A slow day yesterday

My wife returned from the bank with a Wendy’s “Baconator” combo for my lunch. I got my coffee everything I needed and locked up and out the door waiting for my bus for the commute into work. Only 4 of us did OTH and best I could do was $220 but I got 2 cards. I felt ok going home. One of the younger fellows rode home with me on the train. He‘s a nice well mannered young fellow 17 years old. This is his first job. I mentioned to him about the DeMolay society figuring this might be something he’d like to do. I didn’t realize he should ask his dad first, but I doubt he’ll look it up. I don’t ordinarily look for possible candidates. I Haven’t seen many people that would take advantage of this kind of thing, which is why I don’t solicit/recruit anyone.

Anne had a deli pizza and soup for lunch for us and for the past hour or so I’ve been listening to and downloading Allan parsons .FLV You Tube video’s. My favourite APP albums were “Eve” and “Vulture Culture.” Among others.

One of the guys at work beside me was getting ready to fill out a replacement SIN card. It costs $10. I’ve memorized my SIN but I don’t have the card. You can got to Service Canada and get a new card and pay for it there at Service Canada human resources. I’m thinking about going there one of these Friday afternoons and get the 3 week process going. I have a birth certificate. I need both of those pieces of identification to get an Alberta Government picture ID.

My co-worker friend Lou emailed me yesterday afternoon about a new Apple device: The IPad. It looks real big and fragile. I’d hate to drop it. I’d rather get the Archos 5 Internet tablet as it's easier to carry around but the Arcos 5 is missing a camera. The Archis is small and can fit in the pocket and is half the price of the IPad. Anyway that’s all for now.

Another Monday washout

Yesterday blogging wise was a wash-out. I went into work with a bit anxiety due too a fellow staff employee I had a run in with Saturday. But that got blown over quickly. Everything’s all right on the job front now. A minor hiccup.

Monday night Raw was great. Next week William Shatner will be guest host. I’m looking forward to that one. Last night Raw was hosted by one of the guys from Phsyc. Everyone is getting “Psyched up“, pardon the pun. Apparently John Cena had something to do with the show. Or maybe he was just featured in one episode I‘m not sure. I haven‘t seen the show so I can‘t say.

Today it’s a Tuesday night on the job. It’s also game day as I’ll be “watching” the Oiler game in between calls. No Oiler rumours about any trades. Though there has been mumblings about trading Sheldon Souray to a Southern California team.

We’re -15/-22 wind chill out there. Not looking good. Time to breakout the old face mask and scarf. That’s ok, Day light savings time is just 8 weeks away, March 11th. And April is just around the corner from that.

Now that I have Friday nights off, once a month I can go Lodge visiting over there at Strathcona Lodge at Acacia Hall every Second Friday. I didn’t know this but Ye Old Craft meets there on a Saturday. Most likely they tile at 7:30pm like most Lodges. Lodge Saturday’s I can work just half days. I can leave about 5:30pm go to Chapters, get a book relax over an Apple Cider. I’d like to go to Lodge at the festive board saying how I visited Redwood(date), Strathcona (date) and Ye old craft (date) One of the big parts of Masonry is visiting other Lodges. Now that I can mix and match my mornings/evenings, I can go out to more Lodges. Next week, I’m working Wednesday morning and maybe the afternoon for Redwood and Thursday morning for my own Lodge and Friday. But I’ll also be working Friday morning as well for my usual.

I’m still reading 2006 Best of SF and a real long story about some kids getting Polio in the 1950’s. I mean these stories are well written and all but don’t do anything for me. I don’t like reading 2 books at once because it slows things down but the way I’m reading this thing, I probably won’t have it read until mid February. If that.

Tonight, or I should say later this afternoon, I go in for my afternoon commute for the 4 hour job thing. I need to work some serious afternoons as well this week for a special project I’m working on. Anyway, that’s all for now.

