I love this time of year but its so dry out there.

I left out of here at my usual time 4pm. Anne’s shift was 7-11pm and they cut her hours back again but she was able to pick up another shift. All she’s getting is 20 hours/week. Not good. I’m going to go in on Thursday and Friday. At least that’s the plan. I got a whack of empties and found a dialer near where I was yesterday. But I ended up between Daryl and Eddie. We had all 10 dialers opened where the other tap shooters sit. All night it was ASB. I had $140 by break and in the break I got the rest of all the rest of the empties and in the 2nd half no sales from 7-8. Finally I figured I’d get creative and I got a $45 CC sale and $270 on the rest. I was glad to get out of the office and outside to a breezy somewhat cloudy evening.

I had a brief wait for my train while reading ICB and more ICB on the way home up to about Belvedere. I was getting a headache. I got home and relaxed a little and Anne came in while I was watching the news.

I watched this earlier. Pat Quinn beside Steve Tambellini and ex NY Ranger coach Tom Renney? Yes indeed. Oh and Kelley Buchburger as well. Nice. Now all the Oiler’s have to do is get some players that can score goals. Anyway at least that question is answered. So behind the bench its Pat Quinn, Tom Renney, and Kelley Buchburger. I would have kept Huddy and Billy Moores but maybe a complete change is for the best. Now if they can get a couple of marquee players. Mike Cammalleri, and get back Petr Sykora and keep Ales Kotalik, Dwayne Roloson make a couple of trades and the Oiler’s might make the playoffs…………… 12:50pm> You reap what you sow is the old adage that Premier Ed Stelmach might be realizing just now. A year or so ago the East was asking Alberta share it’s oil revenue wealth with other provinces. Alberta said No. On the surface this made sense because at the time, and to some extent even right now, Alberta is still creating jobs. There has never been a sign on the wall that said “help wanted Albertans only.” With rising unemployment here in Alberta at 166% from a year ago, Ed said no to oil revenue sharing. Now he’s asking Ottawa for a share in the equalization payments the Federal Government dishes out. To be fair to Ed, this is the first time Alberta has asked for equalization payments decades. The 2 are unrelated of course and Ed makes a solid case because the farmers here in Alberta could be in trouble because it’s so dry out there. I Haven’t seen it this dry since about 2002. Speaking about unemployment here in Edmonton last year there was something like 5,000 unemployed. Our unemployment rate was something like 3.4%, which is almost zero % unemployment or full employment. Anyone could walk off a Greyhound bus and walk through any door with a help wanted sign and get a job. Not today, 1 year later. And I could see it coming as well when oil went up to $147/barrel. I was telling people in the office at work, “watch, in 6 months from now we’ll be in a recession.” People thought I was crazy. Getting back to Premier Ed, whether or not he gets his equalization payments remains to be seen. The economy might rebound in January of 2010 but recovery might be a long way away yet.

I went through an article from the Coast to Coast website about US Government documents saying that the materials found at Roswell in 1947 were of extraterrestrial origin. Yeah right. The full articleis here along with some interesting discussion at the bottom of the page. Personally I’m skeptical.

I don’t talk a lot about it here but one anthology I’m excited about getting into when it comes out is Ellen Datlow’s “Best horror of the year #1” Most likely it’s going to be in hardcover but I don’t mind Trade. I like short horror, not the long drawn out stuff found in novels today. But this book looks really good. For short horror fiction lately I’ve been going here once a day.

This afternoon its off to the job thing and put in my 4 hours, ugh. We’re going to be doing this ASB for at lest another month but we might take a break from it for awhile. Dave was mentioning last night how we’re going to be do CPA again. I’m not looking for ward to this. We did this campaign last November.

Tonight, I’m kind of hoping Chicago can stay off elimination when they face Detroit this evening. Pittsburgh won their series with Carolina last night. I’m glad the Cane’s are out and Anaheim.

Rats. This week is the Lodge BBQ and I don’t think I can make it. I need to know how much it costs. If it’s free, I will attend but I doubt it’s free. I’d love to go. In all the years I’ve been in the Lodge I’ve never been out to this traditional event.

Over the past few days I’ve been doing some “research” on the card game MTG. or “Magic the Gathering.” I used to think this was just a kids game and I still have this notion on the periphery of my thoughts that MTG is a kids game. You don’t see many 50-60 year olds playing this thing. YouTube fortunately provides me with some nice “How to’s” on the game. The process isn’t that complicated but the playing of the game is rich in detail. Being a baby boomer I am often told I don’t look my age. I could fit right in with the 30 somethings. At our local Happy Harbor games store they are holding weekend events on Saturdays. Now since I’m working until 2pm on Saturday I’d kind of like to run over there to the store and as a shopper sitting around and look at what they have and see if there’s a game in progress. I think they play Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim