Showing posts with label Sunday's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunday's. Show all posts

Saturday, September 26, 2009

We're getting a heavy wind storm out there

this evening that began about 4:30pm Saturday, it died down a little.

I'm happy to report that I've reached a decision about which Smart phne I'm going to buy: The Iphone 3Gs. I like the S because it can shoot and upload video to YouTube right from the phone. I like it's other features as well and now there is "Documents to Go" for the Iphone. Also, with Viigo I can listen to AM radio. This is great for listening to Edmonton Oiler broadcasts while there's say half an hour left in the game and I'm heading home. The data/phone plan is $60/month for a half Gb and unlimited evenings and weekend calling time. Plus theres a direct link to Apples Itunes. Those are just some of the features that brought me to this decision. THe only thing I don't l ike is that its a 3 year contract.

I'm just over the half way point of "The Space Wolves" Omnibus. With about 60 pages remaining in the 2nd book. I'm finding this part a little bit of a yawn with a lot of SF cliches. I'm going to try and finish the 2nd book today. At Goodreads there are 63 ratings and 8 reviews on this Omnibus. I'm enjoying this book but it seems a bit stillted in parts. I also want to read Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" series. Audrey's has the first 2 in Trade.

Friday I ordered the 1st 3 of John Ringo's "Poslene war" and the New Space Opera 2. But I hink on Monday I'm going to call and order 4 of Steven Erikson's "Books of the Fallen." I need "House of chains," "Midnight tides," "Reapers gale," and "Toll the hounds" is already there in the shelves.

Anyway gang, that's about all for now

Jim

Monday, September 14, 2009

I had a great Sunday....

and I would like to have at least another day off before I go back to work but I'm lucky I have a job. What with so much unemployment around here. Right now our jobless rate is at 7.4%. A year ago we were at 3.5%!

The recession first broke here in Edmonton around October but the signs were there around August of last year. How long will this recession last? Hard to say.

Alright, enough of that. SF Signal yesterday had a great YouTube clip on Steampunk. I always thought Steampunk was a sub genre of Cyberpunk. Boy was I wrong. In a way Steampunk is alternate history what with merging the industrial revolution with SF elements. Some would say Jules Verne is Steampunk.

The only down side to Sunday was that I kept on getting this eye irritation like having an eyelash in ones eye.

Anyway gang that's about all for now

Jim

Sunday, February 15, 2009

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

Monday, December 29, 2008

Yesterday was a reading day

Sunday was mostly a reading day although I did do some more assassination research. I’m looking into the General Walker shooting.

The Nashville at Edmonton game was a darn good one. The Oiler’s don’t have to win every time for a game to be good but last nights game Oiler’s 5 Preds 2 was fun to watch. The fans needed a win at Rexall. I did that from 6-9
Also last night and Anne went out to Walmart and mentioned there was something under the tree. It was in a Christmas wrapping bag. OMG the Xbox 360! What she said she did basically was buy it out of our January rent money but she’s going to make an appointment to the bank and get the balance later this week for rent and my website/lodge dues. Wu-who now I can play Elder scrolls on our 42” LCD wide screen. We haven’t opened it yet because we want to get the funds out of our RRSP for 2009, in case there are some complications so we can get our money back from Walmart. Now I can play Elder scrolls. At least its in a box under the tree:
Finally, I completed reading “Fast Forward #1” Here is a “brief review:”

Brief synopsis: This is an annual anthology from a master anthologist. Lou Anders knows his stuff and brings to the table some good offerings.
Pros: 19 stories and 2 poems. 5 stories were Very good, 7 stories were good, 4 stories not bad.

Cons: 3 stories were poor. Plus 2 poems I had to add a wtf?

I liked most of the stories in this anthology except but there were a few that I found boring as hell. I’ll be reading FF#2 later on this winter On a scale from 1-10 I’d give this a good 6 e. Jim’s out of 10.
Now it’s onto Eric Brown’s “Helix.”

This week is going to be interesting. Firstly I go into work tonight and then I’ll be watching Monday night Raw. Tuesday same thing just into work but that’s my last shift of 2008. There’s a shift Wednesday but that’s in the morning only. Since I don’t work mornings that doesn’t apply to me. Hence: Day off. Also, Anne’s at work and there’s an Oiler game Wednesday December 31st here at Rexall with Ottawa Senators. Right after the game or just before midnight I’ll be scrambling for a train downtown to meet my wife. She gets off work at midnight. We’re going to try get to see some of the fireworks but chances are we might not. Thursday January first the Oiler’s are in Calgary giving the Flames some New years “cheer.” I’ll be watching that one. Anne’s at the bank January 2nd hopefully with good news and I’ll have my lodge dues and my website funds.

Here’s another photo of the stack of books I read this year. Icewind Dale the 2 Peter F. Hamilton books were all over 1,000 pages each. It’s my goal to read at least one book/month.

And at last what wouldn’t the season be without another cat photo? This one is of Silky. I’ve had him for well over 10 years now. He’s also my dinner guest sitting beside me hoping for a taste of my supper, which I always oblige. Silky is extremely shy. Except with me and Anne.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now
e. Jim