There is a bit of ranting in this post

I left out of here with barely time to spare yesterday morning. I felt alright heading into work on the train. I read a bit and got into the office about 8:30am. A few of our morning crew were sitting up by the other end where I set during my evening shift. We had 12 of us working cold doing OTH. One of the guys has a scalping/Oiler ticket side thing going on he was telling me. He says if your selling the tickets above cost it’s illegal. I might buy a ticket from him next month before the regular season games are over and done with. If I can get a lower bowl ticket for $35 I’ll go.

I had a pretty good Friday morning pulling in a $20 card and a total of $140. I was happy about that. Jerry never said anything about me missing the two days because I had said what was happening earlier. I got my pay check and it was a decent one at that.

Not only that but the weather was half decent as well for a Friday afternoon. In fact it was really mild out there heading up Jasper on the #5 to my bank. I did my banking and hopped aboard the Clairview train home. Weather wise, I’d say it was about -6 out there under overcast skies. It was like a winter wonderland out there. Very nice.

Anne was up and she made me a lunch and headed out to work. I wanted nap and I was in bed about 3:45pm for a 2 hour power snooze with Boot’s sleeping by my thigh on the bed, keeping his distance.

I’m slowly working my way through the 2006 “years best” Anthology. Most of the stories are well written but are kind of lame. The Joe Haldeman story is the best of the bunch. Short and sweet. The rest so far are bland and mediocre. They don’t work for this Blogger. I’m about half way through the book. Thing about anthologies is that you can’t establish a rhythm. There’s no string of great stories. At least not in this anthology. It’s going to take me a long time to finish this thing.

Most of you know that read this blog know I'm not the one to go jump on a bandwagon but I'll make an exception here because it is such a good cause. In case you've been hiding under a moon rock this week and tired of hearing all the Tiger Woods rehab and Jay Leno talk show woes and have shut off your media outlet because of the noise, you might have heard about the earthquake tragedy in Haiti recently. Being a broke poor telemarketer and aspiring author I've been looking at ways on how I could get involved and donate to Haiti relief. Thanks to SF Signal for a link in their post today: Crossed Genre "Post a story for Haiti." This is a good idea for all my fellow SFF authors out there that would like to donate to Haiti relief. It's a good idea and I'm going to work on story and upload it this weekend.

I had some chips diet cola and the Dallas/Oiler’s game was just getting underway. The Oiler’s were taking way to many penalties and got some bad breaks in the early part of the game. But there were again too many obvious calls throughout the game that should have been called but weren‘t. Here’s an example: Behind the play caught on camera a Dallas player swipes the feet out from underneath our goal tender to a chorus of boos. No penalty. Same play from the Oiler’s would have earned them a penalty guaranteed. This reminds me of the Mick Magoo incident of March 2008. I know it sounds like I’m whining but I’ve got 17,000 other people that witnessed seeing the blatant penalty in my corner. The officiating this year is terrible and I’ve seen lousy officiating across the league but the officiating over the years has degraded significantly. Why aren’t the referees being held accountable for missed calls? Maybe they should. How about for every penalty they miss they get docked part of their pay? Maybe this is already going on and I’m being a little naive here but the sloppy officiating is frustrating from a fan perspective. I blame Bettman for this. It’s almost like he’s having a tamper tantrum because of the Bacilli/Phoenix ordeal that went down earlier before the season kicked off and he’s taking it out on Canadian teams. I know that sounds silly but hey its my blog and I can rant if I want to. And it’s not just Canadian teams either that are on the receiving end of sloppy officiating. The Oiler’s owned the late second period and most of the third in last nights game and deserved better then they got for their efforts. The Dallas Stars tied the game and then with 22 seconds left as the Oiler’s well they couldn’t hang onto the puck in the defensive zone behind our blue line and Dallas scored to win the game 4-3 in another Oiler heart breaker losing their 10th straight loss and 16/16 losses. I thought the Oiler’s played a way better game then the one the other night. They are a competitive team just one of many teams on the wrong end of sloppy league officiating.

Ok enough ranting. At least it’s a mild weekend out there. Anne and I decided that if it looks like I’m getting line hour and qualify for the line hour bonus and I’m having a good day, I’ll stay until 4:30pm. If I’m sucking then I’ll leave at 2pm go get my book at Audrey’s and go home. Anyway that’s all for now.

Yeesh what a night overnight

Anyway it got so bad there I got Anne to call me an ambulance. I felt terrible. I was reeling, feeling things closing in around me. I began to feel a little better when they got here and asked Anne to turn them away. Before they left I was coherent enough and able to talk to someone on the phone that Anne handed to me but this was a $300 bill we could face if we went through with this all the way. I was feeling terrible and Anne said we should go to the medical clinic over here in Clairview. After about a 15 minute wait for the bus the #11 pulled right up to the parking lot of the medical center. There were several other people there most of them were parents with children. We waited there for about 2 hours before we finally got up to the intake window. Then another 2 hours before we finally were able to see a Doctor Fisher. A young Doctor. He was interested in the headache I had if it cameo suddenly or gradually. I said the latter. He shone a light in my eyes. The intake took my pulse which read 160/40 something. The Doctor said I might have had what he called a mini stroke or a TIA but the headache was gradual and not sudden. Or it could have just been a sudden migraine headache.

I’m fully coherent and I was while I was seeing the Doctor. My speech wasn’t slurred there were no other signs of a stroke. I thought it was food poisoning from the shepherds pie Anne had made but I was able to walk home under my own power. Once inside I felt a lot better. Anne wants me to have a couple of days off here and not to worry we’ll go to the bank.

Anyway it was quite a scare. We got into the apartment at 4am. I took my oatmeal and insulin. At the intake window they took a blood sugar level reading and I was 10.2 or something. I listened to a bit of Coast and was passed out by 4:30am.

I slept well in the morning and feeling better but these TIA’s have been known to return in some people. The good news is I have a couple of days off. Personally I think what I had was a migraine headache. I’ve never had one before so it was a new experience.

OK onto other things. Over there at Pat’s fantasy hotlist, they are talking about Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” Omnibus. Now I haven‘t read any of Gaiman’s work yet but plan on getting to them soon. Also at Pat’s there are winners from the Carrie Vaughn book give-a-way contest. I didn’t win L

Over there at SF Signal they have a great video by Vernon Vinge talking about Superhuman intelligence. There is also a discussion about favourite Anime films of all Time. I’m not big on Anime not that there’s anything wrong with it.

Anyway tonight I’m home while Anne is at work. At 8pm there’s an Oiler’s/Vancouver game on TV I can watch. See if the Oiler’s can lose their 16th straight loss. Poor guys.

That was a good Sunday

Anne made some of her homemade lasagne and it was surprisingly good. We watched “The Honeymooners,” the one about the hypnotist and an episode of “The three Stooges.” Lots of fun.

About 9pm last night (Sunday night) I composed a post in HTML using font tags in Blogger and the post loaded perfectly. Blogger works good in HTML because the paste button isn’t even available in “Compose” mode.

George Knapp has a great show on Coast overnight: Replicating alien technology. It’s under way right now

I checked my blood sugar level about 10:15pm and it was 6.8. Not bad. That was after I had taken out the trash. Now it reads 10.8. Not good but it will come down over the next few hours before bed.

I’m writing this post before bed because I might not get a chance later today what with it being Monday and all. Monday is “Monday night Raw.”
Anne and I will be going to bed about 3am and listen to Coast for half an hour. I’m working from 5-9 tonight.

Anne said she’s going to give me the funds for my Lodge dues because my vacation money came through for my website. This week and next week are going to be full weeks but the week after that, Lodge week I’m going to the Wednesday night Lodge and my own Lodge. I want to save up enough money for the Archos 5. Anyway that’s about all for now.

Having a decent Sunday off

I barely got out the door shortly before 9 yesterday morning for my commute into work. I met little James at Tim’s and I bought my breakfast. Sure enough as we were walking towards the office there was Jattan running the room this morning with a key to the elevator. I sat up there by James and the other James from business. There was 3 of us. I had a slow start and that and answering machines was the theme for the day. I was at $120 including a $20 card by the noon break. All my sales were $20. Both James’s were running away with it total wise and credit cards. My only consolation was JT was only a little further ahead then me but in the 3rd part he got a $75 sale and a few large sales to get the bonus line hour. In 6 hours I couldn’t get $360. Best I could muster was $180 for the whole day and I bet JT $2 on the Oiler’s/SJ game. The Oiler’s played ok but SJ was by far the better team. I later learned that the Oiler’s lost 14/15 games. Pitiful. That’s consecutive losses.

