Day 1 of my 2 days off

This diary used to be written in hard copy. Ink on paper. I used to write in it everyday and it would be like a sounding board. In a way.

When I went from paper to MS Word in August of 2005. I decided to type instead of write by hand because it got to the point I couldn’t read my own handwriting. Besides I can add headers and footers and post photos to my blog in various ways. I didn’t get the digital camera until 2006 and that was kind of neat to put photos on my blog. Would I go back to paper and pen again? I doubt it. This is much better.

Last night I was playing Oblivion for a few hours. We had our wine. Anne was stressed out from her job. But we went to bed about 4am after I took my insulin and I slept ok for 8 hours. I got up to play Oblivion again and completed the first quest and discovered a few tricks about strategic movement around the world map. My character is not strong enough to complete the 2nd quest. This took me up until about 2:30pm and my wife got up to go over to the truck for a few things. it’s a discount food truck. There’s several of them scattered all over the city.
As for now, I’m having my first coffee. It’s -12/-20C out there. It’s supposed to warm up by this time next week. We should be around -4C.

My blood sugar level’s (bsl) were fairly high last night, registering 10.1. Right now it’s sitting at 9.3. The trouble is I’m not getting any exercise and that‘s going to be a huge problem for me down the road as a diabetic. A few years ago when Pat worked here he had bought a pedometer. Even though with the weather out there as it is I wouldn’t recommend anyone walking around for long distances on icy sidewalks. Treadmills are too expensive. I used to walk in the hallways to lower my bsl and I might do this yet in an hour or so. The thing is this doesn’t tell me how much distance I’ve traveled. A pedometer (thanks to Thomas Jefferson) measures each step and translates that into feet, yards, miles. I don’t need to do this all in one go but I’m going to look into getting a pedometer. I’m looking at getting a cardio health kit from London drugs. I decided that an early goal should be 1 mile/day. Some recommend 10K steps/day, which equals to about 5 miles. But what about the weather? The icy sidewalks? For starters, I can walk inside the apartment building back and fourth in the hallway. I just went and walked from one end of the hallway to the other and its 77 steps long, approximately. It’s going to take about 30 minutes from that little walk to lower my bsl. It seems that there are 2,000 steps in 1 mile. To get a mile’s worth of walking in the hallway I’d need to walk back and fourth for about 13 times. That’s about 1 mile.

I’m going to try this and see how long it takes me to walk a mile here in the hallway. It’s 3:30pm now. It’s now 3:45pm and I walked 5 times or about 770 steps. There’s no way to tell for sure unless I go get a pedometer and I believe I can get one at the pharmacy I pass by every day on the way to work. But what interrupted me was my crazy wife coming home from her shopping. Still I feel pretty good about that and I worked up a bit of a sweat as well and I feel pretty good about myself. I’m going to do the rest later. I don’t really need the pedometer in this case but I’m not always going to do my walking inside. That’s why I need one. And from now on I’m going to take the stairs up from Corona. But I’ll be looking into that pedometer when I go back to work Tuesday. My bsl hadn’t dropped much 9.1 down from 9.3 but it’s a start.

Anne’s making our brunch and an hour after that, I’m going to do the other half of the mile Five times.

My wife had retrieved my mail and my new bank card came in. It has chip enabled technology. I don’t think the last card I had was chip enabled. ID theft is a big deal these days and yet on the job I get anywhere from 10-20 CC sales/week. And I’m just part time. Out of 14-17 tap stations, that’s pretty good.

About time. Obama pushed his stimulus $787B package through at last. The military was complaining that there was nothing in it for them but this wasn’t a budget bill. Meanwhile Ed Stelmach has been holding press conferences about what we’re doing here in Alberta to give our oil a better image. This has been in the works for months now but good timing because Obama’s trip to Canada begins next week. Hurry up Ed, brush the dirt under the rug, company’s coming. Kind of reminds me of Catherine 2nd’s visit into the country side of Russia in the 1930’s. One good thing about Obama’s energy bill I like is the energy efficiency, up to 50B. Of course the Republicans are critical of the bill. No kidding.

After brunch I’m going to spend some time with “Logos run.” I put a little bit of a dent in this last night. Hopefully I can get past the books half way point.

And finally, I didn’t win the big $25M 6/49 draw last night. Actually, nobody did. However I got 1 number out of 6! They usually carry this over and often double it. It could go as high as $50M but it’s fun to play. I usually win about $10 bucks every now and then.

Anyway, bloggers that’s all for now.

e. Jim

Busy couple of days

Yesterday, Anne left for her 2pm shift. And after locking up I headed out the door for my 4pm shift. I read a bit more on “Runner.” I’m barely under 70 pages in this thing. I wanted to be at the half way mark by now. I’m still going to try and finish this thing by the end of this month. I brought a $20 with me and I cracked that at the pharmacy and paid Greg $10 for my share of the cable. There was an Oiler at Denver game on later. I wasn’t sure of the exact time. But the weather is warm and I’ve plans to go out and get a book for latter.


Anyway I had a pretty good shift. Before the first hour was about half over I did some tinkering around in between calls. I figured that if I can work 3 years and work my last year full time, I can go on EI for a year and take early retirement. Right now I’m barely making a little over a subsistence living as it is and that’s where I’ll be when I turn 65 unless I make it good in the markets. What early retirement will mean for me at 60 will basically be the status quo, except I wont need to put the hours or the bullshit involved in a part or full time job. I’d be more or less out of the rat race. But if I can “get out” at say 58 (and that’s only 2 years) then all the better for me. I can claim being diabetic and having scoliosis to work in my favor. Having this in mind I felt really good, hey it was Friday and Saturday I have my website money and enough to get a fast food treat at the food court and “Morrowind” at EB games. So I can get a bite to eat first, head to Clairview EB games and get my game and walk down to MM and get the Euros and wire them off to my web guy. Go home have a nap and wake up about 6pm and crack open the game. I felt pretty good. Just 2 more years of this crap.

By break I was at about $300 and 1 CC sale. I felt pretty good about this. Then we did OTH and I got $105 on OTH and 2 CC sales for the evening. No bonus money for me this week but you know what? I don’t care now. Even with Early retirement I might need to put in 3 days a week part time and I could handle a Friday/Saturday/Sunday type arrangement. That’s 11.5 hours. I’d be on I/S along with my CPP and the weekend hours would be just enough to keep me semi retired. Hell, I know people working past 65.

Anyway, I left the office with the Oiler game 2-1 Oiler’s and went to get one of my Star Wars books. The guy (I think one of the owners) said that because both books were ordered around the time of when they removed the at par pricing, he gave me both at American pricing,. very nice thank you. So I picked up the thickets of the 2, “Star by Star.” This book has 605 pages and is almost like an Omnibus in itself.

I had a seat to myself on the train home and a Northgate bus just pulled in. I was at my apartment door about 9:30pm hearing the Oiler game on 630 Ched at the door. I got everything off including banging the snow inside the stairwell and settled into watch the last 10 minutes of the Gilbert goal. Oiler’s were leading 3-2. Could they hold on to win? The Av’s were pouring it on. Garon in net. I was holding my breath counting down the seconds. They won that one 3-2 was the finale. Then I watched Smackdown checking in on Boot’s thee for a bit.

I almost dozed off on the couch when I heard the buzzer to let her up. She gave me $40 and I have enough for my website and a food court treat and now that my game “Morrowind” is just under $12 today should be a pretty good day.

Last night D provided me with some very interesting information about someone else at my place of employment. B had her vacation pay ripped off as well sighting the same thing they told me. Over payment. D told me her husband got on the phone and said a few choice things and her vacation pay was straightened up the following week. B’s husband probably threatened head office with an Alberta Employment Standards investigation claim following a review. Monday, I’m going to call head office and I’m going to get some answers. Only I’m going to ask for a review of my vacation pay last year and ask where it was that I’ve been “overpaid?” The things I don’t go through with huh?

After a nice lunch and ECW I headed straight off to bed. Coast was mostly open lines but they had a haunting of the Queen Elizabeth ship show/guest. This kind of thing does nothing for me.........7:45pm: I had a quiet ride into the office this morning and got myself a Tim's breakfast. The whole shift was quiet but I ended up with 4 CC's and $670. I almost slept on the train to Clairview and I got off by the theaters and walked over to EB games. They said that "Morrowind" probably wouldn't work with the Xbox 360. They had just the collectors edition on the shelves for about $50. The store was busy. I left empty handed and headed home. At least the weather was nice. I took a look for Boots out back here by the tree but he wouldn't be out there. No sign of him anywhere about.

Having done that I went for a nap and slept until about 5:45pm. Anne called and I gave her an update on my failed attempt to get a video game today. at least the one I wanted. After I talked with her I called Future Shop and they didn't have a copy of even "Oblivion." that would have been my next choice. Maybe Walmart has a copy. I'll get the number from Anne when she calls at around 8pm. If Walmart doesn't have it then some other EB games store might have it.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim

Thanksgiving day is done

I’ve been having a great couple of days off here. I’ve been tinkering around with my website. The Eskimos won Friday night in BC and the Oiler’s won their season opener last night. I get a kick how the hockey world outside of Edmonton and Northern Alberta hates the Oiler’s. The announcer at the conclusion of the game had said “They got a dirty win,” making some under the breath reference to tar sands oil. But if the reverse occurred for any other team, “A win is a win and they’ll take it.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, that’s just the impression I get.

Well it’s Thanksgiving day here in Canada. I’ve a lot to be thankful for. I live in the best place in Canada. I got a job and a beautiful wife and 4 cats. Sure I know we’re just getting by but we’re a lot better off then a lot of other people. And I’m thankful for that. People might hate Edmonton, but they sure love the jobs and the money it brings them.

Last night I took advantage of the new Download feature (well new to me) from YouTube. I must have downloaded a good 20-30 videos so far. I’m not done yet. Just because I’ve downloaded them doesn’t mean I wont go to YouTube. These are songs for on the go when I‘m away from YouTube.

Earlier I began looking at some vintage musical keyboards and even though playing the keyboard was in my consciousness as early as the early 1970’s if I took up playing say in 1974, while I had a lot of time on my hands as a young man in his early 20’s, I’d probably have some thing like a Yamaha YC-30 or even a YC-25D Combo organ. Those organs in 1974 would have cost around $4k. To rich for my blood back then or even today.

I’m slowly closing to the end of Book 1 in the Icewind Dale trilogy. It’s pretty good and has some engaging scenes. The world building is pretty good as well. R. A. Salvatore put a lot of work into what the preface says was his first novel.

Tomorrow is election day. Uggh. According to the news lat night we’re short of electoral officers. Apparently it pays anywhere from $1-$200/day and they provide free training, so I think I’m going to sign up for the civic one. We get the Civic election, provincial election, Federal election.

This week, it’s a chalk full week. Of course today its Thanksgiving, tomorrow is the election, Thursday is lodge night. Our next stat holiday is Remembrance Day and that falls on a Tuesday.

Anne made me a great dinner of baby back ribs, beans and a backed potato. For desert a nice piece of pumpkin pie. Man was that good. All while watching a pretty good show of Monday night Raw. Anyway that’s been my weekend. I would have liked to have gone out to Pure Speculation to say hello to Robert J Sawyer. He’s off to Calgary for their World Fantasy Convention October 30th I wouldn’t mind attending that one but Yeesh, I have trouble just making it to across the river.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

Finally it’s Saturday

Last night I went to work and read a bit of JU on the train going in. I’ve got about another 150 pages left before I move onto my next read. I got into the office found my dialer and all 6 of us began work. I had a slow start. Moe wasn’t pushing l/h as much as other days. I did get a couple of CC’s and I need another 3 more to get my 20. I hope to get 4 today because of the slow start I had yesterday.

I was glad to get out of there at 8:30pm and over to Audrey’s. Trevor had made a list of the books I have on order. I think he said I had 5 books coming. I picked up 1 book from the special order desk. I ordered 6 more books as well last night before the official American pricing is removed and Audrey’s reverts back to uggh, Canadian pricing. Anything ordered before the change October 15th, will be honored. I have on order: Warhammer 40,000: “Ultramarines” by Graham McNeill. The omnibus. “Space Wolf.” The first omnibus. Warhammer 40,000: “Gaunt's Ghosts”: “The Saint” by Dan Abnett and a whole bunch more. I think about 12 Warhammer 40K are being ordered and or are coming in. My pick for the night was “Night Shift” by Lilith Saintcrow. I love the last name.

Happy with my purchase I headed out to the LRT and found a seat on the train and read on the way home. I got in about 9:30pm did my admin stuff and settled into watch wrestling. I was expecting my wife home by midnight. Sure enough after a great show, she comes in saying “Hello pizza goodbye the other job.”She said she’s starting to pick up on it and felt a little more confident on the phones. Good for her but you’ve got to be fast. She’s not quite fast enough and most of the people there are so fast they put calls through in less then a minute. During ECW, she made me a bowl of Raman’s and a grill cheese and I was in bed by 1:20am and I had a good 5 hours sleep. I’m good to go for the day.

This morning, I’m out there catching my train into the office for my four hours. After that it’s home for a couple hours nap and I’m watching the CFL Saskatchewan at Edmonton game on Sports net. My entertainment for this afternoon. Anne’s working from 3pm-8pm. I like these hours she’s keeping because it gives me some privacy at home. I can focus on doing my writing, which I’m going to get to this evening.

Thursday while realizing I forgot my Cola at home and waiting for Anne, she got off the train nearest me and took this photo. I'm naturally crooked and having the bag on my shoulder doesn't help. it's kind of dark in the background but Bay Station is a bit on the "Dark side."

One of my online friends, (a successful small press SF novelist out of Denver) in one of his recent blog posts was saying how he always seems to fall short of the words he’d like to have for an 80K novel. I don’t have that problem. Partly because I seem to be one of the few writers (working to get published of course) that works from a scene by scene outline. I know what’s going to happen in every scene. The only thing I have no control over is the subplots and action. I know who’s in the scene and where it takes place and in many cases even the outcome of the scene. Working from that aspect, I feel I don’t have a problem with word length. Matter of fact my last novel currently in rough draft hibernating needs to be expanded. I have enough material to do this to expand it to 140K while I‘m working on the scene structure of my current project. I’m a firm believer in working from a storyboard approach rather then flying off by the seat of ones pants and to see what happens.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

I had a nice

trip into work and did a lot of reading over the last couple of days on JU. I took my employer part of the subsidy form to be signed out. We’ve had these forms for about a year now. I got to work and of course JT was still pouting. Gary though was nice to me and he fed me some details of what went on today. We did CRF taps. With these ones, they took the dates away. I ended up with $755 and 3 CC’s. No bonus at all. I had a nice reading trip home as well on the train and the city fixed the trap at Sifton school, which means the #183 bus service route is normal. Anne made a nice pirogue lunch with a smoky.

Well, is Stephen Harper going to call a Federal election for October 14th? Dion thinks he’s politicking because he put into Law that elections have to be called ever 4 years. Except when there’s a minority Government. Now that I think about it, if Dion’s whole political platform rests with his so called “Green shift,” then he may as well kiss his PM bid goodbye. Just what this country needs is another tax. The other thing I’m thinking about is even if Dion goes through with his scheme there might be a loophole with Ed Stelmach’s plan to implement a carbon capture route. No emissions no tax right? I doubt it’s going to be as simple as that though.

Over there at SF Signal they’re asking: “How do you think media tie-in novels affect the genre of sf/f?” This one is easy enough to answer. Fan-Fic. Or fan fiction. For example, take the “Star Wars” franchise. At the moment there is something like over 300 “Star Wars” novels published. I have a lot of those novels on my own book shelves as it is. Writing for these franchises in someone else’s Universe is Fan Fic. The original author created the Universe with everything already there. We know what a light saber is and what a Jedi Knight is so these terms need not be explained. In Star Trek, we know what the phrase “Beam me up.” means. “Energize” we mean anything after the original series. Everything is all laid out for us. And that’s not for just “Star Wars” and “Star Trek“ its for any franchise. I’m not saying media tie-in novels are bad but we know what’s down the end of that road: Fan-Fic. And it’s not just movies or television although these mediums basically corner the media tie-in novel market. So what’s my point? Media tie-in novels are great for the sf/f genre because they get more people reading. I wonder how many people that loved the original “Star Wars” when I first saw it in 1977 ventured to get their “Star Wars” fix through the novels? How many “D&D” players got their “D&D” fix through the many “Forgotten Realms” series or “Dragon Lance” or even “Indiana Jones” in the novel format? I wonder how many new “Iron Man” fans there are because of the movie and these fans decide to delve into the comic book? It works both ways.

At least we’ve got the rent paid for September with $100 owing on the balance. I’ll cover that with my next cheque and I even get a $20 allowance as well this Saturday so I can get a couple more books. Now we're worried about October with my wife essentually out of work..

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

My wife

rode in with me as she wanted to actually apply at Pizza. I was running in late but got to my dialer about 4:45pm. I had a great night pulling in 5 CC’s for a $15 bonus and $875 on the night. On the way out the office it was raining on the way home. I had a good reading session there on the train home and on the wait bus. I got in just before 10pm and watched a great episode of Raw.

Before We left out of here I did a bit more writing fleshing out scenes. I’m not sure I know where I’m going to be going with this thing yet.

I want to fill in that “Currently reading” block and also hoe to upload images to a static page. I know about the src tag but there’s got to be more to it then that.

My wife has an interview on Thursday for pizza.. I hope she gets the job. If she gets in and starts next week I might be (part time) soon to follow.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

A laid back Sunday

That was my weekend such as it was. I got a lot accomplished. I did some reading, Piano practicing and yes even some writing that wasn’t Blogging. Real writing.

Not much going on today. It’s into the office for my 4pm shift. Anne hasn’t heard anything yet from pizza. I hope they got her resume. I think because there was no cover letter it got pushed to the back burner. She’s mentioned she’s going there today. We’ll see. I want her in there so I can get in there and use Pizza as a back up for when Xl goes under. I suspect it will before the end of the year. I hope I’m just overreacting here but in case I’m not, I want a spare parachute. What I’d ideally like to do is work security 5-9 and pizza after that. I’ve got mixed feelings about this.

This afternoon, I’m going in at 4pm for the job. Put my 4 hours in and come back for Raw. Yes it’s a typical Monday.

I tried calling Mike and Doris about 7pm, 6pm their time but they were not home. I tried. I’ll call again about Wednesday. I’d like to ask Mike what he knows (if anything) about our Grandfather on our father’s side. We know next to nothing about my Grandfather. My mother’s father there’s lots about JJ Johnston. He was a fixture in New Westminster for many years. I wish I knew more about my family.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

I made a longer

post over at my website yesterday. See link to site under "resources" in the sidebar

Anyway, Bloggers that's all for now

e. Jim

Anne came out with me

to my bus stop waiting for the bus Wednesday afternoon, She went across the street to go feed the birds. Then she came back and kissed her husband off to work. I had a nice trip going in. We did Comedy Fest and I had a slow start. Mostly doing semis. I was surprised I ended up with $140 by break. Anne’s phone rang and she tried to call me earlier then usual. I guess cell phones are ok. Again they gave me the cold shoulder, JT and Gary. They are still pouting over me turning JT in for the paper balls Saturday. I was glad when they left at 7. I had 2 CC’s as well and I put them on the board and JT dropped a note on my keyboard “big rat” or something like that. At least I think it was him.

It seems that my Amway connection wasn’t going to the meeting after all. It would have been nice to find out if Ellen and Helga still show up. I’d like to hide behind a plant or something there one night just to see of they do show up. At least I know where they have their weekly meetings. If she’s still in the business at all.

The 2nd half was really slow but I ended up with 3 CC’s. I got $9 in bonuses out of the night. At break some of us asked why is it the evening shift the only ones that always have to move when the afternoon shift leave half way from the shift. If that’s the case, then why can’t I come in at 3pm and leave at 7pm? That’s 4 hours right? Then Moe snaps and says, “You’ll sit where I tell you to or there’s the elevator door out and don’t come back.” Lately he’s been a real Hitler. I’m very close to calling Pizza and put my name in. I’d work from 9:30pm-closing 3 days a week for now and if I like the job and it’s easy enough then next time Moe comes out with a comment like that or something similar “,and don’t come back.” I’ll pack my things and say something like “I’ll come back and pick my last cheque up on Friday.”

Anyway, I had a 20 minute wait for the train. Extra cars on. It seems Tom Petty was at Rexall last night and “Motley Crue” was in the night before. The Rexall parking lot was full on the way home. We’ve got some great acts coming to Edmonton this year such as Elton John, Celine Dion, Neil Diamond and Metalica. I think they were here a few times before.

I got to the bus at Clairview and called Anne and read more Judas Unchained. From the time I leave the office at 9pm it takes me an hour to get home. I wait a good 20 minutes for the train. The trip home is 20 minutes. There’s a 10 minute wait on the bus. The good news is I get an hour to read. if I’m lucky and I don’t get any distractions. Strange how it can take me half an hour to get to work though but an hour to get home.

Anne ordered “Summerslam” for me for this Sunday. It’s my birthday present. I get 2 WWE pay per views/year. Either Summerslam or Survivor series or Wrestlemania. I hope I can keep it if we don’t end up getting into a fight or something like that. The plan is she gets up at 2-3pm on that Sunday and then around 4 goes to Rose bowl to get our Pizza. This way I have it there at about 6pm.

Despite the bs from earlier on the job with Moe, I had a pretty good night. I’m about to have a cup of hot milk and head for bed. Ufologists Stanton Friedman and Frank Feschino will discuss a terrifying UFO encounter in 1952, when a damaged UFO crash-landed on a farm in the small town of Flatwoods, WV. Sounds like a good show.

Friday I’ve got a couple books to pick up at Audrey’s. “Mission Earth 1” and I think one of the “New Jedi order.” Unless some of the other books I’ve ordered comes in those will be my 2 titles for this week.

I tried using Google’s Gadgets thing for my blog but I don’t like them. I prefer just a simple button but instead the gadgets are scroll levers on the side and bottom making them look ugly. Not only that but most of the gadgets are broken anyway. I’m not very impressed.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

I missed the

Cariwest parade but I got into Clairview and a long wait in the heat but at least able to read. I got home and Anne was just coming in and out. I managed to snag a couple of hours of a nap.

I wanted to do some hard drive back up but the unit failed twice on me and shut me down automatically. I’m going to have to figure out what’s wrong with this thing.

Of course I didn’t win The Big one. It was only $4M. So much for getting the ticket on 08-08-08. I really needed to get the ticket today. Today should have been 08-08-08. The next date like this wont be for another 1,000 years when it’s 08-08-3008.

One of the posters on YouTube (claiming to work at CERN mentions: “The first full circle of the beam is planned for first week of September and the first collisions in the first or second week of October. So nothing new physics wise can happen before then. And even then you can be relaxed as the 2008 run will only be at partial energy and low luminosity. Basically the real LHC running starts in ca March 2009, this year is mostly engineering tests and calibrations.” We’re at least 8 months away until full activation.

YouTube is an awesome resource. I wish they had this thing up and running in 1996 when I was doing basic math at NorQuest. YouTube would have been a Godsend. There’s even English Grammar tutorials there as well. Makes me think I wasted money on buying that book on Grammar.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim