ei yesterday and managed to contact an employment agency. I've got a appointment for another info session for Wednesday at 1pm. I tried calling another market research firm but like our office they probably have shut things down for the summer. I kept getting a voice mail response. Hopefully work for my company will pick up sometime this month. Today about 3pm however, I'm heading out to the office to put in my availability for this month see whats going on. Let them know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and got another job. That I'm still interested.
There's 50 days left in the national campaign race for Prime Minister. Do I vote for Harper, Trudeau or Mulcair. All have pros and cons. Here's a few: PC: Pros: BillC-51,stay the course in a uncertain economy, a tax break on membership fees to organizations like service clubs. Cons: Eliminate Canada Post. Cut programs. Liberals: Pros: Pro Middle class. Cons: legalizing pot. NDP: Pros: Increase GIS, Cons: Heavy taxation. Pro Eastern Canada. Balanced budget. I'm leaning more and more to the Liberals. I know one thing, we need a change. I'm willing to give Trudeau a chance One thing in all of this, either its a NDP win or a minority Government for anyone else.
Last Friday one of my Xentel colleges that I used to hang out with, on his Facebook page said he was drinking at Bo Didlies across the street from me, or simply referred to as Bo's. Before I could arrange a chance to meet with him he had left. I was able to chat with him on Facebook later. He said we should do lunch. That's a good idea. So I reached him Monday on a new Facebook app called Messenger here at home texting from my iPod Touch. He said he's living out here in Clareview 2 blocks South from Walmart. Very close to me. Seems his new watering hole is now Bo's. We might hook up Friday. I think he moved in with James. Anyway, that's all for now.
Welcome to my Blog. Anne and I live here in Strathearn Edmonton Alberta, with our 2 cats etc. This blog is about my life, rants, politics, books, music production, Sports, some gaming, Freemasonry and some WTF-ish moments that give me pause. Feel free to contact me on my or YouTube channel Shannon on Sounds. Thanks for dropping by
Showing posts with label National election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National election. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
With the markets
reacting the way they were yesterday sent the price of oil to $38 a barrel. As I understand it with my limited knowledge on the topic this all has to do with the slowing down of the economy in China and the low demand for oil world wide. Even our dollar slipped to a 10 year low to .75 US. The lowest the price of oil bottomed out at was 2009 when it was $35, then oil bounced back up from there. I just hope we don't have another meltdown like 2008.
The economy took centre stage on the election race today. Some people are saying better a devil we know then one we don't. The NDP were saying that if elected they'd increase the gis. That's not the issue. The issue with that is more Canadians need to be able to access the gis then increasing the amount they receive. In other words the qualifying threshold needs to change.
Hard to believe that lodge resume next Thursday. I've got just a few more months to go with this ipm chair. I think what I would like to do is take over the registrar's chair instead of the JW. Too much work to do in that chair. Anyway, that's all for now.
The economy took centre stage on the election race today. Some people are saying better a devil we know then one we don't. The NDP were saying that if elected they'd increase the gis. That's not the issue. The issue with that is more Canadians need to be able to access the gis then increasing the amount they receive. In other words the qualifying threshold needs to change.
Hard to believe that lodge resume next Thursday. I've got just a few more months to go with this ipm chair. I think what I would like to do is take over the registrar's chair instead of the JW. Too much work to do in that chair. Anyway, that's all for now.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
This is now day 16 of the 78 day
October 2015 Canadian national election race. On Harper's campaign trail he's constantly being berated by the Mike Duffy scandal and the $90K cheque cut to Duffy out from the PMO's. Under oath Harper's chief of staff said Harper had no knowledge of the cheque cut to Mike Duffy. I'm looking forward to when this story peters out and its the NDP's turn, when the media is going to reveal more of the $2 million the NDP has yet to pay back. NDP Target of New Conservative Attack Ad: Pay It Back!On
July 28, 2015, the Conservative Party launched this ad targeting the
New Democratic Party for using "2.7 million taxpayer dollars." That's more scandal for another time.
When I first saw this at I thought it was a joke. Seriously? After reading more into this it makes more sense. Thor a Canadian company has been given a US patent to build a space elevator with a infallible tower. Cargo would travel up the tower via a elevator and launch from high altitude or low-Earth orbit. It could cut the costs of rocket fuel by 30% or more. The owner Ben Roberts thinks a version that could reach 20 kilometers above sea level, starting from the top of a five-kilometre-high mountain, could be built within 10 years at a cost of about $5 billion US. This concept was initially unveiled in 2009. Most likely it wont be built and in use in my life time.
Today I've got a appointment downtown in the Backer centre in the old Xentel location. Its called Links career information resource centre. They help people with disabilities find work. I've got a 1pm appointment. I've got to be there a bit early probably to fill out forms. I'm hoping this is something I can use to gain meaningful employment in tandem with my other job. I've got enough ei to last me until the end of September. I'm also looking to see if I can remain on ei while attending to expand my ei. If nothing transpires out of this and this appointment is a dead end waste of time then I've got a few other options. It's my 63rd birthday on Friday and I've got the Esks/Hamilton game to look forward to. Also I received the other day a nice birthday card from my wife's sister Donna including a Tim's card and a little something extra. Also I have Summer slam on Sunday so this is turning out to be a good week. Anyway, that's all for now.
When I first saw this at I thought it was a joke. Seriously? After reading more into this it makes more sense. Thor a Canadian company has been given a US patent to build a space elevator with a infallible tower. Cargo would travel up the tower via a elevator and launch from high altitude or low-Earth orbit. It could cut the costs of rocket fuel by 30% or more. The owner Ben Roberts thinks a version that could reach 20 kilometers above sea level, starting from the top of a five-kilometre-high mountain, could be built within 10 years at a cost of about $5 billion US. This concept was initially unveiled in 2009. Most likely it wont be built and in use in my life time.
Today I've got a appointment downtown in the Backer centre in the old Xentel location. Its called Links career information resource centre. They help people with disabilities find work. I've got a 1pm appointment. I've got to be there a bit early probably to fill out forms. I'm hoping this is something I can use to gain meaningful employment in tandem with my other job. I've got enough ei to last me until the end of September. I'm also looking to see if I can remain on ei while attending to expand my ei. If nothing transpires out of this and this appointment is a dead end waste of time then I've got a few other options. It's my 63rd birthday on Friday and I've got the Esks/Hamilton game to look forward to. Also I received the other day a nice birthday card from my wife's sister Donna including a Tim's card and a little something extra. Also I have Summer slam on Sunday so this is turning out to be a good week. Anyway, that's all for now.
Monday, August 3, 2015
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.
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.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Why is he blogging at this hour
shouldn't he be at work? The project ended Friday at 5:45pm yesterday afternoon and we were sent home. Before that though we were to expect a phone call today about the up coming project next week, tentatively to begin Tuesday. I got that call this morning. Translation: I passed the probationary 3 month period. I'm scheduled to show up Tuesday 4pm-8:30pm as they just want to take a look at it before they schedule more hours. It could go in any number of different directions, which I wont list here. However, this means as of today, I have 3 days off.
What with all the trouble going on in the world, whacky gun happy nutcases killing tourists, Greece facing a financial crisis, some interesting news. Solar impulse 2 made its historic landing in Hawaii. The plane flew from Japan 8,000 Km to land in Hawaii using the power of the Sun. The flight last 118 hours. The next leg of the journey will be undertaken by pilot Bertrand Piccard, who will fly from Hawaii to Phoenix, Arizona.
This coming up October is a important election for Canada. The players are our current PM Stephan Harper (my choice) and the NDP oppoisition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. The Liberals and the NDP are soft on terrorism and that scares me. Trudeau wants to legalize marijuana (to tax it obviously) The only sense of reason is Harper.
My little Samsung wifi camera could always take video. I just don't know for how long. I know it can only take 3 minute video clips to upload to YouTube but I need at least 5-20 minutes for my Jams I want to produce. I haven't used the camera in almost a year. Now that I have a bit of time off this weekend, I can charge the camera and tinker around with the settings. The camera's YouTube app might let me upload only 3 minutes to YouTube but I think I can shoot video for as long as I the memory card will let me.
The construction across the street is in full swing. Just what we need around here is another pharmacy. Shoppers Drug Mart is useful to me because we don't have far to go to get our bus pass and if I need to get a lottery ticket, its just across the street. I'll be able to get my diabetic supplies there in the future. I'd much rather see a London Drugs there (better selection) and they have a decent computer selection but it wouldn't make sense because Best buy is across the street. Heck, neither does having 3 pharmacies all within a few blocks of each other make sense either. I'd love to see a Max store or something that's open 24 hours, that has tables and a place to have a coffee or a snack. Or even have a Long & McQuade
On my plate tonight, I'm following a bit of the BC/Ottawa CFL football game, munching on BBQ potato chips and having a good time and I might even put together a bit of a beat. Before I go, I'd like to wish all my American friends and colleagues, Dan, Dennis, Kieth, Alan and all the rest a happy 4th of July. The other greatest country on the planet. Anyway, that's about all for now.
What with all the trouble going on in the world, whacky gun happy nutcases killing tourists, Greece facing a financial crisis, some interesting news. Solar impulse 2 made its historic landing in Hawaii. The plane flew from Japan 8,000 Km to land in Hawaii using the power of the Sun. The flight last 118 hours. The next leg of the journey will be undertaken by pilot Bertrand Piccard, who will fly from Hawaii to Phoenix, Arizona.
This coming up October is a important election for Canada. The players are our current PM Stephan Harper (my choice) and the NDP oppoisition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. The Liberals and the NDP are soft on terrorism and that scares me. Trudeau wants to legalize marijuana (to tax it obviously) The only sense of reason is Harper.
My little Samsung wifi camera could always take video. I just don't know for how long. I know it can only take 3 minute video clips to upload to YouTube but I need at least 5-20 minutes for my Jams I want to produce. I haven't used the camera in almost a year. Now that I have a bit of time off this weekend, I can charge the camera and tinker around with the settings. The camera's YouTube app might let me upload only 3 minutes to YouTube but I think I can shoot video for as long as I the memory card will let me.The construction across the street is in full swing. Just what we need around here is another pharmacy. Shoppers Drug Mart is useful to me because we don't have far to go to get our bus pass and if I need to get a lottery ticket, its just across the street. I'll be able to get my diabetic supplies there in the future. I'd much rather see a London Drugs there (better selection) and they have a decent computer selection but it wouldn't make sense because Best buy is across the street. Heck, neither does having 3 pharmacies all within a few blocks of each other make sense either. I'd love to see a Max store or something that's open 24 hours, that has tables and a place to have a coffee or a snack. Or even have a Long & McQuade
On my plate tonight, I'm following a bit of the BC/Ottawa CFL football game, munching on BBQ potato chips and having a good time and I might even put together a bit of a beat. Before I go, I'd like to wish all my American friends and colleagues, Dan, Dennis, Kieth, Alan and all the rest a happy 4th of July. The other greatest country on the planet. Anyway, that's about all for now.
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