I did manage to get a lot of cans and empties and at about 4:35pm I was deciding what to do as far as getting a bite to eat goes. BP’s looked good but last Saturday’s experience kind of soured me. I decided the can of pasta Anne had for me at home was the better deal. I got to the upper concourse at Corona station only to hear the train announcing in. I wasn’t going to make it so I headed back up to Tim’s and took a look at their sandwich menus. I got a small turkey bacon club/donut/diet Cola and enjoyed that. Very nice.

A brief wait latter and I headed home. It was almost Spring like out there. I got inside about 5:50pm and had the pasta and took my insulin. I had the hockey game on as I passed out for a bit waiting for Anne to come home

Anne gave me a sleeping pill for over night about 2:20am and we went to bed about 3 after I’d taken my insulin shot. I had no trouble sleeping after that and I woke up shortly after 1pm. Back in the day getting up past 11am on a Sunday morning was a “sin.” But I work 6 days a week.

Not much on my plate today. Mostly today is a reading day and my other project.

One thing I’m seriously looking at is the Archos 5 Internet tablet. Not the Media tablet. These Internet Tablets are just over half an inch thin. They can run over a wi-fi or 3G network. This means that Bell, Rogers, Telus will support them. I’m looking at the 160Gb version priced at $329. The screen size is about the size of an Ipod touch. The device not the screen size. The Archos 5 runs on the Android market place and has a Flash memory card slot as well. Nokia and others make these tablets but the Arcos 5 is the one I like. I’m thinking about getting this in June or even earlier. I’m not really into cell phones so I can see myself using this on my commute or when I’m out and about. I can Blog from this device, receive sports scores anything a smart phone can do except make phone calls and or take video. That’s the only thing missing from this device is a camera but taking video isn't that important to me.

Other then that not a lot going on. That’s all for now.

Having a slow

couple of days around here. There hasn't been a lot going on except eating, sleeping and going to work.

Speaking about work and such half the office did OTH last night. We had nothing but cold calls and I ended up doing not to badly. I got 3 credit card sales for a total making line hour of $260. $70 of that was on cards. I'm glad about this because most likely I'll be doing this source tonight and tomorrow morning.

I met my book ordering guy just near Tim's there as he was going home I was heading to Corona LRT. We stopped and had a brief chat. He said some of my Mercedes Lackey books I ordered were in. Great I'll be able to pick up one Friday afternoon.

The Oiler's are hosting the Penguins tonight here at Rexall. The other night the Home team had their straight 12th loss. Anyway that's about all for now.

Happy New Year everyone!

Last night Anne and I rang in the New Year feeling pretty good. At this moment she's probably boarding the train after putting in a 5 hour shift. I had a great sleep over night. That red wine felt really good and I had no trouble passing out waking up at about 1:30pm this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon at my bank I was able to talk to a teller to get some numbers to open up a Pay Pal account. Pay Pal has been around for a long time but I've never had any reason to take advantage of this service. So I'm going to try an experiment and order a book from Amazon.ca. If it's a decent experience then I might use Pay Pal more frequently for things like this.

So not much is going on this afternoon. I got a chance to look over the specs of my little Acer laptop I'm using right now to type this post on. The only problem I'm having with the laptop is I'm not able to download programs like Google Earth. Most likely this is due to the router I have blocking download activity. I can always link my modem directly of course with no trouble.

I mentioned to management yesterday just before leaving the office that I wont be on in on Saturday. I begin full time hours next week.

I think though next week I'll go in for the morning shift on a Tuesday instead of the Friday so Anne and I can go see Avatar if it's playing at the Empire down here. It's a bit of a walk but after that we can go over to the new Swiss Chalet for dinner or Boston. We could go for dinner first and then go to the 9:30pm show. It's a good 3 hour movie. might be something we could do as an outing together. First outing for the New Year. Anyway, that's all for now.