
Even despite the challenges of the 2000’s I’m doing a lot better then I did in the 1990’s or at any other time of my life. The local economy is a lot better. I got married and joined the Lodge, I’m even learning how to play piano. I’ve got a better computer then I’ve ever had before. We got Sparky and Sporty within the last 8 years and I published a short story last year as well. The down parts of the 2,000’s have been my vision loss. We didn’t know what was going to happen until last June when the laser surgery worked. Before that I had learned I have diabetes and I was in the Royal Alex hospital for a week. I’m taking 2 shots of 18 units of insulin everyday. Sure I miss living in the 1970’s and 1980’s and who wouldn’t want to live at a time when they were younger but for what it’s worth life in the 1990’s and in this decade have been a lot better.
I think we all have had events in our lives where we wish we could go back and maybe change something. But by changing the past (even if we could) we could miss out on the good things that have happened as well. I need a connection with my past but not to dwell on it. My past helps me appreciate what I have now. If that makes any sense. The only things I miss about the 1990’s is gaming with my friends over “Starfleet Battles” and playing “Advanced Squad Leader.” I’m missing one ASL rule book change and about 8 modules. The last ASL module I bought was Croix de Guerre and that was in 1995. Alright enough of that.
I’ve been checking the LHC countdown clock on their website over the last few days but it’s been down lately. Today is ground zero anyway for the activation of the LHC. It’s not going to be the end of the world. The real-world spin-off application of the LHC will be “The Grid” and that excites me more then the remote possibility of finding the Higgs particle. I’m not suggesting that they won’t find the Higgs or even find traversable wormholes but I’m not going to hold my breath expecting any big news like: “We have found wormholes and are finding ways to keep them open for longer then a billionths of a second.” They’ll be turning the LHC on today but we’ll never be updated about it until the make an important discover, whenever that’ll be. So don’t hold your breath waiting. “Bring on the Grid for the rest of us,” is all I can say. I’m still trying to find a site that says “We’re activating the LHC in one minute.” But so far nobody’s saying anything about it.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Home and rituals
I’ve no aspirations on becoming a world traveler. My life is dull, quiet and uninteresting. You know that’s the way I like it. A big travel adventure for me is going across town for something like I did a few weekends at WEM.
I like staying at home or at best heading into work. I like stability. When I come me I’m in my shorts, underwear. I know more info then you need to know. Right now I’m unshaven since yesterday morning and sitting in fornt of the screen in my gonch. My week for the most part is Monday at 4pm I’m out there at the bus shelter in my genes running shoes and a T-shirt when it’s warm and my back pack waiting for a bus to Clairview. A pouch on a chain is draped around my neck is where I keep some cash, my bus pass and cell phone. Twice a week I like to pick up a lottery ticket and a Diet Coke and by 4:20pm I’m at Corona station heading up 2 escalators for the ramp just outside Tim Horton’s. The ramp takes me up to the parkade emptying out and to 106th st across the street from the Baker Center building. I go through 2 sets of doors or to the pharmacy for some cheese pleasers and then to the elevator. A friendly hi to the security guard then to the 2nd floor and I’m finding my end dialer, From there I’m collecting pop cans and after I’ve gotten a good haul it’s wash my hands and get a recap and have a coffee. Then the night room manager gives a kick off and we work. By 7pm Anne is calling to chat and I’m back at it until 9pm. At 9pm I’ve everything packed up and ready to go for my train at 9:20pm. There’s my #183 and that gives me a brief five minutes where I can read and then the bus pulls out by 9:45pm and I’m home and fire up the computer and or catch an Oiler game or wrestling. Anne is in by about 10:15pm and starts supper an hour later. At 11pm I’m watching the news to midnight. A bit of “Entertainment tonight” and by 12:30am I’m on the computer. Most often on the computer blogging or reading until 3am. We put on Coast and by 4:00am I’m doing the cbi thing and back to bed for 8 hours. I’m up at noon to catch the markets and then back to the computer to check on my blogs etc. By 2pm Anne’s up and about doing her thing. Sometimes she goes out to get some things for an hour. About 2:30pm the computer is shut off and I’m having a shower cleaning up getting into my jeans and Anne’s making us a lunch and my sandwiches etc. At 2pm I’m taking my insulin and watching Star Trek or something. Anne’s out the door by 3:30pm and I’m cleaning up, getting my thermos ready for coffee my 2 cans of pop etc. By 4pm I’m outside waiting for the bus and the whole procedure starts like that Monday through Friday.
The only times that changes is when I go to my lodge nights every other Thursday and Saturday. Saturdays I get up early at 6:30am wake up do my blogging etc and get ready to leave to catch the 9am bus. You can almost set your clock by me during the week half the time.
This exercise is basically to show how much my life has settled down over the last 8 years. Sure I’ve had my ups and downs, like getting married in 2000, joining my lodge in 2002 writing several books that never got anywhere. I recall in 2004 acquiring diabetes. That was a real downer. I also recall obtaining Sparky and Sporty. Other then Anne and I fighting from time to time things have been really ho hum. One of the more happier moments I’ve had was getting in contact with my family only to learn that my brother Rick had died. More recently I’ve taken up an interest in playing the piano and I wish I would have done so in 1972. I think my life is better then it ever ha been. Tonight Anne and I are having a couple of steaks and watching “The Honeymooners” before bed. If all goes well and Anne is working still I’ll be getting myself an Xbox 360 Elite and a 160Gb IPod, a nice Ramada Inn dinner Summerslam. Other then being settled, I like my life the way it is now.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I like staying at home or at best heading into work. I like stability. When I come me I’m in my shorts, underwear. I know more info then you need to know. Right now I’m unshaven since yesterday morning and sitting in fornt of the screen in my gonch. My week for the most part is Monday at 4pm I’m out there at the bus shelter in my genes running shoes and a T-shirt when it’s warm and my back pack waiting for a bus to Clairview. A pouch on a chain is draped around my neck is where I keep some cash, my bus pass and cell phone. Twice a week I like to pick up a lottery ticket and a Diet Coke and by 4:20pm I’m at Corona station heading up 2 escalators for the ramp just outside Tim Horton’s. The ramp takes me up to the parkade emptying out and to 106th st across the street from the Baker Center building. I go through 2 sets of doors or to the pharmacy for some cheese pleasers and then to the elevator. A friendly hi to the security guard then to the 2nd floor and I’m finding my end dialer, From there I’m collecting pop cans and after I’ve gotten a good haul it’s wash my hands and get a recap and have a coffee. Then the night room manager gives a kick off and we work. By 7pm Anne is calling to chat and I’m back at it until 9pm. At 9pm I’ve everything packed up and ready to go for my train at 9:20pm. There’s my #183 and that gives me a brief five minutes where I can read and then the bus pulls out by 9:45pm and I’m home and fire up the computer and or catch an Oiler game or wrestling. Anne is in by about 10:15pm and starts supper an hour later. At 11pm I’m watching the news to midnight. A bit of “Entertainment tonight” and by 12:30am I’m on the computer. Most often on the computer blogging or reading until 3am. We put on Coast and by 4:00am I’m doing the cbi thing and back to bed for 8 hours. I’m up at noon to catch the markets and then back to the computer to check on my blogs etc. By 2pm Anne’s up and about doing her thing. Sometimes she goes out to get some things for an hour. About 2:30pm the computer is shut off and I’m having a shower cleaning up getting into my jeans and Anne’s making us a lunch and my sandwiches etc. At 2pm I’m taking my insulin and watching Star Trek or something. Anne’s out the door by 3:30pm and I’m cleaning up, getting my thermos ready for coffee my 2 cans of pop etc. By 4pm I’m outside waiting for the bus and the whole procedure starts like that Monday through Friday.
The only times that changes is when I go to my lodge nights every other Thursday and Saturday. Saturdays I get up early at 6:30am wake up do my blogging etc and get ready to leave to catch the 9am bus. You can almost set your clock by me during the week half the time.
This exercise is basically to show how much my life has settled down over the last 8 years. Sure I’ve had my ups and downs, like getting married in 2000, joining my lodge in 2002 writing several books that never got anywhere. I recall in 2004 acquiring diabetes. That was a real downer. I also recall obtaining Sparky and Sporty. Other then Anne and I fighting from time to time things have been really ho hum. One of the more happier moments I’ve had was getting in contact with my family only to learn that my brother Rick had died. More recently I’ve taken up an interest in playing the piano and I wish I would have done so in 1972. I think my life is better then it ever ha been. Tonight Anne and I are having a couple of steaks and watching “The Honeymooners” before bed. If all goes well and Anne is working still I’ll be getting myself an Xbox 360 Elite and a 160Gb IPod, a nice Ramada Inn dinner Summerslam. Other then being settled, I like my life the way it is now.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Mostly from last night
Yesterday was a bit of a washout for me. I wasn’t having a very good go of things as Friday’s go. I took my $20 with me and got a diet Pepsi and a 6/49 ticket. The draw this time around is for a “measly” $9 Million. What happened to the $20’s and $30 Millions? I read a bit more on Pandora’s Star on the train going in. The weather was humid crossing the parkade. I got to my dialer and met Fran getting the day bottles and cans and I got a few she couldn’t carry. Full parking lots at Rexall place. What was going on? Extra cars on the trains tonight.
We had 10 tap shooters, most of Team India. I got a paper ball almost in the eye and that put me in a bad mood. I got a CC my first sale for $50 and I got 3 more by break. Anne called and said she was going to go to Superstore to get me those nice chicken fingers I like. And the real macaroni for my lunch tonight. She wasn‘t doing to well at her job. I’d hate to work for her company. I wasn‘t in a very good mood all night and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Low and behold I ended up with 6 CC’s and I made my qualifying bonus "CC quota."
After work Shank )one of the East Indian kids walked with me to where I needed to cross at Audrey’s in the light rainfall we were receiving. Trevor said how he ordered the next 3 Stardoc books and the first 3 in the “Star Wars X-wing books.” Good stuff. Nothing had come in for me yet. I had a brief look around and I ended up getting the L. Ron Hubbard “Black Genesis” book. “Mission Earth” is still on back order. I don’t know what’s going on with those. They also have the Star Wars “Legacy” books in and I’m eyeing those among others. I paid for my book and caught the train home. What 2 cars only? The parking lot at Rexall was empty. I wonder what was going on? To early for a concert. I had a wait in my bus. While reading I overheard a guy and his date were talking about possibly Warcraft or a game like that. She was really into the game as well. Lucky guy.
I got home and opened all windows and fired up the AC did my admin stuff and settled into watch “Smackdown.” That was fun. Anne came in at 11pm and made me my lunch. That was much better. I enjoyed Smackdown and then on the heels of that, ECW. Good times. I went to bed after that and listened to a bit of Coast. Sleep came really hard as it was really warm in our apartment overnight. I rested and managed to get a bit of sleep. Otherwise I feel alright.
Not much going on today. It’s into work for my Tim’s breakfast and I’ll bring my insulin in. If all goes well and I get all my hours and my stat pay for this coming up Friday I should have an extra $50. I’m looking at this JFK book “The radical right and the murder of JFK.” Trevor said they’d need a deposit because it’s another POD book. $5 down and $55 when it’s in. Usually these POD books are pretty good deliver time wise.
Just 2 days 14 hours until CERN brings their LHC online. I don’t know if that’s when they’ll be conducting their first experiment or anything. We’ll see. I’m not expecting anything soon.
As for me, I’ve got to get ready, post this and get the heck out of here.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
We had 10 tap shooters, most of Team India. I got a paper ball almost in the eye and that put me in a bad mood. I got a CC my first sale for $50 and I got 3 more by break. Anne called and said she was going to go to Superstore to get me those nice chicken fingers I like. And the real macaroni for my lunch tonight. She wasn‘t doing to well at her job. I’d hate to work for her company. I wasn‘t in a very good mood all night and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Low and behold I ended up with 6 CC’s and I made my qualifying bonus "CC quota."
After work Shank )one of the East Indian kids walked with me to where I needed to cross at Audrey’s in the light rainfall we were receiving. Trevor said how he ordered the next 3 Stardoc books and the first 3 in the “Star Wars X-wing books.” Good stuff. Nothing had come in for me yet. I had a brief look around and I ended up getting the L. Ron Hubbard “Black Genesis” book. “Mission Earth” is still on back order. I don’t know what’s going on with those. They also have the Star Wars “Legacy” books in and I’m eyeing those among others. I paid for my book and caught the train home. What 2 cars only? The parking lot at Rexall was empty. I wonder what was going on? To early for a concert. I had a wait in my bus. While reading I overheard a guy and his date were talking about possibly Warcraft or a game like that. She was really into the game as well. Lucky guy.
I got home and opened all windows and fired up the AC did my admin stuff and settled into watch “Smackdown.” That was fun. Anne came in at 11pm and made me my lunch. That was much better. I enjoyed Smackdown and then on the heels of that, ECW. Good times. I went to bed after that and listened to a bit of Coast. Sleep came really hard as it was really warm in our apartment overnight. I rested and managed to get a bit of sleep. Otherwise I feel alright.
Not much going on today. It’s into work for my Tim’s breakfast and I’ll bring my insulin in. If all goes well and I get all my hours and my stat pay for this coming up Friday I should have an extra $50. I’m looking at this JFK book “The radical right and the murder of JFK.” Trevor said they’d need a deposit because it’s another POD book. $5 down and $55 when it’s in. Usually these POD books are pretty good deliver time wise.
Just 2 days 14 hours until CERN brings their LHC online. I don’t know if that’s when they’ll be conducting their first experiment or anything. We’ll see. I’m not expecting anything soon.
As for me, I’ve got to get ready, post this and get the heck out of here.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Friday, July 4, 2008
Going into work
was good even though there was a bit of a delay. Weather wise out there it was +32C. Very warm. I got in and found my chair and began looking for bottles/cans. I had a good evening I think about $350 by break and a couple of CC’s. Anne had given me my bank card to save her a trip to the bank. She called at break. I called my book ordering guy at Audrey’s to see if he could order some of the “Dragonlance” and early “Stargate” books. I’d call back in an hour. I got 4 credit card sales and $615. I had a pretty good evening although Audrey’s had bad news for me. The Dragonlance and Stargate books are out of print. I could look for them on EBay but paperback books have spine damage and are not always in the best of condition. I left out of there at 9pm in the very warm humid air. I walked up half a block finding a place to sit down and tie my shoe at the Sun life building. Ah the bus stop. People waiting. Bus coming in. I took that up the block to the bank and did my banking without a hook. Easy. No trouble. I bought a diet Coke for on the way home next door and a ten minute wait for the Clairview train home.
The Eskimo game was still underway seeing all the fans in the stands underneath the lights. Even my bus was there waiting. It was a beautiful night. I got in to try and catch the Eskimo football game on the radio. Late in the 3rd quarter 22 something to 14 favoring the Esks. Good stuff. Anne came in and got my bank card and over to Superstore. Anne made me a simple lunch. Some stuffed finger food or whatever they were and Mexie fries and her fried tortia chip thingies and a bit of pasta.
I watched the evening Global News. Wow, Oil at $145/barrel. That’s another record breaking high for Oil. This time last year I think it was pushing $72/barrel.
Current temperature is +24C and it’s going to be a warm one overnight. Fortunately we have our air conditioner on cooling down the bedroom. Add the fan and so it’s going to be comfortable sleeping.
I’m kind of disappointed that I can’t get the early “Dragonlance” books brand new. I don’t want to get them second hand. There are some pretty god Ebay items and some of those book are said to be in good condition with very little if any spine increases. One Ebay seller has the nerve to sell the first 6 Dragonlance books and the condition of these items are so poor they look like they could fall apart just in the handling. Speaking of reading, I’ve got another 200 pages in “Pandora’s Star” and I’m done. I need to get into some good old Fantasy next.
Anne gave me my $20 allowance and this weekend I’m definitely going to get my resume up for Pizza. Some of those Ebay books look pretty good.
Well, it’s another Friday and after work I’m heading over to Audrey’s to pick up one of the “Vanguard” Star Trek books and catch Smackdown and ECW.
I haven’t forgotten about my own novel “Fiber.” it’s in storage mode right now. Hopefully I’ll get to it this fall. It needs work. Entry
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
The Eskimo game was still underway seeing all the fans in the stands underneath the lights. Even my bus was there waiting. It was a beautiful night. I got in to try and catch the Eskimo football game on the radio. Late in the 3rd quarter 22 something to 14 favoring the Esks. Good stuff. Anne came in and got my bank card and over to Superstore. Anne made me a simple lunch. Some stuffed finger food or whatever they were and Mexie fries and her fried tortia chip thingies and a bit of pasta.
I watched the evening Global News. Wow, Oil at $145/barrel. That’s another record breaking high for Oil. This time last year I think it was pushing $72/barrel.
Current temperature is +24C and it’s going to be a warm one overnight. Fortunately we have our air conditioner on cooling down the bedroom. Add the fan and so it’s going to be comfortable sleeping.
I’m kind of disappointed that I can’t get the early “Dragonlance” books brand new. I don’t want to get them second hand. There are some pretty god Ebay items and some of those book are said to be in good condition with very little if any spine increases. One Ebay seller has the nerve to sell the first 6 Dragonlance books and the condition of these items are so poor they look like they could fall apart just in the handling. Speaking of reading, I’ve got another 200 pages in “Pandora’s Star” and I’m done. I need to get into some good old Fantasy next.
Anne gave me my $20 allowance and this weekend I’m definitely going to get my resume up for Pizza. Some of those Ebay books look pretty good.
Well, it’s another Friday and after work I’m heading over to Audrey’s to pick up one of the “Vanguard” Star Trek books and catch Smackdown and ECW.
I haven’t forgotten about my own novel “Fiber.” it’s in storage mode right now. Hopefully I’ll get to it this fall. It needs work. Entry
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Canada Day hangover
I got into the office right on time. And with a better attitude then I’ve had before. I collected some bottles and cans and I got my stat pay as well. Work wise once JT, Kingsley and Bud left at break we had 4 tap shooters including me. Nobody wants to work evenings. With the nice weather out there, who could blame them? I was beginning to wonder if Rob would cut back our evening shift because we’re not pulling in line hour. Anne called me at break and we had a chat. In the 2nd half I almost got my 2nd CC’s but the card expired in May. I ended up with $510, which was top total for the room.
I got out of there at 9pm and I took the train South this time to read and relax. I got to Clairview at 9:35pm and there was the #183 bus waiting for me and with my bottles and cans I ended up going in the back way. Getting off at Sifton school. I took a look at the sidewalk stamp and saw the year 1975. That’s when the infrastructure and this area was put together.
Coast has a pretty good show tonight about the “Inner Earth.” inspired by the movie coming out by the same name no doubt. I don’t think it has anything to do with the “Hollow earth.” Tomorrow Coast has their open lines show to celebrate the US 4th of July.
I got home to no, inspection notice but I’m not holding my breath yet that management wont find an excuse not to hand one out to us. We paid our rent today and we’re ok for another month but this month, I want to try and get out of Xl. Of it’s only just part time.
I checked on my lotto tickets and, nope I didn’t win “the big one.” I got one number and that was the bonus number. According to 6/49 website nobody won the grand prize draw this evening. $3,930, Somebody won: $280,784.20. The prize gets carried over for Saturdays draw. I’m getting my 2 tickets. I only bought one this round although I could have bought one but decided not to.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
I got out of there at 9pm and I took the train South this time to read and relax. I got to Clairview at 9:35pm and there was the #183 bus waiting for me and with my bottles and cans I ended up going in the back way. Getting off at Sifton school. I took a look at the sidewalk stamp and saw the year 1975. That’s when the infrastructure and this area was put together.
Coast has a pretty good show tonight about the “Inner Earth.” inspired by the movie coming out by the same name no doubt. I don’t think it has anything to do with the “Hollow earth.” Tomorrow Coast has their open lines show to celebrate the US 4th of July.
I got home to no, inspection notice but I’m not holding my breath yet that management wont find an excuse not to hand one out to us. We paid our rent today and we’re ok for another month but this month, I want to try and get out of Xl. Of it’s only just part time.
I checked on my lotto tickets and, nope I didn’t win “the big one.” I got one number and that was the bonus number. According to 6/49 website nobody won the grand prize draw this evening. $3,930, Somebody won: $280,784.20. The prize gets carried over for Saturdays draw. I’m getting my 2 tickets. I only bought one this round although I could have bought one but decided not to.
Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now
e. Jim
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