Here I am with the I'm so old jokes......

Ok I'm so old, I've seen Bell bottom pants come in and out of style 3 times. For more old age jokes you can go here but when I heard that men's chokers are back in style, I thought here we go again. I thought men's chokers went out in the early 1980's? Sigh....

On Coast this morning the topic was space exploration. They talked about dead satellites in earth orbit, many of them risk colliding into each other. Kind of reminds me of a artificial asteroid belt. Even the space station apparently has pot marks all over it due to space debris, some the size of a corn flake whipping around up there. When its time where this space junk loses orbit, most of the smaller pieces burn up in orbit. If ever there is a asteroid on collision course with earth, our space junk will probably slow it down

Its a day off today. The idea was to go out to pcn and my Doctors. I'm at my pcn January 12th. I'll be setting up a Doctors appointment for next week. I'm down to the last 4 Coversyl pills, so I'll try and get a to the pharmacy on my way home from lodge to take a blood pressure reading. I'll be leaving out of here at 6pm for Highlands Hall. My wife has a few 3 hour shifts and I'll be 5 hours Friday and I hope a full day on Saturday. Anything can happen with market research. I hope I'll have a full week next week. If I can get past this month and I have the other job confirmed, great. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, that's all for now.

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. 

Heading into work Sunday

at 11am was nice and relaxing. The weather was very nice and mild holding about 0*. Very nice weather lately.

I got to Subway on the main floor of the building had a coffee and a cookie but after trying to buzz in there was no reply. So I waited for awhile inside Subway and 1 of my co workers arrived. Dave is a tech support young geek and a huge Oiler fan. We befriended each other shortly when he began working with us around September. He does tech support for a major computer company. So he began to show me this service from our mutual isp on "the go." I can have live tv streamed to my iPod touch from any hot spot. Its pretty cool. By this time next year, the city will have wifi in all lrt stations. I'd like to see wifi on all trains. It's a 10 minute commute but it would be handy to listen to Oiler games on my way home.

I thought I was going to get a full 7.5 hours, off at 8pm but I was off at 6pm. That was fine by me. I thought I did ok on the job as well. When I got home Anne had dismantled our Christmas tree and together we tackled the first half of the closet space where I had a bunch of junk stored in boxes dating back from before we got married. We had it all separated from what stays and what goes. Anne had a nice face time chat with her sister, and she had to go to Walmart for a few things and a cart to haul what we purged out to the dumpster for later.

This weekend the city opened up the new Clareview rec centre but there doesn't appear to be a Saturday evening adult swim. That's what we liked about the Eastglen when Anne had her car back in 2003. We didn't go often but it was nice to get out when we did.

When Anne returned she had a Papa John's pizza for us and that for our dinner. I answered some email and c2c (I'm envaneo) messages. We watched the evening news and that's been my Sunday. It was a decent day. 

The University of British Columbia (UBC) launched SPIDER. Its a telescope launched by a balloon some 36K for 20 days in Antarctica. SPIDER was the work of 5 different Universities. You can read more of SPIDER here.

I'm in tomorrow from 5-9, same with Tuesday. Wednesday is going to be our worst day because we're up early as pest control is going to do a spot check of our place. Hopefully we can get a bed bug clean bill of health. I've got work Thursday and I'm off Friday and Saturday. That's what it's looking like for the week. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Just one more day off of my 5 day weekend

but there will be others. What I like about this job is that it's steady. Sure I could have booked as much time off as I need at my last job. However, because it's project based if I lose a day and if the project ends during that time, I really feel the loss. Especially weekends are felt the most because they are full days. The other nice thing about the new job (if I work out) and plan it right, I might be able to take off a full summer. Lots of options.

It being July first, Canada's new Canadian Anti Spam Law takes place, other wise known as CASL.This piece of legislation is supposed to put a big dent in email spam. It allows someone to "opt out" of unsolicited emails. I've been getting emails from businesses I have actually subscribed to but the Government says they must give me the option to "opt out." It's actually called "Unsubscribe." How CASL works is a email that I have subscribed to asks me if I want to further continue receiving emails from them, to "opt in." They send me a link to which I'm supposed to click on to accept and continue, to give my consent to further send me their emails. It's kind of silly really but it's just another step for business I want email from to show they are CASL compliant. To read into it further here's a CASL link. 

There's been some discussion around the blogosphere of a strange cube discovered from a photo of a Mars rover. Just YouTube cube Mars as key words but its intriguing. I wonder if there is any connection to the white light that has also been noted recently on Mars. Mars no doubt about it has some strange anomalies. Like this one from Curiosity:

Monday night Raw last night was awesome. I actually thought Seth Rawlin's was going to cash in his "Money in the bank" briefcase. At the last minute Dean Ambrose comes in and foils that idea. Love it. 

Today COE is demolishing the 102 Avenue Groat Road Bridge which will be closed to traffic for 15 months as the City constructs a replacement bridge. 



The 102 Avenue over Groat Road Bridge serves as a major east/west corridor into and out of Edmonton's downtown. Constructed in 1910, the bridge has reached the end of its lifespan and will be demolished and replaced with a new bridge to better serve Edmontonians. There's even a webcam available here to watch the construction progress.  Happy Canada Day everyone. Anyway, that'.s all for now. 

I sent out one resume earlier today and so far it has

yet to bounce back. I hope I get a interview, even though it's in the West end I don't care.

Nasa has been hard at work developing the James Webb Space Telescope. It's slated to be launched in 2018 taking up position a million miles away from Earth. It's supposed to be a 100 times more powerful then the Hubble. Apparently it has the potential to even image planets orbiting their parent stars. 2018 is just 4 years away.

Yesterday afternoon I sat out on the balcony enjoying my first coffee of the day watching the parade of people go by. Even though it was a bit breezy it was still a nice warm sunny day. I love this time of year.

I'm not much one for Soccer but the World Cup has captured a lot of interest in this city. My brother likes it. I'm more of a CFL fan. Incidentally the Esks made all of their finale pre season cuts. Their first game is next Saturday facing the BC lions.

I've got some more business today making a few phone calls. I've got about 3-4 advertising type jobs I can try for but I'm not in a rush for those,yet. I don't mind doing outside sales as long as there is an hourly rate of pay attached to it and I can sit down every so often. Anyway, that's about all for now. 

About 3pm

yesterday Anne and I headed out to Earls. Swiss Chalet closed at 3pm but Earls was closing at 4pm but they wouldn't turn anyone away if they got there before they closed their doors. I had a cheese burger/fries but no beer. Earls is pretty easy to get to from here. It's just around the block at the lights by the church and across the street. We walked home from there.

 Since we don't have a lot of money our Christmas's are somewhat lame. We don't need a lot of things though. We just buy each other small things, like socks, or coffee mugs and chocolates and I got a 6 pack of beer, that sort of thing. One is in the fridge now. Anne got herself a juice extractor I got a designer cup with of a photo of my first cat Pledges I'm drinking some lemon relief now:

Space Station crews yesterday went out for a "space walk" to repair a cooling system for the ISSS. It was reported the the space suits they are using are 35 years old! Wow. This was the 177th "space walk" for the crew. 

Anne had a bout of flue and asthma and wasn't feeling too well and I got a bit of the flue earlier as well and I'm not feeling all that great. It's probably the mild air that brought it on.

I'm just wating for Anne to come back from midnight mass. She's Catholic not that she goes to church every Sunday or anything like that. She's most likely on her way home now.

Anne and I have been so busy working over the last 3 weeks we even forgot our wedding anniversary: December 6th  2,000. Anne brought it to my attention about an hour ago.


.

So I delivered the bad news to my wife that my hours

are reduced but I have options and resources, that's the good news. I still want to keep this job but get some pick up hours in the meantime until things pick up mid January. Thursday I'm heading down to Alberta Works to get some career counseling, resume` building and a job search. Since most employers want email resume` submissions only, that makes it easy to get my resume` into the hands of potential employers. I can always follow up from there. I've got great qualifications, good resources and a strong labor market going for me. Ok, enough of that.

This from i09:Turn your home into the Death Star with these amazing wall tiles. Turn any surface of your home into the cavernous surface of the Death Star thanks to these custom-made Star Wars tiles. This is really cool.

It looks like phase 1 of the Millwoods/Lewis Farms LRT project "Valley Line" will get under way in 2016 and completed by 2020. The preliminary design is done and the City is just waiting until the New Year to apply to the Feds and the Province for P3 funding. We want more from the Province (over $350 million) and just $150 from the Feds. the City has $800 million for the project. We should have the funding in place by 2015. It's about a 6 year project.

One of the really cool projects out of rocket company Ad Astra is their VASIMR plasma rocket or Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket. Basically unlike conventional chemical rockets that uses chemical fuel VASIMR uses plasma. The engine works and has been tested. It's hoped that the engine could be charged using the International Space Station. More of VASIMR can be found here.

One of my favorite shows growing up in the 1960's is a show called The Avengers and I don't mean the Marvel Superhero group. The Avengers became one of the first British series to be aired on prime time U.S. television. It had a budge of about $60,000 per episode. YouTube it! Great stuff. Anyway, that's about all for now.

My Wedensday

yesterday was ok. I was able to secure Saturday and Sunday off. Also, I talked to my ride out to Baseline and got that more or less arranged. I just half to be ready and call Saturday morning at 9am. We need to be there at 10:00am as it starts at 10:30am. 9am is kind of pushing it. 

On Coast overnight, the topic will be about The Merlin Project and Privacy. Soft topics for tonight for sure. However on local news and probably making international news the meteor that crash landed into a lake in Russia was recovered weighing at half a ton. It was the largest of it's kind. .

I had a great first half of the shift but I took my half at 7pm so it made night go by faster. last call rolled by pretty quick. I shut everything off and bolted out of there in a hurry to get that early train on track 2 to Grandin so I can get the train going the other way. I was actually at Clareview as the #182 Northgate bus pulled in and in the apartment at 9:30pm, wow.

I'm starting to come down with something. It's that time of year. The boss has it as well. My throat is getting raspy and probably by the weekend, I'm going to be into the Buckley's from last year. Anyway, that's about all for now.