That was one heck of a snow storm

last night. I had a long wait at Rexall on 118th from about 6:15pm until about 7pm. Nothing was coming by. No #8. I asked the #143 what happened and he said the bus comes from the south side, which means it has to come up hill out of the river valley. He said he goes to 50th st. Perfect. I waited for about 40 minutes, taking a seat outside and back to warm up. No seating inside.

I got to lodge about 7:15pm. We presented a member with a 50 year jewel and recognition. Our SW gave a slide show presentation on Freemasonry in the Philippines. Also, in a presentation, I received my ipm jewel and my apron, presented by our current master and our DDGM. It was a great night. A milestone night for me. The festive board was pulled pork (had that last night at home) We had a good turnout of visitors as well. What's next in Freemasonry for me after I pay my lodge dues? Royal Arch and more lodge visiting. I'm going onto Royal Arch that in the Spring and continue work in my lodge. 

Our SW Will gave me a ride home. This was about 11pm and the snow had stopped. The eye of the storm because we're supposed to get round 2 today. Just what we need for family day weekend. I'm also waiting for my schedule most likely in my email before I leave. If I have any unexpected off days, let them be after a Tuesday. I know I'm in on Saturday and I hope I have Sunday.Anyway, that's all for now. 

Making predictions is something I'm not very good

at doing, however after hearing the news about Opec and oil dropping to $69 and how this is going to affect our economy, buying a big ticket item doesn't make sense right now. I got work up until possibly the end of next May. Then I'm reduced to 2-3 days a week, if that. Then what? I can't predict beyond that. Even though Alberta's unemployment rate is currently at 4.4% by Spring we could easily be at 6%. I can't justify a new computer now, what with Lodge dues coming up. This new computer might have to wait until spring or maybe even on hold. I can make minor upgrades to my laptop like Windows 8.1 and a 1Tb sshd hard drive. That's all I need for now. If I can hold onto as much as what I have and save some until if and when I get a tax return, then I can survive the summer until work at my current job resumes again in September. 

Right now we are having a blizzard out there like you wouldn't believe. At this hour its -20 with blowing snow. It was tough trudging through the snow howling and blowing shortly before 9pm yesterday when I left the office for Corona station

The Oiler's lost their 8th in a row against Nashville last night but held the Preds to a 0-0 contest until the home team won in ot. That's a positive step forward.Tonight they play in Saint Louis and it can only get worse from there. The longest Oiler's winless streak was in 1993 when the Oilers had 13 losses and 1 tie. If the Oiler's continue like this, they will match their winless streak record Wednesday December 10th and beat a new winless streak record December 14th. I doubt that will happen but they have some tough teams to beat and there is never a easy night in the NHL.

I'm in the office today from 2-9 and Saturday I have off. Then I'm on for next week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Anyway, that's all for now. 

Were having a snow day out there today and its coming down

pretty good. Hopefully we don't get the snow they had in Buffalo the other day. 

I'm thinking about what to get my wife for Christmas. Since she doesn't read this blog or even know it exists, I'm safe. I'd like to get her a digital photo frame and Staples has a nice one for about $50 and I'd like to get her a Tim's card and the iPod Nano. When I get the xbmc system set up hopefully we can reduce our cable down to something more manageable. At least that's the idea, in theory. 

This afternoon I'm putting a Fan Duel (fd) fantasy nfl football team together. Under the salary cap of course. For some reason fd deposited $10 into my fd account and my pp account shows normal. Strange. Anyway, that's all for now.

heading into work yesterday at noon wasn't so bad despite the snow coming down

and it certainly wasn't cold at all. I got to Subway for my  morning coffee and buzzed to get upstairs. Besides the supervisor, I was the only one there at 12;45pm. Alright. By 1pm I proceeded to log in and work went well. It was about 1:15pm and I was still the only one there. When 3pm rolled around I asked if we should go the whole shift. The boss called the supervisor and suggested we close the day out at 4pm. Worked for me. 

After work I went over to Audrey's to order the Warhammer 40K books but the 3 "Horus Heresy" books in my format for this series wouldn't be in my format until late 1st quarter next year. I placed the order anyway. I also ordered "Path of the Elder" and Molodrax Space Marine Battles book #13. I'll get these in January. At least that part was successful. 

I had a bit of a wait for the train but I was reading my book "Space Wolf." I got home by about 5:15pm. It was a tough day.

Anne wasn't home when I got in. Probably out shopping. Two hours latter she still wasn't in and when 8pm rolled around she finally came in saying she was at the medi centre up the street over there by Sobe's. She said the Tim's store there still had lasagna. Some Tim's have it some don't.

Today I'm in from 6-10pm. So it's going to be a short week there but this week is also Lodge week. It's my first month as Lodge master. Anyway, that's all for now.

Snow days are nice days as it doesn't bother me too much

I like snow days. We're having a good go right now for today. They say its supposed to let up by the time I come home tonight about 7pm.

This week I have that appointment Wednesday afternoon. Thursday its my big night. The secretary in a email was saying that this could be our last Installation. It very well could because a good portion of our membership are in their 80's. We're a trade Lodge, which means work is keeping most of the guys who would love to come out away because of the job. There's only 1 guy who's climbing up the chairs but he's at least 4 chairs (years) away. I'd probably stay on another year just to be installed as IPM. After that, if it goes that way I'm affiliating with Edmonton #7 and joining our local Royal Arch chapter. But if this is it for our Lodge, then the above will be set in place.

Today should be pretty easy but I have a book at Audrey's I need to pick up after work then home. It's Monday night Raw but that's been boring lately. I'll watch the opening and the last match that's about all I need.

I don't want to spend a lot of money right now as I think I have 1 more cheque until Christmas. My cheque coming up next is going towards paying my bills and taking Anne out to The Sawmill.

Yesterday Anne went out and bought that cat toy "Cats meow." It's about a 3" disk that has a extended arm with something that the cat "thinks" is a mouse and it spins just underneath a yellow cloth type material in random directions. The cats go nuts over it. Except Silky he's a bit to old for it but Sporty and Boots love it. It takes the big round batteries and overheats and shuts down occasionally. It's only $15 at Giant Tiger. Anne thinks it'll be a couple of bucks just before Christmas at the dollar store across the street. Anyway, that's about all for tonight.

Yesterday's snow storm tapered

off about 7pm. In its wake it left us with about 23cm worth of snow, which is about 10 inches. This was the heaviest snowfall of the season, which began mid October. Usually our snow is just about gone by this time of year. 

Before the blizzard the idea was to go see Star Wars identities, but ETS is experiencing delays so my best chance will be over the Easter weekend next weekend, which is the last weekend of the event. Anne went to see her Princess Diana collection and I'm going to a see Star Wars event. Heck,I might even go Saturday anyway taking the bus with Anne as far as downtown. I can take the #5 to Westmount and the #121 out of Westmount as I doubt the grounds from Westmount to the TWOS will be cleared but I can always check to make sure when I'm at Westmount ETS terminal to save some time. I've done that many times working in the building across from the lawn bowling courts in the early 1990's every morning. So it's not like don't know where it is. 

It's been a crazy couple of days anyway, that's about all for now. Cold weather or no cold weather, I'm going to see Star Wars identities this weekend, anyway, that's about all for now.

Anne went all the way out to the

airport to meet her sister in town for a couple of days but due to the weather fights have been delayed. It means she wont get in until about 8pm,so that ruins her day with her sister. Well one of her days.

By the end of this month we should be out of this cold snap. It means I'm during my commute tomorrow morning,I'm wearing my cleats.

I decided to change browsers and go with Chrome over Firefox because Google is retiring iGoogle after this November. I really liked iGoogle because everything was right there on the same page. I discovered the Google webpage similar to iGoogle where I have my email, Twitter, YouTube, Google maps, Docs and Drive on the same page and I can even put my blog header icon there as well. Google is also getting rid of it's news reader service. All I need now is a Facebook icon link on my Google page. My next step is to sync this with my mobile device and I'm good to go.

I was going to head out yesterday get my haircut, my book, some Tim's breakfast and over to LM and pay my bill and head for Lodge. That would have been a productive morning/afternoon but the weather kept me at bay. 

Nothing special going on this week. If the weather improves then I think I'll be able to get all the above done on this coming up Saturday anyway. 

In a couple of hours, it's Nashville at Edmonton. Should be a good one. Anyway that's about all for now.
  

It was Monday

February 6th 2012 Sparky was put down. I still cast my eyes over to the Pet Smart when I see it from the train. I still love him and miss him.

Yesterday I was able to set up my Interac online debit card with my Scotiabank. I haven’t used it yet but in the morning when I get up I’m going to call Scotia and make sure I have it set up properly.

On my way into work the snow had just come down and was pretty heavy there for awhile. I went into my Scotia bank to deposit some funds into my account. The snow was falling thick on my way to work and I stepped inside the bus shelter on Jasper Ave beside Tim’s to shoot this photo. By about 1:30pm the snow was so thick it was almost like fog:

 

I had a decent day pulling in almost $400 in card and maybe $600 in sales, although doing CPC I stalled the last hour but it was better. Also I was able to call Neil to see about Frank‘s phone number but it was the wrong #, then I called Nathan but he didn’t have his number. I called Mike and Mike volunteered to do a Costco run for me for mix paper plates forks etc. Great everything is set up. I just need to review my material and I‘m good to go.

The last 10 minutes was brutal and I had to be careful paying attention crossing the icy streets and downstairs to Corona. I got home about 9:45pm. Tomorrow I‘m in for 4 hours and then home and off to Lodge. I‘ll be glad when it‘s Sunday and Anne and I are celebrating a positive and a bitter suit kind of an anniversary for us. For us it’s a full 12 years of marriage heading into our 13th year. That‘s the sweet spot. The sad news is, it‘s going to be 11 months since we had to put Sparky down. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.

We got our first snowfall

We got our first snowfall of autumn just after Thanksgiving weekend but we haven’t got the snow that stuck on the ground yet.

I got a large sale within the first hour and 2 all afternoon but the evening as a bit better and I did taps to help shore up my lousy Card showing. All in all though I had a decent total, which surprised me because usually Wednesday’s aren’t that kind to me. The last hour I was losing energy and I knew it.

So the cargo supply ship launched over the weekend arrived at the space station and brought some experiments as well. Speaking of space news, the Mars rover Curiosity spotted a curious object on the surface of the planet not far away from Curiosity. Many just think that it’s a piece of plastic from the rover itself.

We got our GST cheque today which was a welcome relief as we were scrapping for pennies there for awhile earlier this week. Speaking about the Feds, it was mentioned over the news that the production of our Canadian passports are going to be outsourced to The Netherlands as a cost cutting measure. The NDP asked what’s next our currency? I don’t always agree with the left but in this they make sense.

For hours I was struggling how to open the midi key editor in Cubase 6 and I haven’t found any way how to open it. More then likely it’s something I’ve done wrong or forgot but I opened up a test file in FL Studio and Battery 3 works out fine. Actually better then I even hoped for.

I’ve been piecing more information about my father’s side of the family, my grandfather. His name was James Blaine Shannon born 1897 in Bonham Texas. He married a local woman named Florence at the age of 17 and she gave birth to my Aunt Eve in Bonham in 1919. They were  married in 1920 My grandmother gave birth to my father in El Centro CA 2 years latter. My grandparents divorced a few years after my father was born. My grandfather remarried and in 1931 my grandfather while working for the City of Imperial died in an industrial accident overcome by sewer gas while trying to rescue 2 of his co workers. My step grandmother married again and during lengthy custody battle gained custody of aunt and father and lived in San Diego. It gets a little murky after that but apparently my father married during the war years. He flew bomber aircraft over the Atlantic to get the planes to their destinations. He wasn’t flying bomber missions or anything like that. But what motivated him to move to Canada I have no idea. That’s where it gets murky. I found out that my grandmother got married again and  moved to Vernon BC and died at the age of 44, which is still relatively young. How she died I have no idea but she’s buried in Vernon.

This morning I’m getting my Proline CFL game for week 16. Just 3 games left over until the season is over. I’m not sure about my picks yet. Anyway, that’s about all for now.