We have 2 cats in our household

and they're a big part of this family. All our pets are. What, Jim, you have more? We have 2 budgie birds and a aquarium of fish. One of my close friends after describing the problem with the bird thinks it could be an anal gland issue. Anne's at the vet now. We think the bird might need to be put down if there's nothing we can do for him. Anne's already thinking of a bird replacement. This has been the 2nd bird replacement (if it happens) for our current green budgie.

While I was never a fan of the teams Jerome Iginla (Iggy) played on, I liked the player. I knew it was going to happen and it wasn't a surprise to me to hear about of his retirement from hockey. He spent 22 years in the NHL, six with Calgary. In all those years he had 7 82 game seasons, 17 seasons with 20 goals or more. He was in the 2010 Olympics. His best year (goal output wise) was scoring 52 goals in 2000-2001. During his year with Denver, I was hoping the Oilers could get him for a 1 year deal and retire his Jersey here, just to piss off Calgary 😎 Last night on local news The City of Saint Albert where he grew up, honored Iggy in a special way of naming the Akinsdale Arena, the Jerome Iginla arena. Its a classy mover for a class guy. He was just on the wrong side of the "Battle of Alberta."

Still no word on work from last week. I'm watching most of the Eskimo/Ottawa CFL🏈 game here in about an hour, then out for some lunch across the street for a Red Robbin burger with a friend. Then work on my music. 🎹 I got a like and a comment from my most recent track from last week and a new sub. For some reason I can't break the 30 sub mark. With Anne working tonight I'm also going to rearrange my "studio" somewhat as well. Anyway, that's all for now.   

Monday morning Anne took our cat Skippy to get fixed up

and to get her needles. So at least that's taken care of. Now we just got to watch her stop licking her sutures in case she gets a infection.

Our lodge planning meeting Sunday went well. I got out of going to Fort Edmonton park next Thursday. Somebody covered for me. Also, I got out of the IPM chair and I took the Junior Steward chair for next year. We hadn't had any stewards in a long time. If we needed any, we'd just delegate them. Also, I got my apron and case back, so that was a very productive way to spend a Sunday afternoon. 

Work is going fine. We might have the new project sometime next week. I might have a few days off work though until then. I'll need to activate my ei though and I'll be doing that when I get up out of bed in the morning. Anyway, that's all for now.

I took my wife out

for Sunday brunch at Rickies yesterday afternoon. It was a nice little outing but the trains were crowded yesterday.

About 4:30pm she comes in with a new addition to the family. A nice white budgie with bits of blue fur. Anne decided to name it Pecker. Stupid name for a bird, yeesh.

I try to see the important genre movies that come out. Anne and I went to see 2 movies this year at the theater. We went to see the last GI Joe movie. I rate this 3/5 popcorn's. I wanted to see Star Trek into Darkness at the theater but we managed to see it in Video on Demand. That was the best movie of 2013 just like James Bond Skyfall was the best movie of 2012.

I had a great evening going over Lodge stuff and reading a bit. I updated my Goodreads Space Wolf Omnibus. I'm about 63% done and I hope to complete by the end of the year. Then I'm starting the Horus Heresy series. That's my reading project for the year more or less.

On tap today, is to go over more Lodge stuff and work on my track a bit. This afternoon, I'm watching a bit of CFL. After that watch Monday night Raw and watch the Oiler's lose, again. 

This week is a short week but I'm having the weekend off because I'm going to try and get a ride out to Spruce Grove for a district meeting. Failing that I'm going to go to the South side and get that SSHD upgrade. My first choice is to go to the District meeting as it'd be nice to get out of the City. Even if it's just for a day and I'm inside for most of it. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Yesterday

I left out of here shortly before noon for my 1-8pm shift. Weather wise it was just recovering from a rain earlier in the morning. Apparently the City had all of it’s attractions available free for the public yesterday. I gave a nod to Edmonton Fan Expo as the train went by Rexall. I got into the office thinking I’d like to opt out of the full shift. I began to get into it and felt a bit better. I began to follow the Riders/Al’s game. By 5:30pm I had my half hour and a chicken TV dinner, which was surprisingly tasty. Al’s beet out the Riders 17-12! I had 2 hours to go and I worked that out ok. Despite all of that, I was feeling ok. In fact, not to bad. I even got my train on time at Corona. I even got inside at 8:30pm!

Anne was “face timing” her sister when I walked in and had a small chat. I said something on how I’m considering the iTouch 4th Gen in November. Anne got all defensive but Donna stool up for me.

Anne made us our Sunday brunch latter and we watched the news and just before local news our other Budgie, Sugar passed away.  She’s been looking listless lately and still. When I called Anne about 5pm she was saying Sugar was feeling a lot better. Then Anne noticed Sugar not moving and that’s when she said she died. She took it hard. Me, not as much because I don’t know how many birds over the last 3 years we lost. Beaker is our last. So as sad as it’s worth mentioning, I’m not feeling good about her loss. I feel more bad for Anne then the bird. Sugar of course yes, but more for Anne. No More birds! Famous last words, and I’m sure if we get another one, it’s fate will meet more or less the same way.

Well, that’s September. It’s been rough on me hours wise and losing pet’s wise and thank God that’s over with. I had a nice healthy stash in August and that was gone over night.

I’ve got a relatively easy week hour wise (not that I like it that way) Thursday I’m paying another visit to Service Canada and I’m going to see about some career counseling and get myself a second job or a better paying job. As much as I like the job, I can’t live on money like this. I’ll either have too get another part time job or another first job. Something has to give. I might get my cpp November 1st which will help, a bit. Anyway, that’s all for now.

I'm kind of disappointed that

iGoogle has until the end of October before Google retires it November 1st. I don't like Chrome enough to have it as my go to site but I like the gadgets on my iGoogle site, like Science Shot and Trek today, and on the top there's a YouTube, Gmail and maps link. Maybe Firefox has something like iGoogle. I kind understand Google's reasoning for retiring iGoogle November 1st 2013. I suppose my alternative would be using my blog as my portal to the above sites. I'll be sad to see iGoogle go.

 I'm in the office from 6-10 this evening, so I still have a few hours left here before I leave out of here at 5pm. Then on Saturday I'm from 11am-6pm. That's a good 6.6 hours so in my half hour break I'll pop in over to Audrey's about 3pm or so and pick up a book on my special order shelf.

Last night while working on a track on Maschine, I was wondering why my music was clipping. There's a status bar where it says CPU and a volume meter. When the  status bar reads read, that means it's clipping causing static in my music. At first I thought, maybe it could be part of my routing in the audio to midi preferences. Or whatever it's called. I checked in there, and even increased the sample rate from 4100 (standard) to 4800. I still got clipping. After doing a bit of research I found that I needed a limiter. Limiter's help prevent clipping. Fortunately Maschine is so versatile that it has a limiter on its effects (FX) channel but it was recommended that the limiter be at -0.0db. Best I could dial it in was at -0.4db but I put one on Master, Groups, and Sounds. I still got the clipping. Then I figured that it's got to be my slow laptop but in checking earlier projects clipping is fine. So before bed I thought, "oh well, I'll do some more research over the weekend. Then this morning it came to me. I keep getting these pop up menu's at various times of the project that say "Sample(s) can not be found, ignore, ignore all, find cancel. I've been hitting cancel because in previous instances when this has occurred "find" points me to an empty folder on on my hard drive. So, this might tell me that these samples were just "one shot uses." I'm going to see what the forums have to say about this. But that's where I think my issue lies with clipping.

Yesterday I got into doing some more research on how to upgrade my Acer laptop. I thought, well maybe all it needs is a 2.5 hard drive (hd) upgrade. I need a internal hd running at least 7200 rpm to run the programs I use for music production. Most laptops hd's run at 5400 rpm. Not good enough for my needs. Then I looked around the Memory Express website (There's a link in my blog sidebar) and they have a few notebook hd's at 500Gb/7200 rpm. That would be a major upgrade. Basically its bring my laptop in clone my existing hard drive and install the new one copy the contents of my cloned drive back into the new hd. I'd probably need a copy of Windows 7 64bit as the copy of Windows 7 Ultimate is set at 32 bit. Including parts and labor it's about a $300 upgrade. If it doesn't work when I get my new PC in the Spring I can always use the OS and the hard drive. The upgrade will also allow a online Ram scanning service to scan to see if my system can take any more Ram. At the moment the scan won't work in a Windows 32 bit environment. Hence the Windows 7 64 bit install. I know that Windows can be reconfigured from 32 bit to 64 but it's a process that takes more time then I can give it and the earning curve is a bit steep for my skill, and patience. Best any Ram laptop upgrade can do is 16Gb Best desktop Ram is 32Gb but there are some 32Gb Ram kits that are slowly entering the market. That's x2 16 chips. I doubt my laptop's CPU would even run them little alone a 7200 rpm hd upgrade. The other thing I was thinking about getting is a 500Gb SSD upgrade, but that'd be almost as much as my laptop cost in 2009 dollars. My best option for music production is buying a desktop but that's going to be in the Spring if I get a income tax return. Then again, I might just book a appointment and get the hd install anyway just to see what if it'll work. If not then I can always reverse the procedure there at the time..

We're having a bit of a problem with our budgie bird we named "Sugar." He feathers are fluffed up and she's very quiet I don't think she's sick at all. This is called "Roosting." Sometimes birds do this to circulate heat or to keep warm.

Before I get on that train at Clareview I'm getting my Proline/6-49 ticket for this weekends games and draw for Saturday night. Saturday after work I'm going to try Burger Baron again to see if they're open and get some fries to take home. Anyway, that's all for now.

About 4pm Sunday my

wife came back from her shopping with a new addition for the family, meet Beakie:

Beakie has a slightly unusual anomaly by his tail feather. These iPad in house close ups are not that great. Beakie is the same color as Chirpy that passed away last week.

I'm considering the new iPhone 5c and on a 2 year agreement I think it's about $229. At first I thought, why would I need a cell phone? Several reasons present themselves: Hockey season is here and I'm working mostly nights so it'd be nice to have access to the scores. Also, it'd be nice to have for personal and business calls because many times I can't get to a phone to call my wife on my break. Also, if a potential employer wants me in for a interview and I'm on the road I can respond right there. This would be a real asset. It's not a must have item but this iPad camera is the pits for taking photos and my Samsung camera doesn't take very good pictures either. We've been talking about a cell phone for awhile now. Anne can have the iPad because she uses it to Face time her sister and likes the internet for her American idol type shows and to take pictures of our cats etc. A iPad is bigger and harder to lose then a iPhone/iTouch likes she did in January. Most likely I'll get this in November and on a Bell account, not Telus. 

Tonight on Coast the topic is about: Shamans & Voodoo/ UFOs. Should be a good show for a Sunday night. George Knapp usually has good shows for a Sunday night.

Earlier I was watching the BC/Rider's game and I'm happy the Riders took another loss. It's panic nation. Anyway, that's about all for now.    

I'm just about ready to wrap

up Stardoc #1. I found out from Fantastic Fiction, there are 3 more out of the 7 books I  have left in the Stardoc series. I hope to get the last 3 next month. 

I had every intention of heading out to Canada Place to get my CPP under way for next month but Canada Place has abbreviated hours this week. Today, Thursday and Friday they are open 8:30-10am and closed January 1st, naturally. It means I can't do anything until next week.  

Today marks the first day that we have had -20 as a high for the winter season since our first snow. It's not bad if you don't have to be out in it for a long period of time. My sister -in-law is getting ready to go on a 10 day cruise over the holidays that begins today. She's going on a Disney cruise and she says that Micky, Donald Duck etc are going to wish her nieces etc a Merry Christmas from the ship. They'll be in +25 we'll be in -25.  

Tonight is Christmas eve and we usually open our gifts tonight. We got a new budgie to replace poor Sugar #1.

Anne is getting us a little holiday Christmas platter from Safeway and I've got Monday night Raw (unless they're going to do one of their pre-recorded shows for the troops) which doesn't mean anything for me not being an American but I appreciate the effort WWE does for this but I hope its they're regular show.

It seems that The Black Library could be offering something for they're newsletter subscribers tomorrow. I'm going to check my inbox and see what it is. Maybe a free story? That's be nice.

Anyway it's time to finish the last 30 pages or so of this my 3rd novel I've read this year. Usually I read between 8-12 books/year but with all that's been going on over the last year It's been tough to find time to do much reading. Anyway, that's all for now.



 

I woke up around noon

and took my insulin and my cereal Anne had out for me and fed the cats. I was still tired. I went back to bed for a couple of hours and up around 2pm. I feel empty inside losing our pet bird Sugar earlier this morning.

It’s not a good idea to have a female budgie and a male budgie in the same cage. This was why Anne had them separated in two different cages. What I didn’t like was how Anne would pull the 2 cages slightly apart to bring the opening bird cage door like a ramp connecting to the other bird cage. There was only a brief space but Sugar would climb out onto the ramp and get close to Chirpy. It was kind of cute and occasionally Sugar got loose. A couple of weeks ago she got lose and we couldn’t find her. She was hiding behind the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. Then this morning in another episode of Sugar on the ramp as I’m in my office reading, Anne comes rushing in here screaming Sugars name. Yellow feathers everywhere. What the hell? It looked like Anne had rescued Sugar from Boots. Anne had Sugar on a piece of doweling rod responding ok. Moments later she was unresponsive, dead. I was upset and said somethings I shouldn’t have. I didn’t sleep very well this morning and Anne’s upset at me blaming me for upsetting the bird allowing him to fly out and get caught the way she did. This was the 2nd budgie bird that Boots had caught.

 

When Anne got up she headed out on her rounds to do what she had to do and all. When she came back I saw a small budgie box on the couch there by the pillows by the bird cages and Anne had bought another bird and gave me a warning about her we renamed Sugar. What so we could lose another one to Boot? Is she going to do this bird bonding thing again to open up Sugar 2’s cage and we’re going to lose another one? How long is this one going to last? The problem isn’t with my cats, Sporty & Silky but in Boots. More importantly to leave the bird cage open so the bird has access to the apartment, is mental. Cats and birds don’t mix, hello? 1+1, clueless. Ok, I’ll stop now.

Anyway, It’s a cold overcast day for a winter Sunday afternoon. It’s only fitting. Despite losing Sugar and Anne fighting with me, again I feel ok.

The Connect 2 Edmonton, forum I subscribe to has had a topic I’ve been following about the North LRT thread. According to the Google Maps update and all, it shows the construction coming along quite well. The update looks like it was taken about late April. Some posters on the thread are saying that it would have been nice if there would be some kind of LRT station connecting to the proposed downtown arena project. The one at Grant MacEwan college is just slightly to the NE of the arena site and I’m sure there will be a connecting pedway to any proposed arena. If it ever gets done.

If you’ve been following me on my website, I’ve had a heck of a 2012 so far haven‘t I? Losing Sparky, no NHL, losing my job and now last night losing Sugar. And I‘ve got 8 more days to go until the end of the year!

Yesterday, I left out of here facing a 10 minute wait in the bus shelter waiting for anything to take me to Clareview. A#11 came by and a train was waiting for me. I read Stardoc on my way to Corona station and took the stairs up to street level and into Audrey’s. I bought book #2 of the Space Marine Battles and ordered the next 4. I have 2 of the 4 still there and I hope to go into LM first make a payment then on my way back get the iTunes gift card and then into Audrey’s to get book #3. After I placed my order and said Seasons Greetings I went back the way I came and waited for the Clareview train home. I was at Clareview about 5pm and looking around on the lighted sing for a #12 and there is one right beside Bay Enterprise Square station just across the street on 102nd Ave. I managed to get home into the apartment at about 5:20pm. Perfect.

I got a call from one of my past colleagues at iMark and we had a bit of a chat. But I’m not doing any job search until I find out what’s going on Friday. I wouldn’t mind taking a month off and go hard at it in February.

As for tonight, I’m going to try and finish off Stardoc. This is actually a pretty decent first novel. The writing is good, classic SF. Anyway, that’s all for now.

At first I thought I could get the

Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy novels at Audrey's books but after checking their online ordering system, some of the books are out of print. They have a lot of them at various EBay sores of course but that would mean to get all 22 books (and growing) I'd have to go through a lot of stores on EBay. Then I thought maybe Games Workshop in West Edmonton Mall (WEM) might have them. They've got them listed but I'll call tomorrow to see if they have them all in stock. I wont get them all at once but at least it gives me an reason to visit WEM now, and under construction, there's a Best Buy store being put together in the mall. 

 Anne doesn't like me feeding Boots milk from my breakfast in the morning because it causes him to have the runs but I didn't know about this until after I took this photo:

Monday night Raw was pretty good this evening and on a scale from 1-10, I'd rate it about a 9. I knew something was going to interrupt the polygraph (lie detector) test

I was going to go into work this afternoon for 4 hours but Anne had taken the bus pass to put the rent in the bank and didn't get home until 5:30pm and I had no money to get downtown except what was on my ATM and its not like ETS passengers can buy a single ticket from the machine or anything. So this week, its in for 8 hours for Tuesday and Wednesday and I'm going to try for 3 hours in the morning and 4 hours for the afternoon losing an hour but Thursday evening its Lodge and Friday its the hangover and my banking and then Saturday I'm (hopefully) going to WEM for those Warhammer books. Anyway, that's about it for me for now.     

Our cat Sparky hasn‘t

been feeling well lately and Anne is just salivating over putting the cat down. I suspect her real motive in all of this is because we have 4 cats and she‘s having trouble keeping up with all of the cat litter cleaning. She went and bought this special kind of cat litter that helps keep “dust down.” We take turns feeding them. I feed them in the morning before I  leave and she feeds them during the day. She wants to take Sparky to the vet and I know what the outcome is going to be, put him down so I can spend what little savings I have and she says, “I‘ll pay you back”, yeah right. 

Our previous boss had this dog named Gus. A bulldog type of a dog. I liked Gus he was friendly and loved people. My boss would always bring him around in our old office. The dog had trouble with his rectal area over the past few months and the talk in the lunchroom was Gus had died over the weekend. Staff that knew my boss and the dog circulated a card of condolences.   

I had a slow typical day on the job. I got line hour for half a day. I didn’t feel all that tired at the end of the day getting home shortly before 10pm.    

At least some good news, is, the Oiler’s won this evening and the Flames lost. Anyway, that’s all for now.