Saturday was a pretty good day.

I’m going into work feeling pretty good and all yesterday. The weather was nice and mild. I read a bit from my book as well on the way in. At the drugstore I bought my 6/49 ticket and got some change to pay JT and DC. I met JT upstairs as the shift was over and paid him that $4. Then I heard about the bomb. Apparently head office is making some cutbacks and the morning shift is no longer. They’re running 1:30pm-9pm now as of Monday. They might even go from 1:30pm-10pm and cut Sunday’s shift off. It’s still 8pm in BC. I might get 5 hours/shift if that’s the case. This actually threw me for a loop here and made me feeling down for the night. At least they didn’t lay me off-yet. I got a couple of calls from Anne while she was on her breaks 6:20pm break and 8pm. I collected a lot of cans and bottles and she said she was going to give me another $20 because of my missing bonuses. I ended up with $360 and 2 CC sales. Nothing stellar. I called Trevor saying I’d come by on Monday and pick up my copy of “Path’s of Darkness." It might be Friday.

After work I went to Tim’s to get a medium decafe and a blueberry fritter. I drank the coffee on the way home. It was very nice out there and still is. Super etc knows I’m not in for today because of Anne’s birthday. I mentioned to JT about how I’m not going to tell her about how the morning shift is being cut back as of Monday. I came in to watch Smackdown and Anne came home and made me a couple of hotdogs and fries for my lunch last night.

Then it occurred to me that they are going to cancel the morning shift, they can still use the dialers for the afternoon/evening shift. JT was saying how when he was on the trip to Vegas sitting beside some guys from our Calgary office that they were scaled back to about 15 people. But this was in the summer before the economy went bad. We had that many people in our office as well before the recession. Apparently Rob etc were pulling in a lot of the back 20 telling them they‘re let go. But Rob never pulled me aside. He was right there watching me pay off JT.
I heard on Ched this afternoon as I was packing my things up that Iphone and Itouch users can pick up Ched anywhere where there’s a wi-fi connection for free. Interesting. I’d love to be able to pick up the Oiler’s game in progress on my way home from work. Gives me a whole new reason to think about getting an Iphone.

If I’m laid off on Monday, the first thing I’m going to do the following morning is get on EI. Then look for work. I’ll be applying at Pizza and see if I can get hired on there. I’m not going to tell my wife what happened just yet. I want to see if I can get a job the next day. If I survive this round then great, I'll remain at my job. I’ve got 3 years until "early retirement." Economic recovery is apparently near the end of 2009. Just how long it will take for the economy to recover is another thing. If I can get another year out of where I’m working then fine. If my company Edmonton goes belly up, then I can go to Pizza. Rob might offer me a couple of suggestions and I know Anne wont like them but I have to keep my job.

I don’t know what’s happened with Anne. She left out of here about noon to mail my T4’s and pick up my insulin. Then we’re supposed to go out for our dinner. Unless she’s changed her mind. I don’t mind going. The weather isn’t bad out there at +1. All we do is board the bus out here, take the train to Coliseum station board a bus to Kingsway Mall and the connecting bus to the Ramada and we’re there. It’s about an hour trip there and back. But Anne might decide to buy herself a birthday present instead and get a Rose bowl pizza. The longer she stays out there the window closes because I want to be home by 8pm ish for the game. The whole dinner would run us about $50 and it seems like a waste of money for $50 just to go out and eat. I’m ok with it either way though. I’m just kind of worried about Monday. With them cutting back the morning shift and with the numbers/resources we have to work with, is my job in jeopardy? I asked Dave if he was concerned and he said something like he works from “1:30-9pm” so it doesn’t affect him. Yeah but a lot of those morning people the ones that haven’t been laid off yet will migrate over to the afternoon/evening shift. There might be no more 5-9 anymore. It might just be 1:30-10pm. 7.5 hours of work with a half hour break. But Rob could tell me that Monday. I might just ask if I could do business instead and work 8:00am-4am. I can get up at say 6:45am get out the door by 7:20am. Best part about business is I not only get my evenings off but I also get my weekends off. I can see my job cutting back Saturday’s and Sunday’s. That’s 35 hours for everyone. I can handle that..........I'm back:

Friggin Oiler’s, couldn’t win a game worth trying. They can go into OT but after that. Forget it. Tonight they went from 7th then 8th and 9th and back to 8th again. They share 8th place with the Wild. Yeesh.

Okay, I got up around 1pm this afternoon. Did my thing and Anne came in to haul me out for dinner. She was out getting my insulin and other things. She brought back chips, dip etc. We left out of here around 4pm under sunny skies at +3C. Very nice. We got out train at Clairview and I read my book with my wife down to Stadium. We caught the #127 after a 15 min wait and then over to Kingsway mall for the #12. We got some good connections. We got to the Ramada about 5:30pm. Their prime rib was awesome. Best beef I’ve ever had. Very nice. I went back for seconds. Even the desert was good. I think our bill was $50 and I gave a $5 tip to our waiter. We paid our bill and headed across the street and I took my insulin in the bus shelter. We made great connections getting back. It was nice seeing the Oiler faithful heading out to the game. We were waiting for a bus at Clairview home and the #183 came by and a brief wait and we were home by 8pm.

The Oiler’s could have easily knocked themselves out of the playoff race all together but they have a game in hand more then anyone else. But they’ve got to start winning some games. They didn’t play very well tonight. I give them a C+ 3-2 Av’s in OT.

I’m not to worried about losing my job. Pizza is always hiring. I can work a Friday night, Sunday and Monday. The only thing with pizza is that bonus money is hard to come by. But if I get hired I can get on right away.

Over the last several weeks I’ve been following the prose over there at Sci-fi guy .ca. The site promotes a lot of Urban fantasy. Nothing wrong with this, but where is the sci-fi at Sci-fi guy. ca? Am I missing something here?

So, for today, on a scale from 1-10 I’d rate today an 8.5. An Oiler win would have made it a 9 and winning anything on this evenings 6/49 would have made it a 10. I slept in on a Saturday, went out to dinner with my wife and watched the Oiler’s lose, but lost on the 6/49. All in all, today was a good day.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim

I'm kind of in a rush this evening folks.

My wife left out of here about 7am this morning to get our taxes done. It’s a free service in the Edmonton public library for low income earners. We qualified by about $500. Meanwhile I was sleeping and about 8:30am I woke up with this terrible headache. I was struggling with this thing all morning. Finally I took my last Advil and went to rest on the couch. About half an hour later I felt great. I was playing Oblivion when Anne came in and she was accusing me of trying to sabotaging our subsidy forms by somehow taking my part of the form out So I’m looking for the form and she finds it. Good news is she doesn’t owe the Feds anything. Also, She’s getting back a nice refund and so am I. The thing with the free service is that even though she can have them do my taxes, I need to sign the form to get them done electronically. She’ll get her refund a lot sooner then mine.

I think what I’m going to do with my refund is get a secured Visa card and Government ID. With the Visa card I can buy my SFF books etc on Ebay.

I headed out to work and got my dialer and hunted up a lot of cans and bottles. I had a good haul this evening. I got my cheque but there were $30 worth of bonuses missing from my cheque from last week. Super corrected this for me. We were doing CCSD again. I was having a good time. Anne called me and we ad a chat. At break I made another pass at the bottles and cans. DC and I bet on the early game, Calgary at Red Wings. I took the Wings. They lost in OT. Great game. Then the Oiler’s JT and I went double or nothing. We Didn’t see that much of the Oiler game but after I got the $15 bonus and another $1,000+ night and a whack of cans Anne said I can come straight home. I was glad for that. I got in to watch the Oiler’s record 7 straight OT wins. They lost again in OT. And that’s where I am right now.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim

Looks like another cold one out there

It was another cold one leaving out of here today for work. I bought a diet Coke at the drugstore and went upstairs just as the shift was changing. Rob was giving out some huge bonuses for the staff leaving out of there. I got a modest collection of cans and bottles. Anne was glad to hear from me when I called shortly before kick-off. We ended up doing CBF and that bombed so we did OTH. Seeing as how the game is next Wednesday. 2 CC sales and $100 l/h got $25. I was no where close and 3/5 calls or so were semies. I ended up with 2 CC’s and $285. Nowhere close. I made sure Super put the missing $10 bonus I missed from last time on my cheque from last week.

It was still bitter cold heading across the open parkade to Corona station. I didn’t have my reading glasses so I couldn’t read on the train home. But I called my buddy Charles and he’d call me back. He did as I was watching Raw and Anne went out across the street to the store.
Anne made me a great cheese burger for lunch and I had that and watched an excellent Monday night Raw. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate this Raw a 9.

I’m off to do some piano practice……2:20pm> Onto my first coffee. We went to bed about 3:30am listening to Coast for half an hour. I couldn’t sleep around 9am so I got up to play Oblivion. I think. I made an error last night on the job having to do with a sale type. The customer bought 2 tickets to OTH for $40 but I couldn’t remember if I out X tickets or XD sponsor. I don’t want to bring this up and draw attention to myself as well. The customer said she’d get her grandson (out of town) the tickets. Hopefully she called and he said “can’t make it, other engagement,” or I did put down X for tickets. Playing Oblivion helped me get it out of my mind.

This afternoon it’s off to work. We got -25C out there. I don’t know if there’s a wind chill. Most likely there is but by Friday it’s supposed to warm up out there. I’m going to try and put Thursday and Friday afternoon in because Anne wants us to definitely go out to the Ramada for her birthday dinner.

Ahh, the new Star trek movie is coming out in a few months time. I hope it’s good. Sure it’s a prequel and different characters playing the originals although much younger, I wouldn’t say it’s young adult but probably borderline. I’ll most likely see it when it comes to the dollar theater in the fall.

Oil today is down by a bit sitting around $45. Premier Ed was saying yesterday that our credit rating for borrowing is one of the best in any regime in North America. And for that reason the Province is going to borrow for infrastructure projects. He says even with $40 oil were making money.

Oh last night while Anne went to get my chips and glasses she noticed Boots at the corner of our building. He cried seeing her and ran up to her. She said how she opened the front door, he goes through tale up in the air. She opens the stairwell door. Boots goes through following her up the stairs to our apartment door. He’s in my office with me now. The place stinks but I got the fan on and we’re ok.
Anne’s off today but were ok. So far they haven’t cut back any hours on the job. That’s always a good sign. Oh and there's an Oiler game on TV tonight. Good stuff.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim

I'm tinkering around with this site again

I've added a Tweet this to the bottom of each post and took advantage of Adsense monetizing option.

I'm having a pretty good day.

Over the last several weeks my wife has been mentioning her birthday. The original idea was for me to take the day off and go out for dinner Saturday for her birthday on Monday. But I mentioned how one of the Lodges here in Edmonton is holding a EA degree night this up coming Friday. I'd love to go to that and dinner out with my wife but I can;t justify both days off work. Friday night and Saturday. I could have done this if I went in this afternoon to make up for Friday, sleep in for Saturday and go out for our dinner.

The other thing I could do is go to the Lodge, by working Friday morning. Or any one morning this week or a combination of afternoons. That way I could go to the Lodge. The other thing I'm thinking is if (This is what Anne most likely would do,) Go to her job run over and get us a Rose bowl pizza (She's been thinking about this as well.) after work and then Sunday we go to the late night movie and home. We might end up just going to The Ramada anyway.

I've always wanted a caricature done of me in pencil, 3/4 right frontal shot. I thought maybe at Capital Ex or the Agracom but when we went to the Ex a few years ago, and I was looking, they didn't have anything like that. I stumbled upon by accident a site that does this. $89 bucks isn't
isn't a bad deal.

Sorry about the book cover images. I'm going to fix those by using Library thing. I haven't been using this site as much as I'd hoped but that's going to change. LJ isn't bad but not as feature rich as Blogger and Blogger is free.

I spent about 3 hours playing Oblivion earlier this afternoon. I love this game. Yesterday I discovered the value of The Arena. Today I've discovered the use of the bribe wheel. I'm on a quest in one of the Northern towns but the bad guy is a bit to strong for me to take right now and my armor is broken. Going up to fight this guy with an armor class of 9 just doesn't cut it. I decided to do something else and I found killed off a goblin and found a battle axe of some kind with lots of "life" left in it. The newly "acquired" axe has a damage value of 3. Most of my weapons have a damage value of 2. It seems the less life a weapon has the less damage value it has.

I'm also looking at getting a space opera kind of game for the 360. Something like "Galactic Empires." This was an in house, pen and paper computer assist game that Adventure gaming supplies had here in Edmonton. How the game worked was there would be 6-8 players. You got a home planet and resource points to build ships and other things. Players mostly built Fleets send them out to explore and whoever got the most space and killed off his rival won. However there was an intangible: The dreaded NPC. Moves had to be by Saturday as the game master (gm) needed to input the moves into his computer program. Scouts got the skinny on how strong a fleet was. Odds were calculated. You won, you'd advance. Moves were done on Order sheets. It cost $2/order sheet. The game was simple wide open lots of room for alliances back stabbing. Great fun. It wasn't complex at all. When the store closed unfortunately so did the game. Too bad because this was a great game. I don't know if the Xbox has anything close to that. There probably is, somewhere.

I'm slowly reading through the "The Third link" and I'm enjoying the read. I hope to have a review of sorts by the end of this month.

Anyway gang, that's all for now

e. Jim

Most of my daily dribble is over on my website. See "Resources" for a link to there from here.

Snow was in my face waiting for my 9am #11 bus to Clairview this morning. Even though I was a bit tired, I was still feeling pretty good. I got into Tim’s and got my sausage muffin 2 hash browns and I cashed in that coffee Anne won last night. The snow was coming down pretty good crossing the parkade but it wasn’t cold out there.

I got into the office had my breakfast feeling pretty good. Staff began filing in and it was after 10am. No Super. About 10:15am I called Super and he was just coming in. Even though we started late, I had a slow start but managed to pick it up and I got a $100 sale and went on a sales binge from there, by the break I was around $415 something. Super pulled guys not at line hour off taps and moved them over to the front 20. Will Mc made a rare appearance today. JT and I were kidding each other about the game, him being a Leaf’s fan. In the 2nd half I finally got a CC sale, woot! I ended up with line hour, $780 to be exact. We had a pretty good crew of tap shooters.

I was glad to get out of there and the weather cleared up as well. No cans or bottles with me today. I can’t take them all the time but if ever there was a time I should is Saturday because there is no cleaning staff Saturdays. I was glad to get the train to Clairview get my 6/49 ticket and home. I tried having a bit of a nap but couldn’t sleep.

I don’t often plug other Blogs but Sci-fi Chick has a book review on “The Domino men” by Jonathan Barnes. This is a sequel to the “Somnambulist.” Apparently the book is a light fantasy with a lot of conspiracies tossed in. I like the idea that its written in the first person. No doubt “The Domino men” is hardcover but the “Somnambulist” is still in MMP. The review is listed with others over there at Amazon.com

I played some more Oblivion before the Oiler/Leaf game at 5pm. Anne called a couple of times. Leaf’s scored first then the Oiler’s right after that. The score ended up being 4-1 Oiler’s. Hehehe, Sorry JT. Worst part about it for him was the disastrous loss the Oiler’s came off of Thursday night. Roly’s play was outstanding but the Oiler’s are relying on him to much. JT and I went double or nothing, so I get $4 bucks from him and $2 from DC.

Well, I didn’t win the “Big One” tonight but I got one number. Lotto Canada doesn’t post the official numbers until later. If nobody won it tonight, it goes up to $8M for Wednesday.
Anyway gang that’s about it for the weekend blogging wise. I might post tomorrow, briefly. I’ll see how it goes. This should give you enough to chew on. Now to go practice some piano…….Ok, I’m awake now. I think. Last night going in was easy. I got a couple pages of reading in and that’s always a good thing. I gave the guitar busker a few coins at Corona station on my way to the drugstore/office. I bought a bag of cheese pleasers and I met JT coming in and sat with him in the back 21, not in the overflow. I picked through the office trash bins and managed a whack of cans and bottles. I had a good start but no CC sales the first half. JT and I went double or nothing on his Leafs and my Oiler’s in Toronto, that game is on this afternoon at 5pm. I had brought with me a thermos of hot water but no coffee. Rats. The rest of the shift didn’t go so great only pulling in $325 on the night. I was able to pick up my pay cheque. It was really slow going for the rest of the shift We ended up doing AES and all we had was 2004-05 taps. It wa a lame Friday night.

I got a lot of cans and bottles to take home and on my way over to Audrey’s. They had a poetry reading in progress right by my Science Fiction/Fantasy section (SFF). All readings in the store are done in that location. Audrey’s has been having a lot of poetry readings lately and on a Friday night. They had the stairs to the basement roped off. “Ask staff for assistance.” I asked if I could leave my bag of cans behind the ordering counter. My special order guy had to escort me around the back way of the stairs through a winding corridor down to the basement where I emerged from a hidden entrance. I noticed last week the store had a small elevator for obvious reasons. I should have checked special order first and I almost picked up “The Dreaming Void”, Peter F. Hamilton. I wasn’t sure if this was Cyberpunk or Young adult. Two genre’s I usually stay away from. By this time the reading was over with when I had picked out my selection but I checked the special order selection with T’s help and there it was Part 2 of the “In Conquest born” series by C.S. Freidman. I’ve had Part 1 since 2006. Sorry Hamilton. I’ll get “The dreaming void” next time. I picked up “Wilding” and the way upstairs by this time was cleared.
Peter F. Hamilton and CS Friedman have some things in common: They both write Space opera. This is my favorite gene in Science Fiction. I would have ordered some more books but Audrey’s was closing down for the day. I’ll have a list of books next time. I usually like to order 4 at a time.

Having collected my cans and paying for my book I headed for the LRT below only to realize that ETS escorts were reminding LRT riders the end of the lie was at Corona because of the 2 new lines opening up next month. ETS is testing trains on the new tracks from Grandin to the 2 new LRT stations: McKernan/Belgravia and South Campus for the next couple of weeks. They open up April 1st I believe.

I barely got to my bank and to Central station below the bank and home. I barely got comfortable to settle in for Smackdown. Anne came in alright from her job. She had a slow night. The rest of Smackdown wasn’t bad but what an ending. Anne made me a late lunch and I went off to bed listening to Coast. Their special topic line was “Your Magic moment.” I listened in for about 5 minutes and that was enough of that. I had about 4.5 hours of sleep but I’m ok. I might just go straight home get my lottery numbers. Anne bought some cell phone minutes for me and put my feature on. I’m going to try and call Neil about the RCMP degree team thing and remind WM about the material he said he’d email me for the FC prove up in May. Hopefully I can doze off on the couch and watch the hockey game.

Yesterday afternoon I got some Oblivion in and I found the “Arena district” in the game. I like this section. You can “bet” on matches. I think matches favor the house. You can also train using their armor for matches and fight NPC’s with arena equipment. I got a 2 handed claymore and went up against one NPC but got killed. Thank the 9 for rejuvenation. I basically touched bases on the arena and I need to explore more of this area. I thought this would be a good place to look for a quest sword. I need the quest sword before another NPC in order to join the Thieves guild. Oblivion is classic D&D at it’s best.

Hey, tomorrow is daylight savings time. Well overnight that is. We gain an extra hour of daylight. Today the Sun sets at about 6:23pm. Sunday night, the Sun sets at 7:23pm. I love this time of year despite the cold snap we’re currently in. Today is going to be nice but we’re going to plunge down into the -20’s for a few days. Winter’s last reminder that it isn’t over for us yet here in Northern Alberta.

We’re supposed to get some snow this morning on my way in. Anne won a Tim’s coffee last night on their Roll up. All I ever get is their “please play again” message. But tonight’s 6/49 is supposed to be $4M. I’ll get a number fill in slip on my way in. Anne says get a quick pick but you never win on a quick pick. Most I’ve ever gotten playing this thing steady has been 3 numbers.

So tonight, it’s hockey, piano practice making my blog rounds and waiting for Anne to come home. I’ve got a TV dinner for supper. Uggh. She’ll make me a soup or sandwich for later tonight. At least the rent is paid. This week is her birthday and we’ve got to go down to the library to get out taxes done. I’m expecting a return this year. Sorry if this seems kind of choppy today but I’m kind of in a rush this morning.

Anyway gang, that‘s all for now

e. Jim.

That was Tuesday

We went to bed about 3:30am yesterday. Coast was kind of lame but I was more wiped out then anything. I had a good sleep overnight and woke up around 11am and read for about half an hour. I got my wife up about 12:30pm as she needed to go to her bank so we could get the rest of March’s rent money. She’s still there most likely on her way home.
We got a whack of snow Tuesday morning. Hard to believe that this will all be gone in about 3 weeks. Right now it’s -5C out there but tough getting around.

Tonight the Oiler’s are in Nashville and I’m going to be catching a bit of that game in between phone calls. I’m not betting JT any more since he hasn’t returned my $2 out of the TB game from last week. It’s only $2 but if I owed him, he’d sure make a point of it in a hurry. Burn me once, never again. I’ll bet DC, he’s good that way. Speaking of hockey the big trade deadline is Wednesday. Will the Oiler’s make a move? I don’t think so.

Still enjoying “The 3rd Lynx.” I should have it read in about 3 weeks. I usually read about 100 pages/week and that’s a pretty good speed for me. I’m going to order the 3rd in the Frank Compton series Friday and a few others. I usually buy 4 books/month and I’m lucky if I get to read 2 of them………1:40pm> So tonight it’s off to the job and put my 4 hours in and maybe even watch a little hockey as well in between phone calls. I’ll collect a bunch of bottles and cans and then head home. I’ll have an after action report after midnight Wednesday morning of course. Oh, an update on the Ethan Morrow eye injury: It’s not as bad as it originally sounded. He should make a full recovery but is going to be out of the line-up for awhile.

Anne was successful at the bank and gave me enough for my Lodge dues for Thursday. She brought me back a Wendy’s double bacon cheese burger and Biggie fries. I bought my 6/49 ticket and a bottle of diet Coke, which I didn’t really need. I was able to get a couple of pages reading done on my book before I worked my way to the office. Super put me in the back and was it ever a struggle to get sales. The best news the first hour was the hockey game on at 6pm. I think at break I was at $320, which was barely at line hour. They can afford to turn that phone room into a boiler room operation these days what with the downturn in the economy. The Oiler’s at Nashville game was a barn burner, from what little I could see of it in the back. I watched some of the Oiler’s goals. In the 2nd half sales were even harder to come by, I got 3 CC sales in the 2nd half and $105 away from line hour for a total of $615. I was glad to get out of there with a bunch of cans and bottles. The casualty if it all was the Oiler’s lost in OT but they got 1 point out of the game. There should have been a goal tender interference call that left Roli without his stick so Nashville could win the game in OT. The Oiler’s were robbed to say the least.

I was glad to get out of there with my bottles and cans in one piece but had some one had to tag along with me to Corona. I got a seat on the train and transferred over to an empty seat and read a few pages on the way home. I hate people that need to rub their backs up to me sitting behind me. So annoying.

After banging all the snow and slush off my boots in the stairwell Anne was doing the last of her laundry. Doing it now because Sunday is supposed to get cold and she likes to stick the dryer hose out the window.

What with my game crashing and all yesterday I was able to continue it with no big deal.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim

Hey hey, we're into a new month.

I’m having an easy day off today. My wife is out running around spending money. Yeesh. I played a couple hours of Oblivion finding out more things about the game I didn’t know before, like weapons. Right now the only damage most weapons do for me is 2 regardless of what weapon it seems to be. A 2 handed Warhammer (what I was using) takes away the use of a shield. So I repaired a broken Longsword that does the same damage as the Warhammer. I equipped the Longsword and put the Warhammer away. Bam! My Armor class rating went from 2-8. Love it. I need some gauntlets and a helmet of some kind and that will increase my armor rating even more. I’m playing a level 3 Imperial.

Well its overcast and looks cold out there. Snow must have came down overnight as it’s showing up on nearby roof tops. Nice way to bring in a new month but March can be like winter with average temps around -12C. Usually by the middle of the March temperatures around here climb to about the -2C as an average. We’ve been known to get a blast of snow around end of March early April. Daylight savings time is next weekend. That to me is a sign of Spring.

Just now I watched Star Wars The Clone Wars. “Jedi Crash” pt.1. I enjoyed this episode. I’m still waiting for the Star Wars live action TV series. I think I can keep waiting. This economic downturn might affect this concept as well. According to some sources the live action TV series will debut in 2010 or 2011. My guess is in 2011. That is if the economy doesn’t take out any of the major networks. “The Clone Wars” isn’t bad though in the meantime.

I can’t recall what night this was last week but while I was working the phones talking to Mrs. Jones in my home town of Coquitlam BC. Her address was on Hailey. Hailey runs North South intersecting Regan Ave. My neighborhood growing up in the 1960’s was between Smith & Como lake, Blue Mountain & Robinson. Blue Mountain Service station on the corner of Como Lake Ave and Blue Mountain had been there for years. As kids we used to go there to get 10 cent soda pops. Across the street from the Service station on the SW corner for the longest time was a wooded empty lot. So I asked Mrs. Jones what’s there today and she said it’s a Presbyterian church. This must have went up in the early 1980’s. Another piece of closure added to my life. Back in the 1960’s early 1970’s we had only one church in the area and that was the church of The Nazarene, on Como Lake Ave West of Robinson. I recall early when our family moved into the area about 1960. The area West of our house was being prepared with bulldozers and other earth moving equipment.

This week has a few interesting things going on. Firstly we have the NHL trade deadline Wednesday. Will the Oiler’s make a move? They need a major goal scorer but nobody at this stage in the game has 50+ goals this season. On Thursday, I have my Lodge night and I think we’re going to do an EA degree.

Last nights Oiler’s/Wild game was a bitter sweet win for the Oiler’s. Near the end of the game, Oiler’s team Captain Ethan Morrow got a stick to the face, eye area and went to the hospital. There’s no update about the injury. I’m also keeping an eye on the Columbus at Vancouver game. The Canucks won 3-1. I don’t know if that helps or hurts the Oiler’s.

I’m making some pretty good progress on my book “The third lynx.” This time, I hope to have it read by the middle of March. In theory. Then I can go onto read “The Blood red harp,.” then it’s James P. Hogan’s “The Legend that was earth.” After that (May?) Greg Bear’s “Darwin’s Radio.”

Oh and even though we’ve had Boots here for a few days, Anne had the balcony doors opened up to get some air and Boot’s jumped. Yup he’s out roaming around again.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim