It's been an intersting couple of days here as not a lot is going on

I didn’t sleep very well last night. I had a blog post ready to go but I never got the chance to post it. We got some more crazy weather all day. It was snowing like a blizzard then Sun and snow mixed. The snow was even at some point blowing sideways. I got to my bus stoop and met Anne coming from across the street to meet me. I forgot the cell phone and she began threatening to get rid of them and wanted to start a fight. Uh-uh. I don’t need this on my way to work. I read for a bit on the train and noted the activity North of the Wayne Gretzky overpass just North of the Rexall place East parking lot. Something’s going on in there, plus we got the 23rd Ave interchange all geared up and ready to go and there’s Station Pointe (parkade ready to go) plus under construction is the Epcor tower. Also, there’s construction at the U of A and the parkade beside the LRT Health Sciences Center. And that’s just the projects that I know of. Not to mention the Southgate/Century park LRT leg development and the Century park development itself under construction. Despite the recession there’s lots of stuff still going on around the city.


I got into the office to the pharmacy to have the girl check my ticket. I signed it and she put it through. It makes a little “Wuwho” noise indicating a winner, I got $5 bucks. Upstairs I got my dialer. We got new headsets now. We’ve been told each one costs $129. I got a lot of cans and bottles. Super wanted me to do taps for ASB. The first hour I got absolutely nothing. Everyone else was getting $35’s here, $50’s there, CC sales left right and center. By 6pm I had nothing because I wasn’t reloading taps. I should have just to get some sales under my belt. At 6pm I asked Brandin to move me to WCS, which he gladly did but that was after all the big taps were gone from that. I ended up with just under a $100 bucks by break. I got the rest of the bottles and cans and made a $2 bet with DC on the Chicago/Flames game. I got a $10 CC sale and $165 for a lousy total but I didn’t feel to badly. Also the Flames were losing at the end of the 2nd period 3-0. I was happy about that when I left. Yet unlike a lot of Oiler fans happy for the Flames loss, I was rooting for Chicago because my father was a Hawks fan back in the 1960's before we got the Canucks in Vancouver. I have fond memories of mom serving us hamburgers sitting around with pops watching "Hockey night in Canada" on our trusty Black and White TV. Dad hated the Habs and we had a friendly rivalry going with our neigbors across the lane behind our house. During the playoff's especially if it was Montreal and they scored across the street they'd break out pots and pans aiming at our direction. When Chicago scored a goal, my mom would return the favour getting us kids to join in the fun. Saturday nights were pretty noisy around Coquitlam in our part of the neiborhood. It never got out of hand but it was a lot of fun. I can't recall what their last names were. They were more friends of my parents then the were of us kids but they came over often when the weather was nice during the summer I recall.

I was glad to get out of the office and I met up with Trevor, my book ordering guy at Audrey’s and he asked me how I enjoyed the evening with Robert J Sawyer last week. It was a blast. I caught my train and didn’t feel much like reading on the way home. It’s usually pretty noisy going back and I‘m considering earplugs just so I can read. When I got home I watched the last of the Hawke’s taking out the Flames. I loved it. I also won that $2 bet from DC. And the 8th place Ducks beat out the first place SJ. I loved that too. That could have been the Oiler’s in place of the Ducks. I got in and Anne was out so I watched Raw. On the heals of “Backlash“, Raw was pretty decent last night. I’d rate it an 8/10. Anne laughed at it as well with the Divas. Anne made us a nice roasted potatoes and bbq chicken breast supper and I read more from BRH. I should have this read by the end of the month.


Despite the economy and all here, Anne and I are doing alright. This last weekend she confirmed the Best Buy gift voucher she’s getting, and she’s giving that to me. Plus she got a nice thank you letter from a customer. My job is going ok and her job is doing fine. We have our rent for May already and most of our bills caught up. Also, I’m comfortable in the Lodge EA exam work I need to do in 2 weeks, Things are going good here.

Yesterday in Strangeness: The writer Frank Belknap Long was born on this date in New York in 1903. He push boundaries of writing weird fiction, fantasy, and science fiction in such classics as The Dark Beasts: And Eight Other Stories from the Hound of Detective (1949), to name but a few of his numerous work. He died on January 3, 1994 in New York………………1:55pm> We’ve got kind of a mixed bag out there weather wise. No snow but we got very unstable weather and I like it this time of year.


Anne got me up earlier then I’d have liked as she had to go out and do some shopping with my bus pass. I hope she doesn’t think this is a weekend an ends up getting here late. We got Boot’s in from overnight and he’s sleeping comfortable beside me.

I have a coffee going here and I’ll be blogging this and off to do other things. The big 6/49 draw is $32M on Wednesday and I’m considering getting another ticket with the plus entered. The game came out in 1982 and in the 80’s and 90’s I played occasionally. I didn’t have any money during those years. I still don’t but the draw amounts are so large now.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now


e. Jim

Freaky weather for late April. Normally we're about +18C for this time of year.

I got up this afternoon on the late side today about 12:30pm. Snowing like a blizzard out there. Thing is it doesn’t stay on the ground long. I took this picture just now. Nobody at 2:45pm April 26th is going to try and convince me about “global warming.”
Anne left for the truck. We get some decent quality food out of there at discount prices. She sure did pick the day for it that’s for sure.

There was no winner on the $22M draw last night. Lots of folk won other prizes of course. On my ticket I got 2 numbers. I didn’t even win the extra. But when Anne got home, she got 2 numbers including the bonus number so she wins $5. She didn’t win the extra on her ticket either. The draw for Wednesday is now $32M. I thought about what would I do if we did win this one. I think I’d still work on the job and just say to Rob that I have something else and leave it at that. If I left a message on the answering machine that I resigned they would know I won the jackpot.

Anne’s got a $50 gift voucher from her job last week she’ll be getting this week. She picked Best Buy and she said I can have it towards a game or whatever. I’m thinking about Fable 2 or Shimmering Isles and I’m leaning towards the later. Whenever I get around to finishing Oblivion.

