It was great having that day off yesterday

as I'm still not recovered from my cold. My voice sounds like garbled sandpaper. Its well known in the office that I'm still recovering from this cold that began shortly after family day. I've never called into the Super before at the charity job to cancel a shift there. 

I'm almost ready to buy the Novation circuit. Its about $96 down and $32/month. The downtown Long and McQuade store doesn't have it in stock, but when I called the guy yesterday he said they could do a inter branch delivery for me from their Southside store. I just want to make sure I'm still good at my market research job, before I go and buy this thing. Late Saturday afternoon with a half hour in the shift we were looking for were 18-34 year olds (all day) on a project we were trying to close out. I wrote a pre qualifying intro to make it part of the intro of the survey. 
       By 5:30pm we needed 5 more completes 18-34. Normally when we get a interested person to do the survey, we're supposed to put the potential respondent on hold, see the super first if we can take the potential respondent so as not to go over quota. 18-34 year olds are the most difficult demograph to get. I knew we had 5 completes to go at 5:30. I had nothing all day and most of us were struggling to stay awake. The constant dial tones can put one to sleep, especially after about 7 hours of dial tones, quota fills and answering machines. 
      We had 9 completes between about 10 of us at 10am, and all we could get was down to 5 by 5:30pm. The complete I had on the phone was 21. After sitting in that chair for almost an hour (I don't move to well getting up and out of that chair) I'm very slow. I could have lost the potential complete. That's happened before. I took it without going to see Super first. Super came over "Can I put you on pause for a bit sir?" I explained to Super he said "Ok," In other words the getting completes bar to the end wasn't moving very fast on the day. I knew my colleagues were almost in the same boat as I was. My neighbor got nothing. I had nothing, except just the one. 18-34 year olds are like gold when we have age group quota's like this. I had always seen Super before I took the complete before on this project etc. And it wasn't like I didn't have conformation from Super along the way of the current. I would have coded it as Respondent refusal, if we were over before putting it through. 
       What has this to do with the Novation circuit? I just want to make sure (based on Saturdays hic up at the end of the shift) I still have a job before I buy and open up a payment plan/account. My Southside job (where I'll be later today) is good to go until May 19th and there's lots of work coming up for my market research job maybe to the end of June. I need this job for June as my wife has a shortage of hours on her job. I need work at my market research job for the next 3 months, then I can make 2 monthly summer installments ($32). My charity job begins in September after this one and that's when pension kicks in. I probably could have said the above in less wordy of a middle section then this for sure, but its my blog.

The Pittsburgh/Calgary NHL game was going on the same time my wrestling was going on last night. That game went into OT and Calgary won their 10th straight pulling 3 point ahead of the Oilers. There is just one game separating the Oilers at 6th in the Western Conference to 9th. Yet at the same time there is just 2 games separating 6th-4th. Right now the Oilers are in the middle of this 8 game at home stand and 3 of 8 games have already been played and lost. The sky isn't falling here but with 14 games remaining our playoff picture looks a bit fuzzy. Dallas is in town tonight. I've got a feeling that we're going to lose this one. So far this current home stand isn't doing the Oilers any good.   

At least heading into work today the weather should be a lot nicer then its been. At the moment its +3* but feels like 0* because of the wind at 8 km/h. Most likely I'll meet Dave (a colleague I've known since the year 2,000) on the lrt heading in. Its a quick 4 hour shift and I'll get a ride home tonight. Anyway, that's all for now.

The other day while browsing through my email

and Connect 2 Edmonton threads. The topic of the Wee Book Inn came up. I have a bit of history with this company. I met and dated a lady that worked in their downtown location in 1980. She invited me over to where she had a suite in the old Arlington apartment building. Anyway, she had a 2nd floor suite and was heavily into Tantra yoga. Her place was a mess and she had a ton of these books lying around. I kind of got the hint right way but I'm usually not the kind of guy that goes for the home run on the first date. I think she felt burned about that, and when I went to see her the following day she gave me the cold shoulder. I would see her once in awhile after that but I don't think she noticed me. She had a few toddlers with her she was managing and pregnant. I have a history with the Baker Centre as well (the white building on top of the grey podium) where I worked with Xentel from 2006-2011. That's another story. Lots of fun times working in that building. When I lived out in the West end in 1983 at this address from 1985-1995, the West end Wee Book Inn, was where I met Chris. I had the bachelor apartment behind the trees on the top floor there. Anyway, Chirs and I had our one and only encounter in this building. She had the basement suite by the stairs with her daughter just behind that big tree I recall. I found out that their  their West End location was closed. Knowledge of this information hit me like the end of an era. So much history with this company.

We have yet to hear from the City about our low income rec centre application/pass. It's been 3 months now so we're expecting to hear from them soon. If I have time off this summer, I'll be enjoying that. 

Another bit of history when I worked at the Army & Navy department store (not the warehouse, that's another story) after the warehouse the general manager at the time was a Mr. Jay Siderson. I had never met this man before I was told I was being transferred to the store. I was in the warehouse from 1982-1989. Lots of history in this building as well, the Edmonton Oilers winning 4 of their 5 Stanley Cups, the 1987 Tornado etc. My "office" was where I hung out during days that were not busy where I ate my lunch, had a lot of naps where I had a portable typewriter when I wanted to be a paperback writer. So when I got transferred to the store at this address I was stunned, another end of an era. I met Jay Siderson, my boss. This would have been at the end of January 1989. The building I worked in was the Army & Navy department store. It's an iconic building here in Edmonton. Today the building has fallen on hard times and sits empty in its run down condition. In this building on that fateful day in March after a West End Doctors appointment I wanted to check into a job I had with ACT. It was a call centre in this building. Now owned by the Edmonton Association for the Deaf. In my chat with Gavin he asked me when the Spring campaign came up how could he get in contact with me since I had no phone. I opened my big mouth and said I'm working at the Army & Navy, North side store. That was a blunder that would come back to haunt me for the rest of my life. The day I returned for work, I got a message to report to Mr. Siderson. Ok. He said he received a call from a Gavin --- about a job for me. I said yes, it was a part time evening job. So right then and there he fired me. "None of my employees are going to moonlight on my job. You can pick up your last cheque on Friday." I was stunned. What just happened here? I pleaded my case but it fell on deaf ears. I even had the assistant manager Murray (who befriended me while he was working with me at the warehouse) plead my case. He just negatively shook his head. Because of that the 1990's were really hard on me. I never did get that job at ACT until the following year and even then it was temporary. From that moment on when I had left Army & Navy, I never had a steady job in the 90's. I regret it to this day. I don't blame Siderson for that. This was me mentioning to Gavin where I worked. If I would have kept my mouth shut during that talk or just mention I'm unemployed (Maybe it'd be better if I called you, etc) type thing I would have had my job through out the 1990's and work part time. Opening my mouth got me into trouble at Malatest as well a few years ago but that's another story. Back to Siderson. I had always wondered what became of him. Last week I did an obit search and his name and photo came up. He passed away (cause of death not mentioned) October 2006 at the age of 74 Apparently the obit had some good things to say about Jay Siderson, loved by all. A bit of history, and some closure. More for me then anyone else.

Ok back to the present. Today I'm home taking it easy. Anne has her sister coming in to visit as we haven't seen her in over 3 years. Its always been tradition when she comes for a visit to take us out for dinner, but we're having Chinese at home. So when she gets here I hope she brings up our current situation. At the moment, however I'm hoping my current job will give me a call in the next few days for work. The boss Friday said we have 2 projects waiting to start. A small crew is there now to test the project. I'm almost certain I'll be called in tomorrow night to start Wednesday or Thursday. If there's work for me for June, I'll have a ei claim and we'll be ok for the summer and beyond. If not and there's no work, then we could be n for a bit of a rough ride over this summer. We'll get by but it'll be rough and I'll be looking for a summer job. I'm hoping all of this will come out when Anne's sister visits. She's been really good to me sending me birthday money etc. She's more closer to me then even my own family. I'm hoping she might offer to help us out if I don't get work this week. 

The other interesting piece of information that our household can take advantage of, is how the City of Edmonton is working on a low income transit pass. I heard that the proposed bus pass is 60% off of the regular fare. This is subject to change but instead of $91/month its $54. Every bit helps. The proposed low income bus pass in my opinion should be 75% of a adult monthly pass. $54 is still a lot of money for low income. $25/month is more affordable.

Over the weekend I worked on another music video. I'm using Hypercam 2 to screen record a Winamp visualization. It opens up in Windows movie maker. I drop the audio in and there's my movie. These are going to get more elaborate. I'm going to have more of these until I get a action cam. For now this will do. You can see the video here. Anyway, that's all for now.

Its not very often that I give up on a

book I'm reading but "Back to the moon" wasn't doing anything for me, sorry. After a couple of years of reading "Horus Heresy", what can I say? I was spoiled. I'll return to the book "Back to the moon", eventually. Its just not on my reading radar at the moment. For that matter, I'm a little burned out from reading Warhammer 40K. I'll still buy the books. So, I thought I'd try for something a little different: A John Scalzi book. I've got a few of his books on my shelf. I thought I'd try his first novel "Agent to the Stars." I'm reading along and its got a few good things going for it already; first person point of view. That's always a plus for me. Its got some comedy :) Moving forward it looks like a good yarn. It'll keep me going far into January. He's got a few more books in the first person point of view. "Old mans war" looks interesting as well. There's also a few Robert J. Sawyer books I need to get to for 2016. So, I can take a break for a few years from reading Warhammer 40K. Like I said, I'll still buy the books and all.

Switching gears here, I've watched a few episodes of "Ring of Honor" (RoH) wrestling lately. I was really impressed with what I saw in last weeks recorded to pvr show. I really liked the fast pace of the "Television championship" match. It was really good and fun to watch. I'll be watching RoH on a more regular basis. I like how the announcer table is right up against the ring. Very old school and reminds me of the old Stampede wrestling in the '80's. Anne's recording this for me every week so I can watch it Sunday nights. 

I sent out a resume last night. I'm not trying to replace my job. I just need something that will keep me going during times like this. I've been without a income for the 3rd week this month and its bugging me. I got one cheque last Friday. I don't want to be caught without any income for summer 2016. When I get something part time I'd like to go 3 days at the new job and 3 at my current job type of a situation. If there's a month without work at my current job I'd like to have the option of pick up hours at the other job. Most people in the market research industry, working in a call centre do this. 

Tonight its wrestling and Oilers road hockey. Tomorrow I'm out at lodge for the evening as our lodge and another lodge are holding a joint degree. Wednesday night is another Oiler game. To decide the CFL West yesterday, we hosted the Calgary Stampeders at Commonwealth stadium to a 31-45 decision. In other words we're going to meet Ottawa at Winnipeg for the Grey Cup. First time since 2005. 

One thing about this downturn in the economy is we're getting a lot more faces out to lodge. Brothers I haven't seen in awhile are showing up, which is good for us bad for them I'm sorry to say. Thursday (where I work) we're having a staff Christmas party early because the office is expected to get busy from here on in. I'm hoping at the Christmas party we're going to get news of the upcoming project. Other then that, not a lot going on. Anyway, that's all for now.

I'm enjoying my time off more so now then I did last year this time where my main job

I worked at this time last year as projects all but fizzled out last summer. I was fortunate to grab the job at Direct buy for July and August 2 last year. When I left my last market research job in February this year, I was left wondering what to do. Situation normal. I applied for employment insurance immediately (ei) and sent out two job searches and got the job I'm doing now. It didn't take long to find work. However work is slowly drying up at this job as well. They said around the end of June there would be projects over the summer even though work could be somewhat spotty at best. If I don't get confirmation of another project coming up this week, then I'll be out there along with the rest of of the unemployed masses looking for work. I need something else to fill in between short term and something steady 3 days there 3 days at the current job. Ideally the way things are going now, that'd be my best situation. The economy was a lot different this time last year then now. Or even more so April then even now. I've got a few call centre job options to pursue and being on ei at least I have some income until about the middle of September. After that, I'm back to where I was at the end of February. I'm not that desperate but by the middle of this month if I'm not working, I'll be feeling the ice buckle beneath my feet.

Switching gears here and a bit of a rant to follow. Now I'm about as tolerant of other religious beliefs as much as any Caucasian Anglo Saxon male can ever hope to be. There are so many religious beliefs out there as there are race and nations behind them. I welcome diversity but over this weekend there is this person (I'll call him Sparky) above us in the corner suite of my apartment building to the left near the street on one of the top floors that in this case give me pause. I mean my patience can only go so far. So Sparky is shouting out to what exactly I have know idea. We know who Sparky is. We've seen him independently of each other. Sparky is an old man with thin shoulder length bushy hair. He wears robes. When I'm waiting for my bus out here, I'll often see him squatting by the curb smoking some kind of tobacco at the set of lights or out in front here smoking, squatting. Because its a long weekend Sparky decides he should be shouting again to who knows what. He's speaking English from what we know. Its not in a monotone voice so its not like he's speaking in tongues. I'm not even sure Sparky is motivated out of some obscure religion. After Sparky makes a statement or whatever it is, he'll pause for a minute and something else comes out of his mouth and he's very loud. He'll go on like this until 3-4 in the morning. He went from about 3am to and started again about 9 this morning waking me up. Ear plugs helped for a bit. I'm sure we're not the only one's that hear this shouting. On our side of this unit we have 5 suites per floor of four levels. That's 20 suites including us, I'm sure somebody has made a complaint and has said something by now. I'm also certain our resident manager (rm) knows about this. Now because Sparky has been able to go on like this all weekend and even before this, its been going on, tells me a couple of things. 1.)He's either allowed to and is ignored by our rm. 2.)Or my neighbors are afraid to make a complaint. 3.)Or if my neighbors have complained to rm by now (and I'm sure since this has been going on through out the weekend they might have complained multiple times) and the rm shakes head "Its a religious issue," my neighbors simply gave up in frustration. 4.) Sparky is has Schizophrenia condition and is off his meds and the rm sites that as a answer. It has to be one of those 4 things. How come we haven't made a complaint? We need to keep a low profile here as well because we're paying about $300 less for our 2 bedroom apartment then the going rate. If we begin to make waves around here and bring undue attention to ourselves we could be faced with a rental increase so we don't dare complain. We avoided a rental increase last month but there's always this month. The security guard hasn't been seen for days and maybe that's another reason why Sparky isn't being challenged. Or if my neighbors have complained the rm might just say, "You'll have to take this up with on site our security after the weekend. If we hear anything from security then we can react accordingly." The other thing is as this is a long weekend the rm is unavailable. It's now going on to 1pm and I've been up composing this since 10am and Sparky is still going at it but easing up a bit. Hopefully tomorrow morning he'll get a notice under the door. 

Yesterday PM Harper had dropped the writ and has called for a formal National election. October 19. This is the longest pre election campaign in Canadian history. It will cost $500M. Since the bulk of the election will be decided over Ontario and Quebec because close to 80% of our Nation's population resides between those 2 Provinces. Our votes don't count for much beyond Ontario and Quebec and our votes out west wont decide which party gets elected. All our votes do is to decide which MP gets a seat in Ottawa. There are 338 seats this year from the 308 last election. This time I think I want to vote for the issues and not the party. I'm thinking our mission in the middle east is very important.  The NDP take that to lightly. I'm also voting with lrt funding in mind and the Liberal's have Amarjeet Sohi here in Edmonton. He worked with Mayor Mandel at City council. He's going against heavy hitter Tim Uppal. Lots of time to decide yet. 

Yesterday afternoon while the 4th floor man from upstairs gave us a break, I shot a video iPod Touch video and apparently (as I thought ) I took the volume down so low on the iPod, the volume sound icon had a slash for sound. I put together another little tune out of Maschine and sequenced it in Cubase. Then I did a mix down of a 2 minute song to a wav file. After uploading the wav file to iTunes and synching to my iPod Touch came the moment of truth. I could hear the kids from out back over the audio. Fail. The audio (more or less) is clean. My only other option is to book some time in the sound booth studio downtown and shoot the video again from there. Also, I'd be in a position to use some of the equipment in the studio like the video camera and use the Mac with Ableton. if they have monitors even better. Anyway this post has been over an hour in the making and that's all for now. 

I took it easy yesterday and same for

for today, not much going on. Just the way I like it.

Tonight on Coast the topic under way is Occult programing many cases of multiple personality disorder are the results of occult programming and many have been harmed. Their guest Russ Dizdar, might have a valid point. I had over 15 years of experience in the occult. Luckily for me I was not involve in it in a full time basis. Some people that have been in it longer then me, came out ok and level headed. Others didn't. A colleague in my local outlet about my age group was one of the most "go-it-together" people knew. Russel was a friendly fellow. he had survival training and was a Vietnam draft dodger. Still might be where ever he is. Back in the early 1980's we had a very prominent leader. I'll call him Mac. Mac and entourage were from California and was on a Canadian tour. He graced us with his presence with a slide show etc. He actually initiated me int the 1st degree. It really was a magical moment that night in 1982. I actually had Mac over at my place where the party was held. So getting back to Russel,he kind of took it personal that Mac allowed rival branch of the order to host Mac's tour. So much so that Russell was never seen or heard from again. The whole branch of the Edmonton order imploded upon itself.There was a lot if infighting and bruised ego's. By 1995 it was all over here in Edmonton. The order is still going strong in other parts of the world. I'm still in contact with some people from those days on Face book. In 1992 there was a story in our local papers about some guy that looked familiar. "Hey,I know this guy." Apparently he suspected that his common law girlfriend was seeing people from the rival group and he got paranoid because he found bus tickets in her pocket after work. After a heated argument he snapped and he punched her in the face a few times, took a crowbar to her, tied her up and tossed her into his pick up truck and said to her that he was going to the bushes out in the west end of the city and leave the body! Oh it gets better. He drove his truck along the Yellow head heading West.The Yellow head is a busy 4 lane highway. His wife got scared and stood and rolled herself out of the tuck and onto the road. Seriously. Someone in another vehicle on the road managed to help this frantic woman out and began taking her to the hospital. I guess Russel saw all of this unfold in her review mirror and as the vehicle got ahead of Russels truck Russel tried to ram it. Apparently he gave up on this and after this story broke 2 days later he turned himself in to Police. In his impact statement he said something like "They say I'm schizophrenia, I don't even know what that means." Knowing Russell,I highly doubt that. So what has the above anecdote got to do with Coast 2 Coast show's this morning? Was this schizophrenia of his incubating like an accident waiting to happen? Today most practitioners of the occult are isolated seekers of occult lore. That's where the danger lies. Sure some like Russell above, slip through but for the most part people getting into this stuff have no idea what they're getting into. I got in because this was organized. It had a unified code of ethics as stated within it's nomenclature. It was run in a professional and orderly way, which is why it has existed since the days of the Golden Dawn in the 1800's. People involved in the occult today do it for ego or financial gain, or something else. There is no accepted  manifesto. Most people in the occult today are playing kids games. There's no discipline or structure. These "kids" dress in black trying to become "Satanists" or Aleister Crowley wannabees,without ever realizing that there's actual work to be done. Russell ended up getting 4 years in jail for beating his wife and other charges. I doubt he's even in the City any more.  

Moving along here. On CTV local news the public got a good look at what the LRT tunnels look like be fore the tracks and other finishing touches look like. The City is on pace and on budget to have the Nait line open for business in April of next year. It's quite a departure for the City's LRT line because the extensions have always been going from South bound. Now the LRT is branching North for a change:
  

 As noted above from across the Epcore tower built a couple of years ago. Here's another shot of crews working inside the tunnel. They use something called shotcrete to spray tunnel walls. Here's another photo taken today like the one above from CTV news:

.

The other track is on the other side of where work crews are leaning over. Here's a link to the story: https://twitter.com/AmandaCTV

Other then that my only outing is going to be Saturday as I'm taking the LRT down to Corona station to get some brunch at Tim's and then walk a couple of blocks to Lodge and that's it.

There might be a new laptop in my immediate near future when I get my tax return. I'm looking at getting the Acer V5. I like the fact it has a 3 USB ports, 8Gig Ram, integrated mic and Windows 8. I'm considering the touch version but it's $200 more then without the touch version. I'd like to have a bigger hard drive but 500 GB is double what I already have. It's an i3 processor and at just under $600 its a significant upgrade. We'll see what happens in the Spring though.

Hollywood is really running out of ideas for movies. They have one out about the last Tsunami and now there's another one about the shooting of terrorist Ossama Bin Laden. It must be a slow year for movies. Thank God science fiction is carrying Hollywood again. I am though interested in seeing: G.I. Joe: Retaliation (March 29)looks good, Iron Man 3 (May 3) Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17 Cant wait.) Man of Steel (June 14 Superman) Thor: The Dark World (Nov. 8) There's 5 movies I want to see.I'm saving my Scene points (now at 2600) for Star Trek and Man of Steel. Anyway, that's about all for now.  
  

Ok so the big

“End of the World” even is supposed to be tomorrow: 12-21-12 the day of the winter Solstice. Or just about anytime give or take a couple of days. A caller on Coast called in last night claiming how he was working with a quasi government organization collecting solar data suggesting that major solar activity 100 times more in magnitude of the Carrington Event of 1859. Now I‘m no expert on this but according to Wikipedia on the Carrington Event from August 28, 1859, until September 2, for 6 days the soar storm was active, shorting out Telegraph lines etc. At one point Gold miners up North began to prepare breakfast because they thought it was daylight. The caller said that major coronal mass ejection will take place within the next couple of days. The caller said that a cme 100 times more powerful could wipe us out. Sunspot activity has been very active lately. According to Wiki we get about 2 every 100 years. We had 1 in about 1921 but nothing like in 1859.

On this date December 20th the world got its first look at the Zodiac murders, December 20th 1968. Lots of crazy things going on huh?

On Coast tonight Expert in theology, Biblical languages, and world civilizations, Mike Heiser will discuss the history of apocalyptic beliefs, why for millennia we have predicted "end times," and which ideas have some validity. I’ll listen in on this for tonight.

Anne said, she’d run down to the ban for me to deposit that $40 in my Scotia bank for my Telus account. The last of the plan 35 for awhile. I’m still considering Ivanhoe Lodge’s installation but nobody knows me there or can vouch for me. But it depends on how Friday turns out as far as my severance pay goes and if my direct bank deposit form went through without complications. So if My Friday turns out ok, then I might just head over to Ivanhoe. We’ll see.

This weekend depending on how My Friday goes I hope to go down to Audrey’s for another Warhammer Space Marine Battles book. I’m hoping to do this maybe Saturday morning and get some breakfast at Tim’s and head home. My LM monthly payment is ok up until the end of march. I was hoping to have it paid off by this weekend or at least by the end of the month.

I’m not doing anything with my CPP until the New Year. There’s no point on doing anything right now. I’m more concerned how My Friday is going to go tomorrow. If my severance forms were sent out as J said they were last week, then I should get something in tomorrow. If there was a complication on my Direct Bank Deposit form (DPD) then the cheque would have been cut and mailed out Monday meaning I won’t know anything for a couple of weeks yet. If I don’t get my cheque in my account Friday, then I know it’s in the mail this Monday/now. Meaning to say, I might get it next week. If by 4pm Friday there’s no indication that nothing is in my bank, then I’ll know that it was mailed and J didn’t get the form out or there were complications. But I’ll be checking and I should know by this time tomorrow. For all I know, it might even be in today but I’m not going to hold my breath. Christmas mail is notorious for being slow like this.

On Coast last night as they were talking about the electrical grid and how a massive CME would take it out, I began to do some research and the first street lights that went up here in Edmonton were in 1891 along Jasper Avenue and were turned off at 1am. They were turned on 24/7 in 1902. In 1905, Edmonton Light Department had 53 customers! In 1982, work began on the Genesee Generating Station, 50 km southwest of Edmonton.  The project cost was $1.2 Billion. Recently the Alberta Government went ahead with the Heartland transmission project but that’s a whole other topic.

Sometime around next August or so (2013) I’m looking at getting a new digital camera. In researching wifi cameras from the main brands I’m liking the new Kodak Easy Share M70 but I don’t think Walmart has the new wifi easy share versions yet, maybe they do but once. Future shop and Best Buy as far as I know I don’t think they carry them in stock. 

Seems that our Mayer Mandel and NDP leader Brian Mason are in a war of words here as Mandel claims that Mason doesn’t seem to support Edmonton very much when it comes to gaining funding on the proposed downtown arena. Mason said that while Mandel was making his money he had spent 12 years on City council. He doesn’t care about Edmonton? Sorry Mandel as much as I think you’re the best City Mayor we’ve ever had here in Edmonton in all my 35 years here, while I don’t like his politics I have to give this one to Brian Mason.

I had a good day yesterday.. This

morning while watching “The Attack of the Show” (ATOS) I heard what thought of the last ATOS but as I checked on my morning commute I got some  more info. Apparently     Kevin Pereira, the shows host for the last 10 years or so is leaving to pursue other interests. He has a production company called “LeeUp” and another endeavor called  “Super Creative” or something. His last show is from E3 in early June. I got in about noon and did some internet stuff on my tablet on Kevin Pereira and it looks like he‘s going to be well taken care of but he‘s going to be a tough act to follow.

I had a pretty good day on the job and got about $200 in card and about $500 in sales, not bad on a cold campaign. We watched a little bit of hockey to see the Rangers lose game #5. I was thinking about heading over to BP‘s for a beer and meet up with Anne at Bay Station as she‘s getting off work. I still might do that tonight when I get off work. Instead I popped into Tim‘s for a Boston cream donut and ate that and played with my iPad on the way home. I have 3 days on and I‘m off for 2.

I didn’t win on my 6/49 ticket, not that I‘m ever expecting to. Nobody claimed the prize of $11M anyway, so that‘s ok.

Also, Edmonton Oiler ex coach was in town today to give a press conference type thing. He said he didn’t feel too bad about being let go but kind of felt that he got cheated out of getting to the good stuff. Tom Renney coached 600 games with the Oiler’s, and this was his 3rd NHL coaching job. He said he has other NHL teams talking to him, so lets hope he’ll get another coaching position.

On Coast Author and lecturer on Magick and the occult, Lon DuQuette, “will discuss his recent work on spirit evocation for the purposes of self illumination and life mastery, as well as The Book of Enoch, one of the first ancient texts that describes a hierarchy of spiritual beings, angels and demons, who interact with humanity.” This guy has been on before and is an old favorite of Coast. DuQuette follows in the tradition of Aleister Crowley. Should be a good show. Anyway, that’s all for now.

The only

Difficulty with composing a blog post on my I pad is Blogger won't let me change the font in this version. They have a mobile version for tabs and phones.

After the late news last night about Midnight, Anne and I rented Mission Impossible 4 "Ghost Protocol." This isn't a movie review or anything but on a scale from 1-10 I'd rate the movie a solid 10. The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the primer scenes at the beginning but other then that minor annoyance, yeah a solid 10/10. I got the feeling though I was watching a James Bond movie more then a MI movie. I saw some great movies last year. Ghost protocol was out December 16th and costs $145M to make but its return at the box office was $693M! That doesn't include DVD or video on demand sales. In watching the movie I was fascinated by the Burj Duba tower where one of the major scenes in the movie took place. The building is the tallest man made structure ever built built in 2004 and opened 2009 at a cost of $1.5 billion. The movie itself did nearly half of that in sales. Crazy.


If the space elevator ever gets built then that will obviously be the tallest man made structure in the world. Yet that won't happen in my lifetime. Or if it does, I'll probably be on my death bed when they announce plans to build it. 


Anne talked me into another day. I go from Tuesday through Saturday anyway and Monday is my natural day off and I said to J I'd try and be in for Monday but don't expect me in until Tuesday. I hinted at Monday because I have lodge night Thursday but I'm half a day on Thursday. Next week I'll have my Monday-Friday and a couple of Saturdays off.


I got a bug of some kind in my desktop causing my browser to lockup on me. It's nothing Telus is doing and its not a big deal so I'm going to have to go in and have it serviced get Vinny to take a look at it. 


This evening Anne is going to be making the chili for the festive board and I'm calling Dan to see if we got enough beer. Anne is getting the chili ingredients later this afternoon after a bottle run. She suggested getting some taco shells and sour creme and cheese to sprinkle on top. She's also going to look at getting another crock pot as they're selling them at Exes Cargo for under $20 and they have disposable soup bowls across the street for a buck at the Dollarrama (15per package.) I've also got to call Neil and see if he can pick me up for Thursday all I need is buns possibly donuts for desert. So the last thing we're going to need is the donuts for on the way back. I can get 3 boxes of assorted for $10 bucks. The good news for me is the JW fund will  reimburse me for what I spend out of pocket. I gave Anne $25 for the chili fixings and the bowls are a buck buns are about $3. If Dan says I have to get extra beer, then I'm SOL because I won't have that amount of cash on me. .    


The good news in this chair is I have only 5 more months to go (the Lodge shuts down in July & August) but there's our participation at Fort Edmonton park, which I've been attending over the last couple of years and the Lodge BBQ in  August. I'll be glad when it's over but the real test is who's going to do this in next year and my year and my IPM year? There's a lot of un answered questions. 


Tonight though I'm home, watching hockey and wrestling and making a few phone calls. It's a good thing I didn't go in for this evening. Anyway, that's all for today.

I had to call in sick again

Anne gave me a sleeping pill and about 4am and some reading later, I went to bed and passed out

I'm coughing, runny nose, watery eyes. My sinuses are plugged up but at least my voice is more or less returning and I'm going through a roll of toilet tissue a day.

But I'm going into work tomorrow. My check next week will be pretty low but I have savings in my bank for rainy days like this

Weather wise, we're supposed to get winter on the 15th down to some -20 days. We haven't had a -20 this season. There's only a dusting of snow out there now.

But I need to get back to work so I can make some money. As it is now with me going back tomorrow for 8 hours, I'll have Thursday 8 Friday 8 Saturday 6, which is only 22 hours. I won't get anything out of this check myself but next week I'll have 37 hours as I'm taking Saturday off for Lodge. The other reason I need to get back to the office I need to get some info on this grub rescue so I can get back into my laptop.

This weekend I'm thinking about getting the Epiphone Dot ES Studio guitar. I think I saw it on the LM website on sale. All of these guitar software emulators aren't so much expensive as their sound libraries are so large. "Electricity" for instance has a 52 Gb sound library. I have about 32 Gb left over but you can hear its Midi. With a real guitar all I have to do is plug it into my audio interface and into my Guitar Pro 6 tweak the sound a bit and I'm there. I don't need an amp or a stomp box, every things right there. No Sound libraries, nothing. 

I tool 2 incidents of cough medicine swallows so far this morning and 1 more before Anne leaves for her job. 

Ok by now most of you reading this has heard about the Gateway pipeline project but like the McKenzie valley pipeline (which has been under construction since 2010) this pipeline line is years away from completion. I'm not opposed marketing our oil to Asia it's just the question of the route. I think Prince Rupert would be better then Kitimat. Just having the pipeline running over rocky terrain like this is an accident waiting to happen. The area is prone to avalanche slides, not to mention soil erosion could tale out a section of the pipeline and then you have a disaster in the making and never mind negotiating those tankers out of narrow fjords. Now I'm thinking instead what we ought to do is refine the oil here and transport the oil down by tankers. I've heard something like 1 million barrels of oil/day. I did some research and came up with this from yahoo answers: 

"Supertankers" are generally defined as those greater than 250,000 tonnes deadweight (meaning the maximum weight they can carry when fully loaded). Today's supertankers, on average, can carry about 2 million barrels or 84 million gallons of crude oil and petroleum product. The largest supertanker in the world is the Norwegian-owned Knock Nevis which is 647,955 tonnes deadweight and can hold 4.1 million barrels of petroleum. Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/pdf.pdf

That's a lot of oil in one of those suckers. But it's also not like there's a dozen tankers out there waiting waiting to come into port everyday. I don;t think there's that many available tankers for this thing. So 2 million barrels at $101/barrel as of this post translates into rough $2 Billion/tanker/day. Of course my figures are just ballpark estimates the price of oil changes daily. Right now it's high, by August it could be back down to $43 something. 

The other thing about this is aboriginal groups. Special interest groups outside Canada are playing these aboriginal people for fools. They're playing the environment fear mongering card at the end of the day it's all going to come down to money. Who wants it more? How much money is this going to cast us? Its all going to come down to how much do you want? Everyone has a price.

If my math is right at $2 Billion/oil tanker/day that's a lot of cash. That's a lot of cash, if it ever comes into fruition. 

Ok, enough of that. I took another shot of cough medicine, which seems to help but I'm running out. So on tap tonight is the Oiler game. I didn't buy a Proline or a 6/49 ticket as I haven't been out since Saturday. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Doctor Who "Widow and the wardrobe" was great. Matt Smith with his interpretation of Doctor Who is making it his own. You can tell he's having fun with it. I hope he goes on this series for a long time.

I knew Friday night leaving the office, I was catching a bug. The early signs were there. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. When I go back to work this time next week, I should all be but done with it.

Coast had a good show on for Christmas night, which is odd because most of the time they have canned Christmas music and Coast is suspended for about 3-4 days. I'm glad they (630 Ched) realize that the Coast audience doesn't stop for Christmas. I'm sure there have been a lot of times over the years that stranded Christmas eve airline passengers wish Coast was on. Lots of people still have to work the night shift.

This year we lost some major celebrities. I gathered a partial list out of this site. There is very little love lost here in the West over Kim Jong Ill. one caller on Coast this morning suggested that the North Korean dictator was murdered by his son who is now occupying the seat of power. Some believe that the military was behind his murder. Then there was just recently 12/18/11: Playwright and President of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel died in his home at the age of 75. I felt especially sad over the passing of Harry Morgan but he had a good life living well into his 90s. Although I never read her books she was a literary heavyweight 11/21/11: Notable author of such Science Fiction book series as "Dragonriders of Pern" , Anne McCaffrey, died from complications due to a stroke. She was 84 And it was a real shocker when Bill Kane passed away on 11/8/11: Creator of the long-running newspaper comic "Family Circus", Bill Keane passed at the age of 89. I wasn't a fan of Boxing but Joe Frazier will be well remembered in the boxing world. Andy Rooney was more of an American thing and even though I caught many of his commentaries they made me laugh and ponder 9/10/11: Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson, best known to modern audiences as Uncle Ben from the "Spider-Man" films, died just one day after his 88th birthday. Then there was Betty Ford, founder of the Betty Ford clinic. We lost Peter Falk from the Columbo series. My mom always used to like him, me to. Another shocker for me was hearing the news in the Spring about Macho man Randy Savage. Then there was Jackie Cooper from the Superman films. Osama Bin Ladin (yeaaaa!) I hope that fucker rots in hell. I'm saddened by the loss of Elisabeth Sladen starred as the beloved companion to the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, in the long-running Doctor Who. She passed away at 63. She had returned to the Doctor Who franchise during David Tennant's run as the doctor and spun off into her own series, The Sarah Jane Adventures. We lost Elizabeth Taylor. Michael Gough or--as most people know him--Batman's butler Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman films died at the age of 94. Jane Russel passed away,Best known for her roles in the 1950s science-fiction film "Forbidden Planet" and the 1960s television series Honey West died on complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 80 and of course who can't forget losing Steve Jobs. There are a lot more I could name, like Amy Winehouse lots of rappers but these people did not make an impression on my consciousness.


Anne went out to get some things like Christmas cake and other treats because it was boxing day. There are a lot of good deals out there. If the sale is still on tomorrow, I'm going to run over to the Clareview Pharmacy and pick up a couple of plugins Image line has on for 50% off for all registered Image line customers of which I am one due to buying FL. Studio in August and Groove Machine in October.


Tonight I'm watching a bit of the Oiler game and some wrestling. I'll switch back and forth. Anyway, that's about all for tonight.

This afternoon I discovered Music maker 17

and I'm salivating over this software.

I'm going to cancel out on Sib 6 and get the funds this weekend ona disposable credit card and order this thing. I'm going to get the Premium version. It can do all the things FL. Studio and Cubase can do and more. I wont even need Battery 3 as it's got this built in. I hope to have Music Maker 17 on the weekend.

I had a bit of a nap earlier and slept for about 4 winks. I Have a fan on in my office as pictured here and its not cooling down at all. I think were going to have the air conditioner in for tonight. First thing Monday morning, I'm calling L&M and ask them to cancel on the Sib 6. It could be a bit redundant. I asked to save it yesterday and they were closed today. So that's not too bad.

I don't know what's been going on with any new episodes of Doctor Who. We haven't been able to see any since April.

One of my brothers is on the move somewhere. I have an idea it's somewhere on the island between Victoria and Campbell River. Probably has to do with his girlfriend. and I'm not even sure what he's doing these days. Our family hasn't been that close since mom passed away.

So I'm just sitting here trying to beat the heat. Boots is resting on a patio chair out here as the birds are in their cages enjoying a warm summer night.

My teeth haven't been bugging me that much these days, thanks God. The front tooth that has been broken off has been but it hasn't been a searing kind of a pain or anything.
I'm off Monday and I'm calling in L&M for a stop hold on Sib  6. this frees me up $100 in cash for MM 17 when I get my check Friday. Hopefully after work Saturday I can get a Master Card from Money mart when I get home after a nap I can order MM17 and have some fun. Also I want to get the last 2 books in that SF trilogy as well.

The Esks are at Calgary so this should be a good game. I think this would be a good double or nothing game to regain my $5 loss yesterday.

This August on my birthday I'm volunteering at Fort Edmonton Park with Dan. I suggested if he wants to bring his crib board, I'll play him a couple of rounds. Then in September we have a EA degree coming up. This will be my 3rd EA as SD. Hopefully the last 2 FC's wont be ready for their MM until I become JW. There's a lot of  memory work for that one. Knowing my luck, I'll be taking in 3 MM's during the balance of my SD year. The busiest chairs I think are the SD and the JW. Not to mention the Treasurer's and the WM's chair. The IPM is the chair I can't wait to take. That means I would have covered all of the chairs and I can go further on in the York Rite. I want to go on through the Royal Arch as well and the Allied degrees, eventually. There's lots of Masonic Work yet to do.

Speaking of Freemasonry I recall way back in the early 1990's when Eugene was the Priest of one of the many Gnostic masses he did and I recall the sash he had been wearing. He was wearing his Royal Arch masonic regalia that night. Royal Arch's are the only ones, I know of that wear a sash and he had all his pins from the Canadian Rite on that sash. I thought this was very impressive and was one of the reasons why I joined Masonry not just for that but because I like learning through the degrees. I'm not big on pins and regalia because I don't have any Masonic pins or rings or that kind of thing on my person.

This has been a unusual long post this evening but that's about all for now I'll post the fan pic later.