Ahh, a break in the weather.

I missed my coffee container and rushed out in the January rain. That’s right rain this afternoon. The streets were already slick enough. I got my bus but had a bit of a wait for the train. That’s why I bring my book. I went the other way up Jasper Ave a block because the weather felt almost like late March. I met Gary outside saying no cheques today and the Regional manager is in. I scooped up some coffee from Bud. Once a year our “General manager” would do the pay roll calling everyone in only this time it’s the Regional manager.

Also, Super was running the phone room like a real boiler room. An employee was only as good as his/her last hour. L/h was $200, which by break I was able to meet and 3 CC sales. I was at $405 by break actually and the boss and his boss left for the night. Good! I ended up wit a record 8 CC sales for a total of $370 or a $37 bonus to me on my cheque next week. I ended up with $980. This week so far, I have $65 in bonuses and there’s still today and Saturday yet. This campaign has been very good to me.

But I was glad to get out of the office and I took a wrong turn and found myself along a sheet of watery potted pavement of ice for about 20 yards. Amazingly, I didn’t slip and fall. I had a chance to read while waiting for the train. Of course no Oiler’s or football meant only 2 cars on the train and Mike rode with me with my bag of cans and bottles and my backpack. At Rexall the Edmonton Rush were piled out on the platform and it was standing room only. Worse then an Oiler game some nights and the City only has 2 cars? WTF?

I caught my bus home and it was very icy out by the lights crossing. I hate weather like this. I’d rather have it -20C with some snow to walk on then warm wet icy and rainy then what we’ve had last night and will have more of the same today.

Ok, 2 years ago our Edmonton “Tent City” was making National news. Mainly because of the then (and up until this time last year) due to our hot economy. But as good as our economy was then at the time and given the fact our vacancy rate was so high, that didn’t prevent thousands of people coming here looking for work from other Provinces. Apartment conversions and condo s were being built faster then people today are leaving. The tent city had about 200-300 people in tents on an empty lot. The City has about 2000-3000 homeless people, today-still. Some people have been homeless for years. Now because of the ugly tent city scandal our Mayor has a plan to eradicate homeless within in 10 years. This plan has been hinted at over the last 8 months or so along the decline of our economy. Now the Mayor has a 10 year pan to eliminate homelessness in 10 years and it’s going to cost a billion dollars to do it. What, for 2-3000 people? Pst: I got news for you Mr. mayor, there will be another 2-3,000 homeless people here in Edmonton even 10 years. At 1 Billion dollars those are going to be really nice homes/condo’s. but what about low income earners now? My wife and I can’t really work extra hours more then what were doing now and we’re barely making it as it is.

The other thing on the news they had an item about assisted animals/dogs and their owners are allowed to go anywhere into any building/restaurant etc. The announcer was talking about how dogs are better indicators for diabetic when finding out if blood sugar level is low. In this fashion because I can’t afford all my test strips, a dog would be the next best thing. Actually I’d love a little mini American Eskimos dog like the one J Rock had about 4 months ago. They can be trained to use the litter. I might get one when Pledges goes………….12:55pm> My wife and I are real night owls due to our jobs. This gives us time off as we both have health issues. We were in bed by 4am listening to a bit of Coast. The topic was on regression therapy.

Mainly dealing with “alien abductions,” the topic on Coast was compelling. The abduction cases I’d be interested in would be the repeat cases. How many times Mrs. X had claimed she was abducted and if there is a pattern here. If so it’d be interesting if the regression therapist had the ability to plant suggestions in the form of questions that would be activated when such an encounter occurred again. If the abductees got the chance to ask questions o the behalf of the therapist. Some questions I’d be asking would be, “Who are you?” “Why abduct me?” “What star system do you come from?” There could be other factors preventing abductees from speaking. I’d also like to know how many of these are similar. How many people claim to have been abducted by tall green aliens with one eye? That sort of thing. What’s amazing about these alien abductions is why would a race travel light years to get to here only to abduct our people “play doctor” and deposit them? Unless of course the aliens run into Earth by accident. It’s interesting stuff.

Big topic locally here today is the weather. Right now it’s +5C but icy and breezy. Anne left out of here about 1o minutes ago for work. She’s going to get a Tim’s before heading to her job. I have picture ID here to get my cheque because I’ve got to go through some hassle to get it. I’m curious as to what if any bonuses I’ll be getting, if any.

Still working on the last 100 pages of “Runner.” After this I’m going to read “Logos run,” the sequel to “Runner.” I know the characters of the book now and it should be easier for me to get into the story.

Anyhow I get my cheque tonight and then it’s off to Audrey’s and then over to my bank and then home. I might even go up the street to get a Wendy’s or something after my bank because Anne wont come home until after 1pm. Take that home with me and maybe get back in time for wrestling and catch the PPV results of the Oiler’s game. If I get those bonuses and from what I have from Anne’s money, I’ll have enough for my website, this weekend.

According to Supie (not Super) this new budget will put about $300/year into my pocket. How all this is supposed to be implemented and doled out, I’m not sure. But it won’t be for this year it’ll be for the next year. This might mean a new computer for me around Christmas. We’ll see.

And finally, on the local news there might be a case going to BC courts over the “Queen of the North” ferry accident that happened a few years ago. The ferry sunk near Hartley Bay March 12th 2006. But this segment is about BC court fees and not the QON as tragic as the accident was I was shocked to see that court fees in BC are astronomically high. I saw $40k and $25k for legal fees and even jury fees were something like $10K. These fees were exposed due to the frustration the plaintiffs from the QON accident face when trying to bring this case to the courts. These fees apparently are typical in BC. So who pays for them? Are they being written off or what? Jury fees in Alberta are something like $800 and even less in Ontario. There needs to be a set standard fee structure for everything across Canada and the Supreme court needs to re examine this. I recall a few years back my wife was selected for jury duty. She had to decline because she didn’t feel comfortable going ahead with It. I could feel how much anxiety she had but she was able to call whoever selected her if she could get out of it. And she would have been paid $50/day. I wonder how much money jury duty pay is for BC residence? So in light of all this, what about the QON and when will there be a trail. If ever?

Anyway bloggers, that’s all for now

e. Jim

I added some new links in the Resources section

I thought I'd share.

Not much going on over the last couple of days except Blogging and paying attention to the federal Budget.

I'm about 80% of the way through "Runner." It's not a bad book but I want to go onto somethng fresh. Most likely I'll be reading Timothy Zahn's "The third Lynx." Sorry the book cover images don't work as they do on my website. We're using "mimages," what ever they are.

Anyway the Federal Budget was past barely but is on "probation," the Federal Liberals say. What a bunch of crap.

I wanted to ad more links to my blog rounds, here but Blogger unlike my website wont allow me to copy and paste a large ammount of URL's. I have to do this one at a time and it's very time consuming.

Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now

e. Jim

Tuesday and the weather is nice

My wife had to leave out of here earlier then me, so I locked the place up after packing my stuff and headed out of here. I didn’t feel to much like reading on the train in and I had a bit of a wait below at Corona Station. I don’t want to be too early. But Rob was there and never said anything to me.

I got my dialer and had a chat with JT about Politics we’re both mad as hell that a treasonable party like the Bloc has any business in Canadian politics and what business does a Provincial Party have to do with the House of Commons anyways? The NDP and Block can’t call for a Non Confidence vote on their own or even together. At least the Liberals are willing to give the budget a look see.

Wow, did I ever have a good shift this evening. I ended up with 5 CC sales and a total of $1,760 on the night. We haven’t had a total like that in the new office and since the old office. Especially not on our current Super’s watch. I got $350 of that on CC’s alone for a $24 bonus. I felt really good leaving the office with one of the guys for the train and home. And all that and the weather is nice Here are 2 images. The first is the short range weather and the second is the long range. I had a great evening, made some money for myself and I had a good time.

Anne made me a cheeseburger and fries for lunch as I was watching Monday night Raw. Another Great show. Raw keeps getting better and better and the weather is warming up a bit out there as well. Here’s a shot I took off our weather this afternoon before I left out of here for the job.

I don’t know what all the hoopla is over Battlestar Galactica’s finale episodes/days is all about. Personally I never did like this show. Sure it had a few good space action scenes but apart from that BSG always seemed to politically correct for me. Almost to the point of it being silly. I didn’t like that camera angle floating around, personally I’m glad it’s going.

Hot dog. The Oiler’s are back in action this evening. Buffalo Sabers are in town and JT and I made a friendly $2 wager. I always take The Oiler’s to win but the 6th place Conference team (for now) are beginning to play better now that Hemsky’s back.

You know it amazes me that even though there is a lot of gloom and doom in the economy and all people are still willing to make donations. This evening I got 2 $100 CC sales and a $300 sale. I’ve had 7 days this month over $800, and have so far $1,750 in CC sales. I’m no big deal in the office either. Sure I know my job and how to fundraise and we still get people saying “TOL” but after all of that I’m surprised there is a lot of money out there. At least here in Canada anyway.

Earlier I found by way of SF Signal a list of interesting links, I thought I'd use as part of my daily website Blog rounds (eventually on Blogger) so here they are: Big Dumb Object Suvudu Revoltion SF Nuketown Geekdom Science Fiction Fantasy Media Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys The Wertzone Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog Fantasy Magazine Pat's Fantasy Hotlist These are just some of the links out of the many available I listed. Lots of these sites are Super Hero/comic book sites, I’m not to fond of. I love Fantasy Magazine and Pat's Fantasy Hotlist just to name a few. Suvudu looks especially good and will be apart of my daily reads. There will be more links coming latter.Also, thanks to SF Signal and Jessica Merritt I was able to gather a large list of assorted links to some interesting Blogs that I think you folks would enjoy browsing through.

Earlier I mentioned the national Budget Stephen Harper and his cabinet plan on presenting for a vote today. Now I’m no economist but the stimulus package is $30B, which most of it will go back East or to business. But I don’t think stimulus packages are the only way to get money into the economy, it’s a bi-partisan budget and a generous one. People need tax cuts more then stimulus packages. Sure stimulus packages get money flowing into the economy right away, I understand this. It’s just money down a black hole. Tax cuts get money back to everyone and not just for special interest groups. It seems to me though we need a balance of tax cuts and a stimulus package in this budget. I hope Harper recognizes this………1:45pm Hey, at least it’s warming up out there.

Not much going on. I got up about noon and made my way to the living room put water in the kettle on the stove for coffee and watched the markets. Oil was down by a couple of bucks. I brought my coffee into the office and spent an hour reading “Runner.” I’m going to post this on both blogs and do my blog rounds. That’s all from me for today.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim

A nice day off

The Saturday shift went well. I ended up with $37 worth of bonuses, when it was all over. If they pay me everything I should get $83 in bonuses and a full week on my next cheque. I even got 6 CC’s which helped me get the bonuses. I was very tired heading home on the train in the biting cold weather. I couldn’t resist another lottery ticket (I didn’t win of course) at Clairview.

When I got home I had a bit of a nap. Anne made me a plate of something. I did a lot of reading on “Runner” and almost at the halfway part of the book. I’m starting to really enjoy this novel. I’m not sure what I want to read next out of the 3 books listed but I haven’t read any James P. Hogan for awhile.

I had a relaxing night off and Anne made a little something to eat for, latter. The whole idea was to come in for today’s optional Sunday shift. Friday afternoon with Rob there, I said I’d try and make the effort to come in. Anne talked me out of it as we need to go to my bank Monday and get a new bank card she lost the other day. But I’ll need to go in for next Sunday because Lodge is next week and I want to make up for missing that Thursday. All in all, it was a good week but we had a few setbacks, even though they were minor ones.

For awhile now I’ve been following along Jerry Cornelius’s Blog in the links section and for the longest time, he has no blog entry for a Saturday. Most likely this is due to a Gnostic mass or something at a Lodge he attends in the Bay area. I enjoyed the Gnostic Mass when we had it here in the 1980’s. The last one I attended was I think was January 1996. I really miss the Mass and I’d go again if I knew there was one being conducted here on a Saturday night. Jerry’s Blog is one of the few daily Thelemic Blogs out there.

Sunday is going to be a reading and piano day. A day for just me. I put a full week in and I need to unwind. I might get up at noon with no where to go. On Coast from Saturday night they were talking about myths and folklore but later tonight they are going to be touching on UFO’s and ET. Should be a great show.

Anne gave us our sleeping pill for the night and I'm about ready to pack it in……….2:20pm Sunday. I’ve been out of bed for about an hour now with a bit of the runs for some reason. Anne couldn’t find Boots in our apartment earlier this morning but at the last moment from the corner of her eye she watched him squeeze out and went through a crack in our balcony sliding door. It gets really warm on our floor even without the thermostat on. Anne tried to go out after him, what with it being really cold out there but couldn’t get to Boots in time as she watched the cat leap off the balcony into the snow some 12 feet below. Boots tried to chase after Carl a rabbit we’ve named that likes the park area out here at night but Carl bolted off into the darkness somewhere the moment Boots landed in the snow nearby. About 4 this morning Anne went out to check for Boots as sometimes he likes to wander around but she couldn’t find him. That’s our boy.

Dennis Hurd (See friends links) wrote a good post about traveling on his blog today. I’m not much of a traveler myself. I suppose if I won the “Big one,” sure but I’m not much for leaving home. Some years ago before my wife and I met (when my sister-in-law “D” worked for a major pharmaceutical company) D had wanted Anne to meet her in Florida for a weekend as she racked up huge air mile points. D still racks up the points due to her job with another company. She racks up huge points every year. It was a bit of a hassle for my wife to find someone to look after her 4 cats 2 budgie birds, a plethora of hamsters and other assorted critters she had at the time. Anne was a bit reluctant to go but the allure of Florida in February was hard to resist. D had Anne’s tickets a place to stay and everything was all set up for my wife to spend a nice weekend in Florida and soon Anne found herself on a plane to the Sunshine state. Flying over the Rockies my wife felt the turbulence hit the plane too often for her liking and got scared. Filled with anxiety and freight when the plane landed at Denver she called the rest of the trip off and headed back to Edmonton. D said never again. Which is sad really because since then D has racked up more air mile points, she cashes them in every year or so. She’s sent family and even extended family to places like Paris France and Caribbean cruises etc. D herself goes on several cruises/year. Up until October of last year Anne and I kept our marriage secret from her family because she didn’t want her ailing parents to learn about our marriage thinking knowledge of this would be too much of a shock and could affect their health. But Anne's mother is no longer here as of 2004. When I got to meet D when she was here last October Anne had let the secret of our 8 year marriage out of the bag and it didn’t seem to phase D at all, much to the relief of my wife.

So is there a chance for me to travel? Maybe and I won’t turn it down if D instead of asking friends asks me instead if I’d like to go along so she doesn’t travel alone. I wont turn the opportunity down. D and I are the same age. But there’s nothing keeping me here for going to some place nice. I’d like to visit the Azores but the job and lack of money kind of keeps me away, plus there’s the hassle of it all as well.

It’s a pretty cold day out there. -15/24C with the wind chill. The wind chill is the number right of the/ of course. My wife’s up across the street to do some shopping and I’m enjoying my afternoon off and about to Blog this on my website and on Blogger and then it’s “Runner” time. Oh and I found the story about the Goat. You can read it here.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim

It's going to get a lot colder out there over the next few days and being spoiled over this last warm spell is going to be tough to get "used to"

which means we're back to, uggh...winter.

I'm still reading William C. Dietz's "Runner" and its picking up. Actually the characters have a lot more depth then I gave the author credit for. Good thing I have book 2 of the series here.

I have a larger post over at my website blog today.

I'm happy the Oiler's are going into the All star break on a high note. If the playoffs began today then the Oiler's would be in at 6th place. Whether that remains that way in April is a different story.

What else? I'm in at the job thing tomorrow and Friday for a 1-9pm shift. I have a few bills to pay.

I haven't been playing any "Oblivion" as I wanted to today because I didn't get much sleep over night. Oh well.

Anyway Bloggers, that's all for now

e. Jim

Well its a Tuesday, what else is new?

At last the Obama inauguration is over. Apparently his speech was about 20 minutes long. One of the shortest inauguration speeches in Presidential inauguration history. But he touched on some interesting things, the usual like health care and the economy but what struck me as interesting was job sharing. This concept was brought to the table here in Alberta about 20 years ago but the idea didn’t catch on during tough times then. If it does in the US then we here in Canada will most likely adapt it.

For some reason over night I had this feeling as an end of an era was closing for GW Bush. I’m not a fan of Bush or a even a Republican or Tory supporter. For a glimpse of my political affiliations see the photo of me in my Welcome block on my website. There is a link as to where my political (or lack there of) affiliations lay. Getting back to GW I began to wonder what’s been going through his mind. It is a new era and a past President leaving the job he’s been doing for the past 8 years. I felt kind of bad for him. If anything he was fun to kick around over the years. GW or “W” as everyone knows moves to his ranch outside of Crawford Texas and most likely fades into a life of quiet obscurity, kind of like Jimmy Carter.

But I’m happy for Obama. The markets were all down today of course. Oil is trading at $40/barrel. But the guy on our local markets program Angus Wat said that markets are always down on inauguration day. Most people I talk to are saying this “recession” will be over in 1-2 years. This is reflected in the volatile of the market place itself. The recession may be over in 1-2 years but it’s going to take awhile yet to recover from it. Locally here in Edmonton people are beginning to utilize Plan B. But all you Nova Scotia oil sand workers that fled Alberta for home, don’t get to comfortable just yet. You’ll be back to ride the Alberta gravy train in the Spring. Thing is these trades people make too much money to collect EI. I forgot to mention this in my rant on the topic last week. Why spend all that money to fly back home? Why not just stay put where you are and wait it out when things improve like everyone else does?

But enough of that. I’m still reading “Runner” its not bad but nothing to write home about. Its reading a lot better now but I’m still barely into the first 100 pages of the story. I’m sure it’s going to pick up. The author uses a lot of diversions in the story. So far I’ve counted 3 of them. If I had to rate this novel based upon the first 100 pages I’d give it a 5. I’m hoping for better things down the road. The writing so far is holding my attention (such as it is) and is steady if not a tad banal in places, I’ll say that much for the book. At least I haven’t chucked it.

One of my online friends Dennis Hurd, is using Twitter and Facebook. I’ve tinkered around with Twitter a few times but I didn’t have much success with it. With Facebook on the other hand, my family was able to contact me and I talked with my brother Mike after an 8 year absence. So, in this regard Facebook was more beneficial for me then Twitter. I’m not giving up on Twitter just yet. I’d like to see a one button application like a social networking button on site where I click on a Twitter button and it automatically takes the title and a few lines of my Blog and publishes it. Ok, I obviously don’t use social networking but if Twitter can be custom made to work like that, I‘d use it.

Tonight on the job is the Oiler’s hosting Columbus game at Rexall place. This is a critical game for the Oiler’s tonight and apparently the last game before the All Star break. No hockey for almost a week after that. But if the Oiler’s win tonight’s game we can share 6th spot with Phoenix. That’s a good spot to be in before the break. Oh yes and I’m going to be doing the job thing as well. 4 hours Uggh. And I want to do extra shifts to pay off some bills? I’m thinking Wed/Friday.

I haven’t played much of “Oblivion” but I’m going to crack it open tonight, see how far I get on it. The up down controls are hard to get used to.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim

I slept well overnight

I was up about noon and I got dressed and headed out and over to EB games a couple blocks up the road from here. It was a good 10 minute walk in the warm sun. Yes we’ve had one of the warmest days I think on record for a mid January day: +8C and on a nice Sunny day felt like Spring out there. It was slippery going as I walked all the way up to Victoria trail. Since there was no exit lane or a path I had to make my own through the snow. I got to EB Games noticing a bench I could sit down on. People must have thought me nuts dressed in my winter parka. I was sweating as well looking for a copy of “Oblivion.”

A few minutes later I found a copy used. After five minutes in a line up the clerk checked for scratches on the disk. The copy was badly scratched. She had to go in the back, with me holding up one of 2 servers at the counter for 20 minutes with a line forming behind me. Much to the people’s relief behind me I was able to get a clean copy of the disks. Most likely all she did was go in the back and ran a cloth with some CD-scratch-disk removing paste. $60 for a used copy yet. Most of the games for the Xbox 360 are still being made for the 720p format.

I sat on the bench and rested enjoying the nice warmth of a Sunday Spring like afternoon, That was a nice taste of Spring after that 15 day cold snap of -24C. Tomorrow it’s supposed to get up to +13C! Unreal for January. And to think we’ve got about another 12 weeks of winter yet. Usually by the first week in April the snow is sitting there piled up in shopping center lots all across the city. I enjoyed the walk back except for the odd bit of ice patches here and there.

Anne was still sleeping when I got in. I was disappointed there was no Oiler free telecast hockey this evening but the Oiler’s won their special Glen Anderson evening 6-3 over Phoenix. Hemsky’s back from his injury so the Oiler’s can get going again. They play a key critical game on Tuesday against Columbus.

Anne made us a breakfast/supper brunch and after that I played “Oblivion.” I built a character and got started learning the controls that sort of thing. This is going to be one fun game to play.

Other then that not much going on. I’ve been listening to some Beatles studio outtakes of their music. Some interesting stuff. They were a hard working band. I had a bit of a dream about John Lennon and where I was when I heard the news that he got killed. I was stunned. It took me a week to recover from the news. As much as I love classic rock, other then The Clash, the Beatles were one of my favorite bands but what did it for me was the music of The Clash. It brought back a sense of excitement of hearing Rock n’ roll for the first time. This was a band that had something to say. I could relate to them. It wasn’t until I got onto the Internet years later I discovered Joe Strummer was born the same day as me. August 21st 1952. I kind of share a bond with Joe Strummer. So The Clash and The Beatles did it (music wise) for me.

I’m still reading “Runner” and it’s a good read. I'm talking more about it over at my website's blog. Similar to this blog but it gets more atention. It’s getting a lot better and my goal is to try and finish it before the end of this month before I move on to the sequel “Logos Run.” “Runner’s” breath of language isn’t as strong as “Helix‘s” was but “Runner” still has a charm of its own. I’ll stay with it.

One of my Online friends J face booked me the other day about a game he’s working on. I haven’t been able to get to him yet or I’m not sure I want to get involved to a large degree. Maybe a small degree I can get involved. I’m waffling here.

Ok, moving right along, Tonight on Coast their going to be talking about “Stargate files.” Great. I’ll be in early for this. Since hearing about Cern I’ve thought that Cern could be like Stargate. Cern might not have the power to be like Stargate but Cern could be our next best thing.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim