I posted a

brief review of "Night shift" on my website. I'm now reading "Odd girl out" Timothy Zahn's Frank Compton series. I like this series.

I'm considering letting my LJ account languish. It's not as robust as Blogger or even WordPress. Speaking of which I opened up a WordPress blog account earlier this morning. I like WordPress because it allows you to have categories. Even my website wont let me have that. Its getting harder and harder to keep my website going at $100/year. Hard to justify that when Blogger and WordPress are free. Yes WordPress is plagued with "Upgrades" same like LJ but even the basic WordPress addition is more robust then my website. Besides I've got everything more or less backed up with Blogger and everything is on my diary anyway. I'm almost 95% certain this is the last year for my website.

Tonight it's Montreal/Flyers,game #5. i think this is it for the Habs.Anyway, that's all for now.

I love the May long weekend

It’s been about a year now that I’ve signed onto Goodreads. It’s pretty good. I’ve got about 8 friends reading the same book or types of books I’m reading. I Haven’t figured out how to work the “follow” feature.

Looks like its trying to clear up out there. The Sun seems to be poking out through the cloud cover. It’s going to be a cooler weekend.

But at least I got some hockey to watch even though CBC has the game on at 1pm today. I’ll be able to catch some of it from 1-2pm and miss a good chunk of it on the way home but at least the Chicago/SJ game #4 is on Sunday. I’d love to see Chicago sweep SJ. First time Chicago in the finale since 1991.

According to my stat counter I’m getting about 20 hits/day this month. Since this isn’t content for the masses, that’s not to bad. I might be moving that Google ad somewhere else on the page and removing that Spot ad altogether since it’s not making me any money.

The contingency buses were running this morning. Oh, I had forgotten that the LRT would be shut down from Clairview to Corona. For the last few weeks ETS was adding new track from the tunnel entrance at 91st street. ETS was providing shuttle service from Clairview to downtown but at the Library the driver in broken English mentioned Churchill station. I ws on the street at this time. Something inside of me said I should have taken the day off. I walked over to Jasper Ave by about 99th street and decided I’d walk the rest of the way down to 106th and hang a left. I strolled in shortly before 10am and even got a preferred dialer 6 feet in front of the TV to watch the game at 1pm. Or what I could watch of the game. We did MF again (uggh) but I was getting sales. No credit cards. The second half as a bit easier. JT was there and we were tossing paper balls around having a bit of fun. I was contemplating working the afternoon extra hours but they canceled it. Just as well.

I walked with Will as far as Corona and I was going to wait for a #2 bus but a contingency bus arrived. I boarded that since the busses are more or less express. I listened to my Itouch along the way home. All the Lilac bushes our out in full bloom now. The driver wouldn’t let me out along the stop by my place so I had to go to Clairview. I got a regular bus and at the corner here I saw Anne across the street as I was waiting for the light to change. She didn’t see me.

I got inside taking the stairs as she was just coming off the elevator. I got the last period of the Flyers\Habs game. 2-0 Philadelphia. Yikes, the Habs are in trouble. They could be out by Monday night. Yet this playoff season they’ve been the comeback kids, coming back from Washington and then Pittsburgh. So never say never. At least I’ll be able to watch the Chicago/Sharks game at 1pm tomorrow. Crazy time of day for a hockey playoff game. I remember seeing the NY Islanders this day 30 years ago today take out the Flyers and it was over by 4pm.

Speaking of which it was 30 years ago today Richard, Ellen and I saw Star Wars “The Empire strikes back.” That was a special weekend. I’m glad I recorded that time in my original diary. I wish I was into photography and had a Polaroid back in the day. I would have asked a passerby; “Scuze me sir, would mind snapping a photo of us three?“ I’d have loved a photo of us 3 in the movie line up. Where have all the years gone?

That’s another reason why I’d like the Iphone because it can take video and photos. I’ve been hearing on places like YouTube and Cnet that an Itouch with a camera is coming this summer. I don’t believe it. I’m surprised Apple didn’t include a camera in the 3G version of the Itouch in the first place. Maybe they want to see what the success of the Ipad will be like. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Here we go with 3 days off.

Yesterday was relaxing. I had a blog post ready to go but by the time Anne got home to make dinner and all, we’re into Saturday. So I’m starting fresh.

I’m up with my wife to head out with her to “The Bay station” where she gets off for work. I get off at the next stop and I’m buying a couple of books and then it’s off up to City Center mall phase 1 for some crisp meat burritos from Taco Time. I’m taking them with me to phase 2 food court to Taco Bell for their fries supreme. I might buy 1 book at Audrey’s and another 1 at Coles, then home. I don’t know about getting my haircut Saturday. I might just go ahead and do this Sunday.

I’ll come home have a bit of a nap and then get ready to watch the last Oiler game of the 08-09 season. Last night the boys won 5-1. Not much of a game for 2 periods but in the 3rd the Oiler’s scored 3 third period goals. Tonight’s game in Calgary will be a little different.


Over the last few weeks my wife has been running into an ex co worker from another job site of hers. Apparently she was telling my wife about the security guard job she has but it’s working at the Royal Alex hospital. An old friend of mine did that with another guard company. He told me a few horror stories about that. You get gunshot, stabbing, victims crack heads all kinds of crazies rolling in. Well it’s a big hospital in a major city. But she told Anne the name of the guard company and she said to Anne how they are always hiring. Nope just give me a nice site Friday,

Saturday and Sunday nights where I can do a ten minute patrol and sit down on my but for 50 minutes. The rest of the time, I can read work on a little netbook mini. I’m looking at getting the HP mini for under $500. Mainly to surf the Internet, do my writing and play Warcraft. I’m getting about $400 for my vacation pay and I’ll get that at the end of June. Anne might get it for me, if I get the job. But at least I know the name of the other guard company. She said to Anne, “their always hiring.”

I read from my book “Blood red harp” earlier. I’m liking this book. Today I’m looking at whatever if anything is in my special order file at Audrey’s, If nothings in there then I’m going to be getting the first 2/4 of the Terry Brooks. I think “The Druid Keep” is there. I’ll check it out though. At Chapter’s I might just pick up another David Weber “Honor Harrington” book. We’ll see.


Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim

Family day long weekend here in Canada

I had fun going over Facebook and Twitter earlier but after that half mile walk, I needed a nap. Anne was out shopping and bought some CFL light bulbs. The ones that last 9 years or so saeth on the box and should save us a lot on our monthly utility bill. We’ll see the real differences next month when the bill comes out. Hopefully we can cut it down to about half.

After fooling around on Facebook, Anne called me in for supper: Baby back ribs and her foiled potatoes. The ribs were excellent. And now I get a couple of hours to do my thing before bed. Incidentally, I’m enjoying these CFL light bulbs. We’re doing our bit to help the environment. Everything is so much cleaner and brighter in here now.

Tonight, we’ll most likely be in bed by around 4am and I’ll be up around noon. Because we have these nice fluorescent lights it’s easier to read and I can read the Sunday Sun morning paper now. I used to like doing that. About 7:30pm tonight it’s the Oiler’s at Phoenix and after that it’s Monday night Raw. That, and I’m going to try and walk my mile, get some more reading done, piano practice and maybe even get some writing done as well…………3:50pm> We went to bed at our usual time but I had trouble sleeping. I was itchy and scratching all over, rolling around back and forth in bed. For about 2 hours I did this. I just couldn’t sleep. it was awful. About 6:30am or so I got up to read a bit out of my book. I felt drowsy and tried again. It was a bit better but this time less itchy-scratchy. No, not the Simpson’s. This doesn’t happen very often.

I finally got some sleep after about 9am and woke up about noon and decided I need another hour. It’s my day off after all right? From there I got some additional sleep and woke up around 2pm. I’m for ok now but this cold is still in my system. I'm not over the worst part of it yet. When I got up Anne had gone out shopping. She mentioned she was going out to the veggie mart.

Well gang the weather out there is cold here in the big city. We’re currently sitting at -13C/-19C wind chill. In other words, it’s cold out there folks. The long range though for next weekend looks promising as it’s supposed to warm up.

When I get over this cold I’m going to start my mile/day goal. When I did that half mile yesterday, I could really feel it working. My legs got stronger. This weakness of my legs really surprises me because I used to do a lot of walking before I got married. But I don’t get a lot of exercise these days and it’s taking it’s toll on me. Being diabetic doesn’t help much either.

Speaking about exercise and all, now don’t quote me on this but I read that because of the new Harper budget people that join health spas and clubs hee in Canada get a rebate. It’s the Feds way of trying to combat obesity. Makes sense because it would save in the long run a lot of money on the health care system. I like this. I think the idea is you join a health spa/club first and then when it comes time to file your taxes you can claim that as an expense. Same with a new computer as well. I need to talk to my tax guy about this just to confirm.

Speaking about Facebook, my friend Dennis Hurd (see his Blog in my links section) wrote on my wall that I can import these blog entries as a note/link on my Facebook wall so it would show up automatically under my RSS feed. I’m not sure how to go about doing this. I’m looking around kicking the tires. Basically I’d like just a few lines and a link to “read more?” type thing. I’ll figure it out.

And finally Anne came home with her stuff and is now getting me chips at the dollar store across the street. That’s to munch on for my hockey game/wrestling tonight. I’ll get the fallout from yesterday’s big pay per view show and the elimination chamber. Too scary kids.

Anyway, gang that’s all for now.

e. Jim

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

Its a cold one this morning folks

Yes it’s -32C out there. Without the wind chill. It’s going to be pretty chilly heading out this morning but the good news is it’s also supposed to warm up this week to just under about -10C. That’s not to bad.

I don’t like to talk money here but Anne was successful in getting the funds for the balance of our January rent, so the Xbox 360 is mine and it‘s brand new out of the box, not a refurbished or bought from a pawn shop unit. It was supposed to be a Christmas present but we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get at our dwindling reserve funds due to this credit crunch and all. Credit isn’t our problem since we don’t rely on it even if we had access to it. LOL! Its mostly Anne’s fund not mine anyway. I have nothing to do with it. But I have most of the funds for my website thanks to my wife. At least January’s rent is paid and we’re both employed.

So Anne had to rush out of here for work and as I was about to compose an entry about 1pm when she comes rushing back saying the LRT (train) isn’t working. I might want to leave earlier. She left right away. Latter according to local news on the radio at 2pm they said it was a broken wire or something at Churchill station. Everything from Churchill to the Health Sciences Center (HSC) was running fine. It was just the East leg that LRT crews were working on. An hour after that they were still hard at work. Even while I left out of here after shutting everything down, crews still hadn’t fixed the problem yet but Anne said they had contingency buses available. I left out of here about 10 minutes earlier and boarded a #2 bus at Clairview (knowing it’s route) and I was across the street from Audrey’s about 4:35pm. I made it to my dialer plenty of time before the start of the shift.

Greg came up to me right away and brought me my pay cheque. He said he gave the $20 last week (before my vacation (VP) pay fiasco) to JT. Other casualties in that VP incident besides my website are my Lodge dues. Fortunately I have about 80% of my website funds available. Add that and working extra hours next week (Jan 5th) will get me the necessary funds for my website balance. Since at my job I’m always one week behind. Anything I work for this week for instance won’t show up until the week after. It’s always been like that where I work. I’ll work another 3 extra days for my Lodge dues and pay that off in early February.

I had a ten minute chat with my friend Supie and he gave me a few decent mid risks low cost-shares-market leads to look at. I’m going to try and follow through with these next month or so. I’m going to try and test the market waters with about $500 to lose. If these stocks go up great if not and they remain steady, fine. Live and learn but their mid risk and non US Canadian companies. Ok enough of that.

I had a good start to the shift feeling pretty good about the calls I was making. My CC sales were up as I ended up with 7 CC sales on the night and top total for about $775 on a first night back from the holidays. Good start to the year. Also, our phone room wasn’t full. I mean for a Friday night and pay cheque night. Well that’s the main reason for that.

I even received a $15 bonus for on my cheque next week, Wuwho! Okay that in mind I needed to head over to Audrey’s, what with the fact I’m going to be behind on everything for about 2 weeks regardless and I don’t want to leave myself broke for 2 weeks either.

So I went book shopping at Audrey’s. At the special order desk I wasn’t in the mood to pick up the 2 Star Wars books waiting there. The guy at the desk said they could put them back on the shelves if I didn’t want them. I ordered them and I’ll honor that order. So after browsing around in the brief 20 minutes I had left in the store before closing I found one of the “Dragonlance” novels. A book #1 of no less and I had it in my hands still looking around for something science fiction to buy. I came across John Varley’s “Titan” out of the old (mid 1970’s) Gaea trilogy. It’s being reprinted. They have all 3 books there but I only had enough for book #1 Titan. I read some of Varley’s short fiction and I liked what I read. Since I’m going to be 2 weeks behind on my bills anyway I picked it up.

That said I went down to the LRT. I wasn’t sure yet at this time if the LRT had been fixed yet. While waiting, I read a bit of “Helix.” I’m on page 115 something and enjoying this. So far about 20% into this thing and all I can say is, what a ride. I’m loving it. So sure enough the Clairview LRT came by. Would it stop at Churchill and I’d have to take a connecting bus home? Churchill came and went. Stadium. By this time I figured I was in the clear. With my new book and home I did my admin stuff and settled into watch Smackdown.

Anne came in about 11:30pm and made me a nice lunch for ECW. I was able to watch a bit of this and turned it off when the wrestling character “The Boogyman” came on. I hate this character. Ok enough of this and I said my goodnights to my wife and went to bed listing to a bit of Coast and I passed out.

I got up about 5 hours later feeling alright and ready to take on the day. I’m out of here about 9am and I’ll go into Tim’s and get my breakfast and bring my insulin with me. After that it’s over to Audrey’s to get the last of the trilogy. I’ll hop on a bus to City Center mall get a bite to eat at the food court a bag of chips and head home get some admin stuff done and answer some email and go have a nap for a few hours. Anne’s got a plate of something for me for later. I’ll get up about 5:30pm get some stuff done and settle into watch the Oiler’s hosting Dallas. I like to read during intermission.

Tonight when Anne gets home after she’s settled in we’re going to set up the Xbox and get that underway. Also if there’s time, we want to order “Dark Knight,” perhaps on Sunday. We’ll see.

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

Meh

Frost appeared for the first time this fall. Not that it was cold or anything going into work. It was bright and sunny out there and I had a nice relaxing ride, trying to wake up on the train heading into work. My battery for my MP3 player died out on me. Twice and I’m out of batteries. I think I need an IPod. This little Rush player is still useful but well over 4 years old. Time for a new one with a bit more functionality. I must have spent close to $100 bucks on batteries. I know there are AAA battery rectangle kits out there. But before I get one of those I’m giving this player to my wife. I’m going to get the IPod.

I got to my end dialer and looking forward to having a great morning half of the shift and my first sale was a CC. Things were looking good. Not. I had another CC but my total was low. The floor manager kept me there for as long as his line hour would allow, however before I got moved to the other side at only about $400 (everyone else was at about $480-$680) However I had 5 CC’s and that’s all I cared about. Anne called me from her job as I had 30 minutes in m y shift. Last night with the same source at the same location I had over $1,000 in a 3.5 hour shift. Even the boss showed up to do pay roll and asked me why was I sitting in the cheep seats? “I’m having a slow shift.”

I was glad to get out of the office. I have 27 CC’s on the week and some of those were at $3-$5 each. I could have about $50-$60 for bonuses next week on a full cheque. That’ll buy me a few Science Fiction books at Audrey’s next week. If Rob pays me.

Outside on the street leaving I had a decision to make. Do I want to go to Pure Speculation or home? Most of the panels scheduled there were for today. I’d miss the main RJS ones anyway because I was at work. Of course there’s always the Sunday panels. It’s a meet and greet photo op with RJS etc. I might still go but my camera isn’t working properly and this couldn’t have come at a worse time. Right now the costume shindig is under way. The last one of those I ever attended was back in 1979 at Non Con and I remember how much fun I had then. I wish I had the interest to take photo’s for prosperity back then.

Meh, so I went home on the train. I didn’t even read, I was that wiped out but when I got home I fired on the computer and had at that for awhile then I went for a snooze for a couple of hours. Anne’s phone call woke me up around 5:30pm and I got involved in watching this Paul Newman movie “Sweet bird of youth.” I hadn’t seen it before, not being a Paul Newman fan or anything but I liked the movie. Anne called me shortly before her 6pm break was over and she wants to get Pizza tonight. Wuwho! I took my insulin about 8pm fed the cats and Anne’s off work at 10pm. Pizza will be here in about 2 hours.

Yesterday I picked up 2 books from the backlog of books I have waiting for me at Audrey’s. I got the “Warcraft Archive” and a Warhammer 40K omnibus: “Blood Ravens.” Should be a couple of good ones. I have 10 books there now waiting for me. They want me to pick up the rest of those before I special order or even pick up anything new from their stock. I wanted to get Roger Zelaney’s “The Great book of Amber.” collection but Trevor said the book is still in stock. Good.

Anyway, I have 2 days off and I’m happy about that. Recently I’ve been tinkering around with the website. The first thing a casual observer will see is the change in the photo block. I’m not done with that yet either. Also accidentally gone is the Google ad. Apparently the ad was place on a static page called “Welcome to my website” etc. Now this is its separate block. The idea was to have “currently reading” and reading next in their own block but the images are 2 small for the middle column. Trial and error. I’m thinking I’d like to have the website “mission statement” back in the logo. It looks better there and will tighten up the photo block to make room for “currently reading” etc in there. Google add a bit of color to my site and “revenue.” but the ads for content haven’t been working for me lately. For instance, when I talk about and supporting Harper for PM I get these silly derogatory remarks about Harper. Like I said previously, I’m not a Progressive Conservative kind of guy if anything I’m a center libertarian but in my humble but accurate opinion Stephan Harper at this time is the right way for Canadians to go. Half the time with Dion nobody understands what’s coming out of his mouth. We all know Dion and May want a carbon tax. The NDP want a cap and trade, which amounts to the same thing. Ok lets get off that rabbit trail. Ads for content doesn’t work for me. Not like there’s a lot of money in Adsense anyway and this site isn’t about making money. Its not content for the masses. However, I still wouldn’t mind making a little money from this site even if it’s just enough to have the ads pay for the site. I’m working at getting a tower ad on the right sidebar. From Amazon or something else, I’m not sure yet. Website tinkering goes on.

Sunday, I’m relaxing. The Oiler’s have their season opener on and Monday I’ve got Raw and Anne is making me up a nice set of baby back ribs instead of turkey for holiday Monday. I’ve got enough to keep me busy, When Pure Speculation rolls around next year, I want to have my first professional sale and my teeth all done. And my camera working for me. I want to do it up right. No doubt the organizers of Pure speculation are already planning for next year. This might not get edited right away so maybe tomorrow.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

Good news bad news, I guess...

Overnight we went to bed at our usual time but I woke up around 6:20am to do the cbi thing. Feed Cats, Breakfast, Insulin. Then I read for a bit. This usually tires me out enough to sleep. About 7am I went to bed and still couldn't’t sleep. I tossed and turned about. So, I got up again and did a bit more reading. Then my wife gets up and makes some popcorn to feed the birds across the street. About 9:15am I’m sufficiently tired enough to go back to sleep. But now I’m worried about our rent money for September. Or lack there of. My next cheque wont be until next Friday because of the long weekend and Lodge night. Also, my wife’s place of employment wasn't answering their phone yesterday so she could go get her pay cheque. We need that cheque today. Our rent is due Monday/well Tuesday. Nice thing to have on my mind while trying to get some sleep right?


Then I’m in bed sleeping soundly at last. I look at the clock and it’s 1pm, “Honey you want to call work?” mumble-something-mumble. WTF? Next thing I know the lights flash on and there’s Anne flinging a piece of paper at me. “our rents gone up.” I’m half awake and Anne is going into panic mode. I put the water on for coffee and my reading glasses on to take a look at the notice. Our rent went up by $50. Big deal. We’re panicking for that? It’s kind of like a good news bad news thing. Bad news the rent went up by only $50. Good news is that it could have been a lot worse. Some more good news is that because of the new Laws, they can only raise the rent once every 12 months. So we won’t have to worry about increases like over $100/200+ Tuesday I’m going in early to put a few extra hours in and to get the note there for Rob to fill out so we can apply for our subsidy. Yet she's got 2 jobs now. She goes in for training on her new job in 2 weeks and even though her current job often cuts her hours that's not sustainable. Now she has an opportunity for another job, which has better and more stable hours.


Anne managed to call her work and they have the cheques ready. Whew, our rent is covered. Plus the full Cheque I gave her last night. When she gets out of here and goes off to her job to pick up her cheque she’ll figure this thing out. It could have been a lot worse. It’s tough trying to be a science fiction-writer. But I’ve learned a long time ago, that life is a struggle. It’s all about paying ones dues I suppose.


Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

Holiday hangover

Since I’ve made Geeklog my CMS of choice I’ve been wanting to learn how to do some FTP. The culprit and still is, the Firewall in Xp. I think it’s still part of Service pack 2. But my web guy got me a program that is similar to FTP called Confix. It’s a simple process. This means I’m no longer using “Library Thing” to display book cover images. May I direct your attention towards the right sidebar? The book cover images are what I’m reading next after “Judas Unchained.”

After JU it’s “The Icewind Dale” trilogy by R.A. Salvatore. After that it’s Lou Anders anthology “Fast Forward #1.” Then and if there’s time before the end of the year Mary Rosenblum’s “Horizons.” The book I’m currently reading “Judas Unchained,” is going to take me well into the end of September. I’ve been reading some thick books lately.

So I leave out of here at 4pm waiting for my bus under clear warm +27C sunny skies for my bus with my wife waiting with me. Her place of employment had no work for her yesterday. I caught my bus and realized I didn’t have any coffee with my hot water so I went into Tim’s for a cup of coffee. As I left, there was Shank and Rummar. Nice kids. So I walked back to the office with them. The boss wasn‘t there. I learned he’s on holidays for the rest of the week. Good. I ended up having a pretty good night pulling in $780 and only one CC’s and a $10 bonus. I had a good night.

I began writing again. That’s right. At the moment I’m re working an old story, “Crosshairs.” It’s word length is 5,220. I want to trim that down to around 4,500 words before I send it out. I think in the morning I’m going to go to Future shop and check on that printer and get those JVC Gummy headphones.

When I got in I tried to use that program Markus told me and with his instructions, it worked great. All I did was replace the 3 other images that were there. I need to do that on my own. That’s my next project. After that I want to be able to create a new menu and design and attach static pages to that menu.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim

I get a long weekend after all

The bus came earlier then usual for a change. I got my August bus pass at the Redimart. Another $66.50 spent. And when we get the new LRT trains coming, most likely the bus passes will go up again. I got in before 4:45pm and got a diet Coke and a 6/49 ticket. For 32 Million, I’d be a fool not to buy a ticket for $3 bucks. No big deal. I had $35 with me ready to go over to Audrey’s to buy some of my nooks on order. I had a brief talk with Fran as she was leaving to go home for the long weekend. She was a bit upset that she lost her parking space. It’s most likely different for the evening shift people. She said Don Brown made an appearance. I should give him a call on the way home this afternoon.

I was expecting big things for a Friday night shift sales were slow doing CBF all night and because it was a Friday night and as usual no CC’s right up until break. Anne called a bit early because her break changes all the time. We had a nice little chat. I ended up with $560 which for a 3.5 hour shift, wasn’t bad. No CC’s. I was thinking that if I had all my 3-4 CC’s to get my 20 CC’s to qualify for the CC bonus, Friday night, I wouldn’t need to come in Saturday. I could have along weekend. But no the bastards wouldn’t give me one CC. Not one.

When 8:30pm rolled around I was glad to get out of there. I headed directly over to Audrey’s. Trevor said some of my Warhammer books were in. The Omnibuses. “The Blackhearts” and Warhammer 40k “The Blood Angels.” The books are about an inch larger then regular pocket books. I was also going to pick up the last Stardoc novel waiting there for me but I didn’t quite have enough cash on hand as the two Omnibus novels were about $11+ US. I missed my train home by a few seconds as it was boarding the last of the passengers before heading out. I had a ten minute wait reading on the train home.

I got home about 9:40pm and did some admin stuff and settled in to watch 3 hours of wrestling goodness. Speaking of which tonight WWE will be having their Saturday night “Main Event.” I’m looking forward to this. If I can find out what local channel it’s on. My wife came in about 11pm and made me a nice shaved beef something sandwich with fries and gravy and cheese bread. Good stuff. Then into bed. I listened to a bit of Coast and passed out for a couple of hours. At 4am I was wide awake. Anne was still up watching a movie. Coast had open lines. My wife is having some kind of bronchial condition causing her to having breathing problems. I know she wants me home for the long weekend but that won’t do anyone any good and I could lose out on some bonus money. I’ve got 17 CC’s and I could end up with a bit more.

I changed my mind and decided I’d stay home this weekend with her. Screw the potential CC bonus. I’ll have to call Bud about 9:40am I’ll show up Tuesday afternoon and work afternoons all this week. Last thing I need is a call from my wife in the hospital while I’m on the job. Besides I can head out of here about noon over to Fs and get that external hard drive and Ws. I checked for our local NBC affiliate and WWE’s “Main Event” is only on for an hour. It’s mostly a publicity type show for Jenny McCarthy’s Generation Rescue. Hey it’s for kids and I can’t argue with that.

Also while cruising the TV listings for Space (my favorite station) I came across a listing for the highlights of Comic Con. Wow. This is on at 2pm. RJS was there and a bunch of others including Walter Koenig. This year at Denvention Robert J Sawyer, Nancy Kress, Ben Bova, Greg Bear L.E. Modesitt, David Brin, Elizabeth Moon, Kate Elliot, J Allan Erwin, Joe Haldeman, Kay Kenyon, Jay Lake, Mike Resnick George RR Martin, Larry Niven, Robert Reed and many, many more. Wow, what a convention. Of course this is World Con. I hear in 2009 it’s going to be in Montreal. I’m considering making a trip. I would have liked to have gone to Denver. I’m considering planning a trip to Montreal for this convention, August 6-10th. Air fare is about $300 return. A Best Western would be about $100/night. To do the whole thing right would be $1,000. I’m considering making this trip. If I did get a chance to go it would drive my wife crazy gone for 5 days.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim