Friday, at last!

By this time next Friday I hope to be in the office working both shifts and leaving for Audrey’s with 38.5 hours under my belt. My wife lost about half of her hours on her job so I need to pick up the slack.

The unemployment numbers for June came in yesterday. Nationally here in Canada the unemployment rate is 8.6%. Here in Alberta we’re at 6.8% and here in Edmonton we’re at 6% Saskatchewan still has the lowest number at 4.5%. A year ago we were sitting at 3.4% when oil was sitting at $145. Now oil is struggling to keep about $60 peaking at $70.

Onto other things. On John’s SF Signal book shelf he’s reading “The New Space Opera 2.” I’ll most likely order this in the fall if it’s in Trade. I’ve got the first one and I enjoyed it enough to get Vol. 2. I’m still looking at getting Ellen Datlow’s recent horror anthology from last year “Lovecraft unbound.” My next special order is going to be mostly anthologies.

Yesterday my online friend Dennis Hurd was talking about buying an ebike for getting around town on short trips. I checked into the City45. Walmart has them for under $1,000. They go at 32 mph and weigh 5.5lbs. These 500 Watt ebikes might be a good sollution for my wife that has to go all across this end of town on her soar foot for groceries. Our sidewalks are generous along the main roads so she can get around easy enough on one of these things. If I was going to use an ebike for my commute I’d need a dedicated bike path from here to the office and so far I‘m out of luck. Ebikes can only be used here from about April-October anway but in many cases local sidewalks are even clear in January.

It seems that HBO is working on a George R.R. Martin adaptation of Martin’s fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire.” I hope this expands into a mini series. I haven’t read the seires yet but it’s something I’ve been looking at reading eventually. I always thought Martin was like Brooks, young adult/children’s fiction it seems I wrong. This seems like a series worth looking into.

Tonight I’m off to my bank and maybe even before that over to Audrey’s to get myself a book Kate Elliott‘s “Crown of Stars” book 5. We’re still waiting for our gst cheque to come in and its almost the middle of the month. Strange it’s so late. If we get that in today I might be able to get my book tonight or at best Sunday afternoon before work. However one thing is for certain, before I go into the office I’m getting a 6/49 ticket for Saturday nights draw worth $22M! Yeah right.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now………