Yesterday after work I wanted to go out and get my haircut but I was too exhausted from having no sleep the night before. Friday night/Saturday mornings are hard on me because I don’t get much sleep. I’d rather go to Rob after a few weeks of putting in a few afternoons and ask because I’m diabetic and it’s wearing me down, now that I put a few extra hours in, can I have Saturdays off. It’s getting really hard on me.

After work I boarded a very crowded train heading home. I barely got a seat. Apparently the City opened up 2 new stations after the Health Science Center on the South LRT: McKernan/Belgravia and South Campus. I figured I’d stay on my seat and take the trip South and have a look. From Clairview to South Campus, took about 25 min. There’s not much out that way but by this time next year the South LRT will be completed out to Southgate Mall and Century Park.

I got off at the corner of 39th/137th just up here and walked by BK. I should have ordered something but at that time I wasn’t very hungry. I went into Rogers across the street for a bag of chips for my Hawks/Flames game last night. Hawks took that game 5-1 and now they go to Calgary for a game #7 I believe on Monday .

Anne had called a couple of times to update me. I wish she could have got that gift card for Coles or Chapters. But Best buy is ok.

I’ve never been in a Best Buy store before. I’m still working on BRH and that’s what I’m going to do after I blog this.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

Thursday morning my bsl reading was at 7.9 but while sleeping it rose up to 10.1. This

is normal reaction because my metabolic rate is so low while I’m sleeping. Most people’s are.

Anne went out to Shaw cable our ISP Thursday to get my modem replacement, About time. I’ve been using the same modem for the last 10 years.

The other day the Federal Government announced it’s not going to offer any bailout money for troubled Canadian television networks losing advertising revenue in this economy. CanWest Global and CTV are the ones hurting the most but the Feds can certainly pay the CBC $1B/year so the CBC could lay off 800 people across the country. Global is more important to me then the CBC. I only watch CBC when there’s an Oiler game on or during the NHL playoffs and Eskimo games. I use Global for local news and they have ECW on Friday nights. Plus I think CanWest owns Space (our sci-fi channel affiliate) But the Feds can certainly bailout the auto industry. It’s not that CanWest and CTV etc don’t have options. They are currently trying to negotiate with the Feds to have a fee tacked onto the cable bill. I don’t mind paying a $1-3/month for these 2 stations. The other source of revenue for them would be have more “As seen on TV” adds. Off hours they have more paid advertisements. Personally I think Harper really dropped the ball on this issue. The last thing I want to see is CanWest filing for bankruptcy. What really did it for me for the CBC was when they wouldn’t spend the extra money to retain exclusive rights for the Hockey night in Canada theme song. Yet the CBC can lay off 800 staff to keep $1B/year. I smell a boondoggle alright. If it came to a trade off to keep CanWest Global/CTV or the CBC, I’d say get rid of the CBC.

Well, I finally won on the 6/49 yesterday. Not the $14M but $2 on the extra. Wuwho! Hehehe. Nobody won the big draw so the jackpot gets adjusted to $22M for Saturday night‘s draw. Some of the guys at worked yesterday asked me if I’d still keep my job if I won the big one. I said I’d call in and resign and then prepare a statement and leave it on the answering machine overnight. If I won the $22M Anne and I are sharing it down the middle. Half goes on her bank card and the other I keep on my card. But one thing I would not absolutely do, is tell you guys about it if I won. Nothing personal. I’d still be myself. I’d do my hobbies, continue with my writing. I’d play more ASL and go to Lodge more often of course. For anyone that plays the 6/49 we all dream about it right?

I decided earlier that I’m cutting back on my coffee consumption. Not by much but just down to 2 cups/day. I used to take a table spoon full of coffee and waste most of it. This is my at home coffee supply and the container reads 260 cups. That should be enough at 2 cups/day for 4 months using a teaspoon instead of a table spoon at 2 cups/day:

In market news today they were talking how retail sales since October here in Canada went up by about $4B but they are down here in Alberta only because our sales were stronger before the recession. It’s that old saying the heavier you weigh the harder you land when you fall type thing. Oil is climbing back up to $49 and one of the main players in the oil/gas industry here in Alberta is laying off 14% of it’s work force worldwide due to a sluggish economy, another company that’s responding to our economic downturn way too soon in my opinion. I still say Oil is going to climb up to $60 by the end of this May. Oil will then peak at around $70 in July and slide down gradually to about $40 in October and float between $40-$50 from October-March of ‘09-10.

Last night on Coast (Wednesday night) George had Dr. Michio Kaku as a guest. I love this guy. He talked about Setti and how redundant this organization is. Mainly because we’re a type “0” Civilization still using oil and coal to contact a type “1” or “2” civilization. We’re trying to find a society that is using radio. A type “0” society finding another type “0” society in the middle of a haystack. Even if we were trying to find a type “2” society would we even register what we’re doing on their “radar”? I don’t think so. Also who needs space ships anymore? With Cern’s LHC coming back online soon, and Lisa we might be able to utilize dark matter to create a Star Gate. We simply walk through a portal and we’re on the planet ,just like in the TV show. It’s entirely possible this will happen even in my lifetime. I firmly believe Dark Matter (dm), which according to Michio Kaku makes up about 80% of matter in the known universe. DM and the LHC will be able to get us to other planets a lot faster then a ship traveling at the speed light ever will.

Anyways after dinner out with the family Anne and I are going to see RJS. Hopefully I can get a better photo with of me and RJS together. Before she left she received her income tax refund and that means I get to buy the hard copy of “Wake.” I’d like to see Audrey’s snag more Canadian author tours, like Spider Robinson coming here to Pure Speculation in October, or Tanya Huff, Julie C Czerneda, Ken Schroeder, just to name a few. Pure Speculation is a small local convention hosted by On Spec. I happen to know a few big names in SFF world that got their start with On Spec. I’d like to see some of them “pay forward” as it were and come out to a local event here. I’d pay a little extra to meet with some of these authors……..later that night at home: Anne brought back the new modem. It’s not much faster (that I can tell) then the older one. Anne decides to get Chinese food about 5:30pm. When 6pm rolled around and no deliver some worry crept in. I had a shave and Anne left the money for the delivery as she went out to feed the birds across the street. So much for my shower. By 6:30pm and phone calls to cancel the Chinese food Anne got worried I hadn’t taken my insulin so she fixed me some soup and I wolfed that down spilling it on my shirt I was going to wear to the reading. I had to change that and the sell phone got left behind.

I finally got out of the house and right on my rear end was the #11 coming up fast to the lights. I got to the train and a bit of a wait and realized I had left the cell phone behind. I called my wife from a pay phone at Corona station and then went right upstairs to Audrey’s and bought Robert J Sawyer’s book “Wake.” I took a seat and waited as the place began to fill up. One fellow I didn’t get his name made reference to me mentioning how I thought Wake was the 2nd in the series when it’s really the first. He’s read my blog or reads it, thank you.

Rob is so enjoyable to listen to. I think he ought to do voice for his own audio books. The reading was followed by a short Q&A. Some people from On Spec were there. Some local writers etc. A head count was made of about 50 people in attendance. After the reading and Q&A a line up was forming from the basement to the main floor to have a one on one with Rob. I wanted to wait until the place thinned out a bit so I could get a photo of Rob and me together. The last photo of us when he was here for his novel “Rollback,” which didn’t turn out very well what with me and my bad teeth and all showing. I smiled but didn’t show any teeth. I looked a bit scruffy looking. I wanted to go to the reading fresh and relaxed but since Anne’s blow up had the opposite affect on me.

One things for sure I’m not very photogenic. I’d like to be in a photo like the one Russell took of me this evening at Audrey’s with Mr. Sawyer with other SFF authors. But Robert J. Sawyer is my favorite Canadian SF author. He’s a class act all the way. I missed Peter Watts 2 years ago at Pure Spec. I also wanted to chat with the On Spec editor to confirm Spider Robinson for the next Pure Spec but she was busy with others. Russell is now doing the special order taking while Trevor is away. So while waiting for the crowd to clear out I ordered 2 Dragonlance trilogies and the Ben Bova “Sam Gun” Omnibus in MMP. I also ordered a few C. J. Cherryh Omnibus’s while the crowd thinned out to a trickle. I was his last signing and I asked him if he’d be in a photo with me. So there it is above. One question I asked if Rob at the singing table after the photo had ever thought of collaborating with another Canadian Pro SF author like Tanya Huff etc. But he didn’t like the idea at all.

I was the last to leave the store and I went to Tim’s as it was snowing pretty heavily out there and in Tim’s were 2 of the guys I work with, Nathan and Pat. Apparently there was a foul up with the cheques as they weren’t printed properly. They had to be returned back to Calgary. All this while the boss is away in Vegas. I rode the train home with them spilling a little coffee on my book but no major damage.

Anne wasn‘t home when I got there but she showed up and while we were both settling in she said she thought I walked out on her and after giving me half an head start she followed me down to Audrey’s and saw me in the seats. She wanted to get my attention but thought better of it and headed back home to get my insulin.

I had some of the Chinese food she had left over. It wasn’t that good. I met Robs driver from Calgary Krista (I hope that's how her name is spelled.) and she mentioned my name. I was curious if we had met somewhere and she said only to see my Blogspot Blog. Another Blog connection. Interesting. I mentioned about the SCA in Calgary and she gave me this card saying that she had some connection with them. All in all I had a great day yesterday so I’m going to post this.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I've got everythings all set up for tomorrow. Should be a great night out with my wife and I

I had a pretty good time playing Oblivion earlier. I got an upgrade to a better sword with an attack factor of 6. I love this stuff.

I haven’t told Super about missing Thursday night but I’ll drop the bomb on him tomorrow night. I wont lie, I’ll just say some personal stuff has come up.

I took a couple of photos about 2:30pm this afternoon. I like this time of year as I can see the street through the leafless branches. We had a good day today temperature wise at +21C. The warmest day of the year so far.

But man are we ever getting some gusting wind out there right now. We’re also supposed to get a change in the weather as it’s taking a turn for the “worse” coming up today. +9C isn’t bad but there’s a cold front coming in and we’ve had snow this time of year before. This photo is off our balcony looking SE.

From Conect2Edmonton there’s been a response to a post about the Fort Road revitalization project. Today the City sold a piece of land they’ve been holding on since when Gainers caught fire, I think 1989-1990. Anyway this is a big area of land the City owns and sold it to the developer for $5M. Apparently the deal went down last week and the developer wants to begin the project in 2010 (next year) They obviously feel confident about the economy as well. I’m really excited about this fort road project

Here’s another shot off the balcony. We got Burger King and Rogers video right across the street from us. Also beside Rogers is Bo Didlies the bar. It’s really nice in there. Lots of stained wood and brass and sports fixtures. I like living at this end of the City because of all the amenities but it is getting expensive to live here.

Also on Thursday I’ve got to run downtown to Alberta Works and that could take all afternoon. Danny at work earlier updated me on the disability tax credit. I can apply for this at anytime. I think he said it’s a T220 for or something like that……………1:10pm> We went to bed around 3:30am after we brought Boot’s back from outside. It was very windy out there blowing sand all over the place.

Rant alert: Today being “Earth Day” is supposed to bring awareness for conserving energy and doing something positive for the environment. I don’t have a problem with this. What I do have a problem with is how companies like the Real Canadian Superstore (Lablaw’s) now decides because today is Earth Day, that they are going to charge an extra penny from 4 cents to 5 cents on their plastic shopping bags. Not only that but they are making a ridiculous claim that this move will remove hundreds of millions of plastic bags from the landfills every year. More likely Superstore hopes that they can cash in on the environment by having shoppers think they are such a great environmental player for the community and at the same time come on in and buy Presidents Choice products ;-) In other words it’s a marketing ploy. If Superstore was so concerned about the environment they would get rid of plastic bags altogether. The worst part about this is that all the money spent on their plastic shopping bags goes towards the World Wildlife Fund. I hate this organization for 2 reasons. Firstly because it was the WWF and Greenpeace that favored a global ban on DDT use in the early 1970’s. Even WHO (the world health organization) warned against this. Before the Malaria pill was invented the only resource 3rd world countries could use to fight malaria was DDT. Google WWF and Malaria and see what I mean. Millions of poor people in the 3rd world died from Malaria because of lack of access to DDT. Now Greenpeace and WWF are saying “It’s ok to use DDT.” As a result of the efforts of WWF and Greenpeace a global ban on the use of DDT was issued, which caused the deaths of millions of people. The 2nd reason personally was the World Wildlife Fund noticed that wrestling was using the WWF initials. The Fund didn’t like this and saw a way to make money from wrestling and sued the WWE for about $360M. WWE decided to change the name to WWE. I’d prefer my wife shop up the street at Sobies but Superstore right across the street is really handy. Personally if I was on my own, I’d ban shopping at Superstore but most Presidents choice products are decent products.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I got some new photos up on my website. There's a link in the sidebar.

Monday was quiet. I got up about 12:30pm and watched the Dow & oil tumble. I worked on my special project (msp) for awhile and that brought me around to about 2:30pm. I had my shower and got ready, Anne made us a bowl of chilly. I headed into the office and got myself a seat. Super wanted me to sit with the 4 tap shooters I was 1 of 4 in the front 20 not in the back as we usually collect ourselves. I got JT to go get us a Tim’s coffee. I got some bottles and cans and I had a slow start but then things picked up. We began All Star Baseball. By 7pm I had $515 and 3 CC sales. JT’s dialer is good for CC sales. My total for the end of the night was $860 and not one bonus. First $800+ total I had in 5 weeks.

I got my gear and headed out into the mild night air and read for a bit from BRH. I should be at the half way point by the end of the week. It’s really good. I got home, as Anne met me at the door. She was upset with Pledges or for him I should say. What he’s been with me since 1991. Hard to believe I was in my late 30’s at that time. I noticed Pledges was slightly favoring his back paw. I thought and still think it’s just a cramp he’s going through. Hard to believe that was 18 years ago. That’s him in the photo above taken minutes ago.

Hopefully I’ll have him for a few more years yet. But it’s going to be a sad day around here when he goes. With all the things that can go wrong with a cat at his age, I’m grateful I’ve had him for so long. He’s been a good friend.

Last night’s “Monday night Raw” was out of London England. The show started off slow. It picked up a bit with Santino and the match with Triple H and Randy Orton was a real barn burner. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate Raw a solid 7.

I did a bsl reading and I’m running at a high 11.7! I had that chop and foil wrap potato plus corn on the cob earlier about 11:30pm. When I go to bed about 4am, my bsl should be down about 8.

This week I have the RJS reading to go to and I’m looking forward to it. This time I’m bringing my camera and I’m going to have a proper photo up and running. I missed Rob when he was here for Pure Speculation. Also, I hope to pick up a copy of “Wake” as well.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

It's been one crazy week let me tell you, and I'm glad that it's all over. For now.

I’m at the Redimart getting a bottle of diet Coke and getting my change. This character comes from behind me and pokes his head through as I’m getting change and asks the clerk for something as I’m getting my change. The space I’m standing in is made for 1 person. The clerk is handing me my change and this idiot works his way over my shoulder, “Do you have xxx?” This is the 2nd time this has happened now in 2 days. I’m the first to admit I’m nobody special but for crying out loud, “wait your damn turn.” A lot of inconsiderate people.

I boarded the train and read my book going into the office. I got G to get me my cheque. I had my vacation pay and 3 days off last week and all my bonus money. Super got me to sit in the back. I got a lot of cans and bottles. Apparently another round of cuts is coming. The morning shift that we are supposed to have is being no more. It’s just 1:30-9pm. Or people can work either or. I think. This will take place May 1st. The thing is we have 24 stations that aren’t in use after 5pm and outdated equipment to work with. Also apparently we are the only office out of 30 that has a morning shift. Apparently we have a choice to do either business or family. “Family,” is residential calling.

This morning I spent some time playing Oblivion but I kept on getting killed all over the place. At least I repaired my weak armor. I’m finding it cheaper to repair some things from the guy in Anvil rather then buying repair hammers. One payment and the guy repairs it up to full strength. Including swords. My Longsword is back to having an attack of 4. My level 7-Up (?) bar is only about a quarter of the way in from reaching level 7. I’ve got a long way to go and I haven’t even begun to complete the first Fighter Guild mission. B says I can adjust the difficulty of the game but I’d rather play this at default anyway.

My reaction to the Oiler’s ousting Craig MacTavish or MacT as he was called around the league l. 8 years as a coach and he took the team to the Stanley Cup finale in ‘06 is gone. It was something both parties agreed to. Kind of sad really because I liked MacT. I recall how MacT pulled out the tongue of Calgary Flames mascot “Harvey the hound” when the mascot leaned over the glass at the Saddle dome and got to close. MacT tossed the “tongue” back into the crowd. That was classic. If they ought to get rid of anyone it should have been Kevin Lowe. Lowe is responsible for getting rid of a lot of great players from that ‘06 playoff run where he got the Oiler’s to within 1 goal from winning it all. MacT won 3 Stanley cups as an Oiler and won 1 cup as a New York Oiler, er I mean Ranger. It was mainly all these disgruntled Oiler fans that jumped on the band wagon complaining that it was the coach’s fault that lost them a chance to get into the playoffs. No it’s Kevin Lowe’s fault for getting rid of the players we had on that team. Watch who ever the coach is going to be next year if they don’t make the playoff’s they’ll say, “I wish we had MacT here,” If anything management should have given MacT 1 more chance. If he doesn’t take the team to the 09-10 playoff’s then he can go. I didn’t like how MacT left. Not that I’m blaming him I’m blaming Edmonton Oiler hockey fans for being a classless act. Now the Oiler’s have got to go scrambling to find a head coach over the summer. Charlie Huddy? Craig Simpson? Is Wayne Gretzky done with his contract in Phoenix yet? I’m left with the same kind of bad taste in my mouth as when Lowe got rid of Ryan Smyth in 2007.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

That was one hell of a close call for me. I'm glad that's all over with.

I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Anne walked out of here with me and I forgot my bus pass. She offered to fetch it for me and the light changed as she kissed me off. I got to Clairview and onto my bus to read for a bit. It was very windy out there.


I decided despite things I’d read anyway on the train in. I was expecting the vultures to descend on me but to my surprise, nothing happened. Rob came in and smiled at me, “Hi James how was your weekend type thing?” Steve was there smiling. I felt really good. He mentioned about my CC sales but that was about it. “Did you talk with M about your CC sales yet?” Very anti climatic and I felt really good about that. I gathered a bunch of cans and bottles and JT was going to Tim’s and I said “I’ll buy us both one.” I sat in S’s dialer as he was heading home. I had a good first half pulling in $145 and a CC sale. D was with me. The 2nd half I had a terrible start. No sales for over an hour then I got a $50 and a few more sales for $240. Not quite line hour. I asked M about my report card as Rob calls it and M sat with me in the back room and had nice things to say about me. My CC sales need to pick up but he said I was one of his top sales people and he doesn’t want to see me doing this source. They were actually doing taps for WCS in the afternoon.

I got a few more cans and bottles and called Anne to let her know everything’s all right before I left. I felt really good leaving out of there. I read some on the train going in. There were a few emergency vehicles in the parking lot. Fire crews were holding up florescent signal sticks backing a truck out the lot between the rows of yellow posts from yesterdays photo. I asked one of the crew and he said it was a false alarm.


Anne wasn’t home when I came in. She’s probably shopping at Superstore from across the street. She said she’s cooking shepherds/cottage pie. Good stuff. One of my favorite dishes. Real comfort food.

Last night when Anne and her sister were out shopping at Ikea Anne said how they were looking at a nice glass book case, Anne said that would be just perfect for my books. She said she wants to get it for me when her income tax money comes in. I’d like that. She said it can go right in the living room beside the wall unit.


Ok here’s the long term plan: I’m going to stick with the company I’m working with now. So long as the status quo is kept up, things should be alright. I’ll continue to work at my present job. It’s going to give us a bit more income. Not much more.

I’m trying to work my Feedburner RSS feed into my Blogspot blog posts. I tried doing this earlier but I wasn’t very successful at it. I’ll try this again latter on.


Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I'm having one of those days again

I'll have more to say latter on this evening. Kind of a stressful time for me right at the moment.

Anyway gang, that's all for now

e. Jim

That was my long weekend, such as it was

I had a great long weekend even though it was not as long as I‘d like, it went like warp speed. Another 2 days off would be just great. I need 2 weeks off is what I need.

Today I got out of bed on the really late side: About 1:40pm. That gravel pill does that to me almost like I’ve been mauled by a Zombie or something. Anne made our brunch about 4pm, kind of late for a brunch. I did some piano work and learning “Another year older?” I’m learning 8th notes.

Also this weekend I read a lot from BRH, I hope to be at the half way point of the book by the 18th of this month. Despite the Lodge work I’m doing for the exam next meeting.

Depending how this week goes and all, if it’s going to be a depressing week economically and my job then I might still go ahead with the guard job. I’m still waffling over this. With all the rules and regulations my job is being bothered with both Federally and within the company, I can see this job falling into a black hole really fast.

I suppose by now everyone in the SFF universe has heard about “Starlog” magazine suspending it’s service. It’s no longer a magazine but will focus on it’s web presence. Too bad. I really enjoyed Starlog when it came out before the advent of the Internet. The Internet killed Starlog in it’s magazine form. Most of the info the magazine contained lately was made obsolete with sites like SF Signal, Suvudu and Sci-fi chick.

Tonight of course is Monday night Raw, always a good time.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I got up with my wife around noon Saturday. I decided I’d go later and I played Oblivion for awhile. Anne left me with

a bus ticket. I left out of here shortly before 2pm. It was a beautiful afternoon under clear skies. There was a nice breeze blowing while I was waiting for my bus. On the way to Clairview station, I didn’t know with 100% certainty that I had no kettle on the stove element at home. Usually I measure twice cut once kind of a thing. I got off the bus at Clairview station and onto an awaiting bus to go back the way I came and back into my apartment. The kettle was actually on an element but nothing was on. Whew. I left feeling good about that and on with my day. But I had a long wait until my next bus came by and the bus bench was all dirty to sit on so I was warming up in the bus shelter actually perspiring. Finally my bus came and I was on my way, for good this time.

I got my lottery ticket for Saturday night’s draw and a diet coke and broke open my book to read on the train to Audrey’s. When I got to Corona and upstairs then inside the staff had the basement roped off. Another reading? But this time it wasn’t poetry. One of the staff escorted me to the basement special order and there waiting for me was Book one in Steven Erikson’s massive “Malazan series.” All the SFF book cases were moved around but I was able to sort my way through long enough to see C.S. Friedman’s latest “Feast of Souls” from the “magister trilogy.” This works. I paid for my books and headed over to Tim’s.

I bought a coffee and a blueberry fritter. Good stuff. Of course I never won anything in Roll Up. I enjoyed my treat and relaxed but figured time was running out on my bus transfer as Anne had my bus pass for work. I bought for the first time a ticket from the 12 foot tall ticket machine and punched it to validate it. I took the South train and read my book back home and a bit under blue skies back at Clairview. It was really nice out there.

Once inside I was waiting for my wife to call me on her 5 pm break while I was researching books I’d like to buy. She didn’t call until about 7:30pm and she ended up raging on me because I hadn’t had anything substantial to eat all day. So I decided to go over to Burger King and get a double bacon cheese burger. They looked pretty busy and 4 customers had ordered and received their order while I was waiting for mine. “Are you still waiting?” Someone said behind the counter. I was getting a bit peeved off. Finally the guy brought my order. At one time I was so discouraged I asked for my money back but he ignored me and brought the order. I was ok with it.

Once back home and inside I took my insulin and wolfed my meal down. It was really good but pricey. $7.45 for a burger the width of a SF novel, including large fries and drink. I really enjoyed this and I called back BK saying something like, “You’ll get my business again.” All this before the Oiler/Flames game.

Again no goals in the first period. The Oiler’s scored a wrap-around by Tom Gilbert. Then right after that the Flames scored. It was all Calgary after that. I felt bad for Coach Craig MacTavish, Charlie Huddy, Billy Moores as the players left the bench leaving a stunned Oiler staff under the red lights watching the Flames fans, then they move on. But that was indicative of the whole Oiler season. They take one step forward and 2 back. So what does coach MacT do now? Will he resign? I hope not, MacTavish, Huddy, Moores make a great combination. They also have a $23M D to get signed up as well and look to resign Roloson and Kotalik this summer. Kotalik says he likes what he sees and likes playing with Hemsky. But with half of the Oiler’s salary cap on their D, they don’t have a lot of wiggle room unless they clear payroll. I see them getting rid of Penner, Horcoff and Brodziak in a trade for a big name goal scorer during the off season. But the Oiler’s are done for this year. The Oiler’s ended up with 85 points on the season. March 20th the Oiler’s held 7th place but lost 7 of those 9 games that was the difference maker for them missing the playoffs this year. Now it’s time to cheer on any Canadian team in the playoff’s. That leaves only Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver and the playoffs begin Wednesday. I know Calgary will face Chicago in the first round.

Some interesting stats here. Calgary scored 254 goals and Edmonton scored 234 goals but goals against were identical at 248 each. The Oiler‘s needed to have scored 20 more goals and a big part of them not scoring those goals are players like Dustin Penner. The good things this year were the Oiler‘s great road record and Roloson who basically carried the team. If the playoffs began today, it would be Montreal (93) points in 8th spot vs. Boston Bruins (114) in 1st in the East. In the West it’s St. Louis (90) vs. SJ (117) for 1st in the West. In the middle of that is Vancouver (100) and Calgary (98) It’s going to be an interesting playoff race.

The big 6/49 draw was won last night for a total of $15,267,589.50. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that 1 person won the jackpot. It sure wasn’t me but it could mean that a group of people shared the winnings. 2nd place was won by 2, for a total of $207,645.50. I’d settle for that. That would mean 5 numbers plus the bonus number. So Wednesday’s draw is an estimated $3.5M. Anne gets the quick pick for that. This time I didn’t get any of those numbers but the spread of those numbers is interesting: 5,6,7,11,17, 34, 48. The bonus number was 48. Now, I’ve picked spreads like that before. I usually do a random pick. Same as a quick pick but I like to have some control over the numbers.

By now most of you have heard the news about Dungeons & Dragons Co creator Dave Arneson passing away. I first played D&D in the early 1980’s. I’m playing it now in another incarnation called “Oblivion.” Oblivion isn’t the same as D&D of course. Strange how last year Gary Gygax passed away and now Dave Arneson.

Well, my Easter weekend is almost over. I think what I’m going to do is to see about working Monday 5-9 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 1-9pm and Friday morning for 29 hours and skip Saturdays. This kind of like gives me 3 days off. Providing there aren’t any more cuts to shifts. As for the security guard job, I decided to milk what I have right now and wait for the bottom fall out of this company. I think the next set of cuts (if there are any) will most likely be in the summer some time, around the end of June or there a-bouts and in which case I think head office will have just “Business” and the evening shift. I might still survive off of that until the economy is improved. A sure sign of this around here is when oil is about $60/barrel and it looks like this might happen before the summer. In 1997 oil was around $25 at the beginning of that year and the economy was just picking up. It’s predicted that Alberta will lose about 15,000 jobs during this recession.

In other local economic news in the Provincial budget last week, The province is going to increase a carton of cigarettes up to $3 a carton, which range in from $60-$80 depending on the brand is a lot of money for smokers. A case of beer will cost an extra $1.30 more. A case of beer in bottles is usually more then in cans but I’m not much of a beer drinker. But a case usually costs about $25 for a doz. My favorite beer is Stella Artois. A case of this will cost about $30! My wife wanted to go out and buy me a case of beer but it’s hard to get a beer down when I take my insulin so early.

And finally Sci-fi chick is actually talking about science fiction. Gasp, What no Urban Fantasy? Seriously though, the site is posting some new Stargate Universe trailers on the website. The show looks good. Links to Sci-fi chick are in my link section.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

Here we go with 3 days off.

Yesterday was relaxing. I had a blog post ready to go but by the time Anne got home to make dinner and all, we’re into Saturday. So I’m starting fresh.

I’m up with my wife to head out with her to “The Bay station” where she gets off for work. I get off at the next stop and I’m buying a couple of books and then it’s off up to City Center mall phase 1 for some crisp meat burritos from Taco Time. I’m taking them with me to phase 2 food court to Taco Bell for their fries supreme. I might buy 1 book at Audrey’s and another 1 at Coles, then home. I don’t know about getting my haircut Saturday. I might just go ahead and do this Sunday.

I’ll come home have a bit of a nap and then get ready to watch the last Oiler game of the 08-09 season. Last night the boys won 5-1. Not much of a game for 2 periods but in the 3rd the Oiler’s scored 3 third period goals. Tonight’s game in Calgary will be a little different.


Over the last few weeks my wife has been running into an ex co worker from another job site of hers. Apparently she was telling my wife about the security guard job she has but it’s working at the Royal Alex hospital. An old friend of mine did that with another guard company. He told me a few horror stories about that. You get gunshot, stabbing, victims crack heads all kinds of crazies rolling in. Well it’s a big hospital in a major city. But she told Anne the name of the guard company and she said to Anne how they are always hiring. Nope just give me a nice site Friday,

Saturday and Sunday nights where I can do a ten minute patrol and sit down on my but for 50 minutes. The rest of the time, I can read work on a little netbook mini. I’m looking at getting the HP mini for under $500. Mainly to surf the Internet, do my writing and play Warcraft. I’m getting about $400 for my vacation pay and I’ll get that at the end of June. Anne might get it for me, if I get the job. But at least I know the name of the other guard company. She said to Anne, “their always hiring.”

I read from my book “Blood red harp” earlier. I’m liking this book. Today I’m looking at whatever if anything is in my special order file at Audrey’s, If nothings in there then I’m going to be getting the first 2/4 of the Terry Brooks. I think “The Druid Keep” is there. I’ll check it out though. At Chapter’s I might just pick up another David Weber “Honor Harrington” book. We’ll see.


Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I'm having some modem technical support issues with my ISP but I hope to have them ironed out in a few days.

Last night Super moved 3 of us in the back to do taps. I had a slow beginning and very few cans and bottles were up for grabs. I learned the Oiler’s/Kings game was on PPV. Lovely. Their last game at Rexall place of the ‘08-09 season will be Friday night with the Flames and of course I’ll be watching that. Since I had a slow start I got few sales. It was me, D and JT. In the first half I got a CC sale and bout $245 in sales doing CBF. In the 2nd half I got another CC sale and a $100 sale and I closed out with a $75 sale. I love closing on money. Apparently we’re supposed to have some of the people from the DNC list to make sure we’re doing our jobs properly and they will be joined by some of the people from Vancouver. The boss is on a 1 week Easter break and it’s drying up out there. Some bad news though on my way out the office the Oiler’s were losing 2-1 in the 3rd. There could still be a slim chance. I knew LA would do this. I headed out to catch my train with a whole whack of bottles and cans I got during break. I read from my book before the train and on my way home as there were extra cars on the train tonight due to the Oiler game.

When I got home there was still no Internet activity. I called Shaw to find out what’s going on and they pulled my service because of a slower modem. I’ve had this thing since August 1999. There’s nothing wrong with the modem except since then Shaw’s come up with an even “faster” modem. My modem is helping to slow the network down I guess is what they were saying but all I have to do is bring the modem and cables to any Shaw outlet and swap it for a new one at no charge to me. Anne confirmed all of this when she came in from her outing from across the street as I was talking with tech support getting the address for their West End location. Anne said she’ll do it for me Thursday on her day off. I should be back online Thursday night if all goes well.

But we have a Wednesday 6/49 ticket for tonight’s draw and we might win the big draw of $9M! Yeah right I usually like to check the numbers at their online site from my list of links but there’s a machine that checks for winning numbers, the guy scans in.

Hype for the new Star Trek movie “Academy” is revving up its gears for the big release May 8th. From the trailer’s I’ve seen the film looks really good.

Tonight Anne is on the job and tomorrow we get our cheques as usual. They might even come in for tonight, hard to say. But I owe DC $10 from about the first of march to see if the Oiler’s would get into the Playoff’s. I owe him $10. I was in the running. Last week the copper and blue were in 7th place. I’m in for Thursday off Friday and in again on Saturday. So Saturday I’ll go in and get my book

But it looks like my service provider is giving me a bit of grace here. So if I’m offline for a few days, you’ll know why.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I had a nice day today even though I didn't get outside to enjoy any of the weather.

I got up about 1:45pm did some more EA exam memory work. I’m comfortable up to 60% of the whole thing. It’s easier then I thought. I also read a bit more from BRH, this book like Helix is very accessible. Anne left out of here about 4pm for Rose bowl pizza and I was doing some more books to order research before Wrestlemania XXV. At 5 pm my wrestling didn’t come on and I was getting all frustrated with this. I decided to call my service provider and I got through almost immediately.

The problem was that Anne ordered the show in high def. We don’t have HDTV hooked u yet, so the voice on the other end put it on for me immediately. I missed the first 20 minutes but that’s ok. I enjoyed all the matches. Anne called from pizza saying she’s just waiting for it to come out of the oven. There was about an hour and a half of Wrestlemania when Anne came in with pizza. She watched that with me. The best match was the Undertaker and Shawn Michael’s. I enjoyed this Wrestlemania, despite the little hic cup from our end. It was as good as last year. They announced the attendance at 72,174, I think is what they said. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it as an 8/10.


After Wrestlemania I decided to have a bit of a nap. Anne went across the street to Superstore and just now up to Walmart. She’s sort of watching the Country music awards.


I’m looking at the Blackberry Bold over the Curve. I think the Bold has a bigger screen and even though the phone is more or less an entertainment device for me then a telephone for $60/month, I can justify this expense but I might end up changing jobs soon anyway this Spring if I have my way.


I’ve got a few security guard companies I’m going to try out for and if I can get a license and work at a site that allows me to bring in a small laptop computer to work with, then great. I’d probably work my current job from 9-3pm and security 5-9 every day except Wednesdays and Thursdays I’d take off of both. All I need is one day off. Maybe the guard company might let me work 3 days/week like the old WH. I’d love the PRM site again. I’d work my company from 1-9 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday’s, Fridays and Saturdays off. Except when there’s a lodge night. That’s give me 35 hours and 24 hours at the guard company. 59 hours is a lot of hours. But Friday night Saturday morning I’d be so wiped out, I’d just crash as soon as I get to bed. The whole idea behind this is to have something to fall back onto in case my job goes under and I can get into position to ask the boss for more money. I’ve done security before and it will pay me a lot more then where I’m working now but this wont be until about May.


The “nice thing” about retirement money is one can continue working without penalty. CPP won’t provide me with a lot because the jobs I’ve been on have been on minimum wage or not that much more. Very few companies pay just minimum wage anymore. The Alberta Government is going to increase minimum wage up to $8.80/hour. This is what I was getting while working for ACT in the early 1990’s pulling in 12 hour days. Personally I think increasing the minimum wage here in Alberta is a bad move, especially in these economic times. We’re in a recession right now and Stelmach wants to increase minimum wage? I wonder what he’s smoking?


At least the markets are increasing so that’s a good sign. When oil climbs back up to $70/barrel as I feel it will in May, then the economy here at least will be booming again. Right now at $53/barrel, if the markets continue to be inspired by this upswing, $60/oil could be a reality by the end of this week. But I said that last week as well when oil fell to around $40 again. Still that didn’t last long. $70 oil May-October is good.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

Despite how it reads on my

Librarything widget, I'm currently reading "The Blood red harp" by Elaine Cunnigham and not the book depicted first. I'm trying to figure out an easy way how to cue these titles in order.

Tonight is Lodge night and I'm going to call Neil to see if I can get a ride as the Secretary asked me if I would be able to bring the registrar's material I've been sitting here on for about 2 years doing nothing with it. I was Lodge register for a year but nobody showed me how to do the job.
Also, I'm going to try and get a copy of a Lodge book for learning the EA exam. All that stuff is in The blue Book, which I had at one time. No doubt my wife moved it in one of her clean up binges, God love her.

I'm looking forward to reading "The blood red harp." I like the cover and the topic. Can't go wrong with Elves's right? Elves's and magician's are my 2 favorite topics in Fantasy.

Speaking of fantasy I haven't been playing "Oblivion" lately. It's not that I'm stuck or anything in the game, I have other things going on that take priority. I'll get back into it a bit more over the Easter break. Right now I'm at level 5 and just closing in at level 6. The only nuisance about playing this game is my armor and swords keep breaking. For instance a longsword that began with an attack capability of 4 can be downgraded to a 2 in a hurry. Same thing with armor. So I'm constantly spending gold on repair hammers or having merchants repair everything. That can get costly. Highest armor class rating I've had was +18. The other struggle I'm having to deal with in the game is crashes. I've had the game crash on me about 3 times so far. But keep in mind this is a used game. I'm looking at getting "Fable" next and that should be a lot of fun. I've heard some good things about it. At the moment I'm playing an Imperial. I've got about 14 quests and I've completed 4. Quests make the game.

It's a laundry day for my wife and she's going on a bottle run on her day off in a bit. We usually do laundry every other Sunday around here. It's nice to have our own washer and dryer. Apparently upstairs the washing machine is $2 a load same with the dryer. We usually have about 8 loads so to do the laundry once a month can cost us about $35, not to mention the cost of soap etc. Plus we have to take the laundry and haul it upstairs and keep an eye on it in case some other tenant decides their laundry is more important then ours and they take out our cloths shove them onto another machine. Also you have to watch out for crack heads as well that want to break into a machine desperate for money,ahh life in an apartment.

So when my wife goes on the bottle run she's got enough to pay for a pocket book and a coffee at Tim's. I mean that's not what she's going to do with it but that's about what she'll have from the bottles and cans I've collected from work

With 5 Oiler games left in the regular season the chances the copper and blue getting in are slim to none. They play SJ this evening The thing that bugs me about Oiler fans is that they blame the Coach. You don't blame the Coach, if anyone is to blame pass blame onto the top. I'm talking a bout the GM. Why did we lose Ryan Smyth? Because of the GM. Not to mention all the other great players since the '06 playoff run that have left. Why did we lose Garon? Yes I'm just blowing smoke but Oiler fans including this one are frustrated that a great team is playing so poorly.

Anyway gang, that's all for now

e. Jim

April 1st came in like a lion.

I spent the afternoon reading the rest of “The third Lynx.” I read on the train even as much as I could at work before kick off. I had about 4 pages left and I completed reading the book about 9:30pm. The 2nd part of Timothy Zahn’s Frank Compton series “The third Link” took me a little longer for me to read then I wanted. I’d hoped I’d finish the book off in 2 weeks.
Review Summary: Continuing the adventures of detective Frank Compton and his companion Bayta as they battle their enemy the Mordhri.

My rating: 4.5/5 e. Jim’s.

Brief Synopsis; Murder on the Orion express. Compton and Bayta race the Mordhri from Quadrail station to station in search for a sculpture called the Lynx. The Lynx fits into a special weapon the Mordhri need further his plans for expansion. Our traveler’s is joined by another Detective who doesn’t get along with Compton that provides a thorn in Compton’s side the whole adventure.

Pros: Very accessible in the first person with interesting character development.
Cons: The book kind of lags around details and is slow to get going.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed this book but it was hard for me to get into. The characters moved around to much and the action points could have been better. Still this was a great book and I’ll be buying the next one when it come out in MMP.

I got in shortly before 10pm and did some admin stuff about my dismal performance on the job this evening. I had my coffee thermos and book out and a sale which we now have to have them all verified. So, Super comes over to my station to verify a sale and knocks over my thermos wipes out my coffee and damages my book and stumbling through all of that costs me a sale as well. That didn’t exactly put me in a very good mood, which is why I got only $55 by break as others were pulling in CC sales and well over $200. Super said though that my bank was 5th over all in the office. That made me feel a lot better. He gave me some tips as well and I did a bit better. I collected some cans and bottles but my total was the lowest in the room. While everyone was doing great I suffered. I can’t have good nights all the time.

I was glad to get out of there. I couldn’t wait to get to Corona and read the rest of my book which I finished on the train.

Thursday I’m off and it’s Lodge night, and I’ll be glad to spend time in Lodge. It’s a regular business meeting but I’ve got to request WM that I bow out for the prove up in May. Manly because I won’t have the time to do my memory work and I don’t want to leave my Tyler post as well.

The book I’m reading now is an Everquest novel, “The blood red harp” by Elaine Cunningham. So far it’s not bad.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim