Our freak Spring snowstorm

yesterday lasted until about 7pm. When I had left out of work at 9:25pm (well exceeding "my quota") My bus was on the other side of the 4 way cross walk. Looking both ways catching a break in the traffic, I was able to make that connection to Corona but barely.

I met Anne at Bay station and we rode home together on the train to Clareview. We walked parting ways as she needed to go to Superstore and I headed home. 

Ok so I almost bought into it. A story was released recently on a Internet forum that Eagleworks (Nasa) lab said they had what could appear to be an electromagnetic propulsion drive. Or em drive that uses microwaves in an enclosed space. The story made claims that a possible drive could send crew to the moon in 4 hours and interstellar space travel or warp drive was almost here. It said that they tested the drive in a hard vacuum and got some momentum out of it. Its junk science and you can read more about it here.

I'm "off today" but its busy as I'm out of here at 2pm to see my Doctor and then a bite to eat and home to change and then to Lodge. Looking forward to having a great night.What with lodge practice and the election the other day, Doctors appointment and lodge tonight, its been busy. Anyway, that's all for now.

Having five days off is a blessing and I'm going to

take advantage of it. I won't get paid for Friday but that's ok. If I last beyond the week, I'm doing something right.

My commute Wednesday included a pit stop to buy a lottery at the Redi mart at Clareview. At $35M, I couldn't resist. The snow storm was wet snow and I was at Corona Tim's at 3:20pm having a coffee and a double chocolate donut. I had a wait in the bus shelter by BP's, and I caught what I thought was the #5 but when it did a familiar detour off of 124th street facing West on 102nd Ave, I had a funny feeling I was on the wrong bus. I had a wait at the bus stop and my #5 came along and I was at work but I thought I was supposed to be in at 4:00pm. I thought training was at 4pm and the shift was 4:30pm-9pm. It's actually from 4-9:30pm. I wasn't alone, I was told the shift was from 4:30-9:30pm. I can site the snow storm and being new on the job. Not good for my first day on the job. I made up for it performance wise. Its not often with these kinds of jobs the company provides for a 15 minute break. The 9:40pm bus came in on time as well and I got to Corona station for a Clareview train about 5 minutes before 10pm. I got off that train at Bay station to meet Anne and home. 

Yesterday about 85,000 Alberta temporary foreign workers or tfw's received their deportation orders from Ottawa. I feel badly for a lot of these tfw's. Many of them want to live here but they need to work in Canada for 2 years and then reapply for later. Its got nothing to do with the economy or anything, it's just part of the overall immigration process.Its bad news for them but at the same time, it's bad for a lot of employers that depend on these workers. At the same time a lot of employers abuse the tfw system. Its good for us here in Alberta because the vacancy's provide work for people..  

I'm out of here about 2:20pm for Northgate pcn to get my insulin. Then Coles to get my Warhammer 40k Omnibus book that Audrey's couldn't order for me. After that its over to Wendy's for a bite to eat. The #11 bus at the other end of the mall from Wendy's will drop me off in front of my place. From there its clean up and head for Lodge. Anyway, that's all for now.

At 10pm last night after 8 and a half hours

I get my last comp. I was tired and drained but ok. I just wanted out of the office and on my way home. I met Anne on her way home at Bay station. We were in good spirits. Anne made her chili and rice bowl and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for desert, yum.
  
Update: I wrote before the update this morning after I had a good 7 hour sleep. I'm ready to go for another 8.5 on the job today. The first thing I do when I get into the building is go to the elevator, press the button for my appropriate floor, buzz to get into the office, go to the board and look at the sheet of paper posted as to what project I'm doing for the day. If I'm on the current project, good. If not and my colleagues are doing my current project, I know I've been pulled from my current project. (That means a talk with the boss because usually I've done something wrong the day before) If all looks good from there then I check to see where I'm seated according to the seating plan posted on the board, hang up my coat, get my folder, put it on my station, check to see how much time I have before I need to log in. Then I'll have half a sandwich or something with my insulin in the lunchroom, scan the Sun or Metro, a brief bathroom break get back to my station, log in open the project and I'm ready to go.  
     Yesterday I had one of my colleagues from Sri Lanka sit across from me on the other side of the partition and later in the day the respondent could barely hear me because she was so loud. My Sri Lanka colleague is a nice lady  and one of "the regulars" but the Respondent couldn't get half of what I said and a 15 minute survey would have taken 35 minutes, tops. I was having a slow day as it was. One of the regular supervisors knows this about my colleague and would have taken appropriate measures. I think on the day I might have had 6 completions (cmp's) possibly 7.
     I was more or less ok with the day I had. I would  have had a few more but several Respondents bailed on me. Every day I can do this current project is a blessing. I really like it.         
     
Temperature wise we're sitting at +6* right now and apparently we're reaching a high of +10. Sunday -2, Monday -7, holiday Tuesday -8. Today looks like our best day until about mid-late March.
    
I'm still researching motherboards for my pc build.  I'm looking at a i5 or possibly a A8 cpu, 32 Gb Ram, and a 4Tb hard drive. Most likely in 5-8 years or so consumers will begin to see Petabyte hard drives. For the moment though a 4Tb drive will suit my needs, for now. Anyway, that's all for now.

It was cooler out there for sleeping over night

as I'm working through the week suffering through this heat wave.

How she came across it but Anne found this mosquito repellant called "Derma Guard." One go and it lasts for 6 hours. It works great.

I had my shave, shower and I've got just over an hour to go here before I head out the door. I had a better night on the job then Tuesday. I felt good leaving out of there.

Anne's off today and I'll be calling her on my 4:30pm break. We get a break every 2 hours. makes the day go by faster. Anyway, that's all for now.

When I'm at Campus

station on my afternoon commute waiting for that #4, I need to be there ready to board because there's about half a doz people ready to board ahead of me and behind me. That bus at 1:45pm to wem is loaded. From wem to the job is ok and from Clareview to Campus is ok. It's just that link from Campus to wem that's crowded. I get a ride home, so I avoid that headache.

I didn't sleep very well over night and I think having that 7pm coffee last night had something to do with it. 

This afternoon I'm trying to figure out my CFL weekend picks. There's 2 games Friday and Saturday. It's a stupid schedule because there's no Sunday games. I'm only picking 3 games. First up Friday night is Winnipeg at winless Montreal. That's a tough call. The Al's need to show up especially at home. Winnipeg is strong. The RB's are coming to town facing the Esks and they're a strong team. I can see 2 tie games there and the Saturday game is Calgary/Argo's. That's a "sure" Argo win. Nothing is "sure" in sports betting.

We don't have voice mail so we enjoy the call history feature on our TV. As soon as the phone rings we see the # flash on the upper left hand corner of our TV. I was away from my phone just now when composing this and a call came in from New York. I don't know anyone in New York. I get these email junk notices from some weird name saying something like, "I tried to call you, I hope your ok.." type thing. Scamers. I answer the phone and its silent on the other end. Or we get these weird numbers from India saying we have problems our internet connection or computer. My response is. I don't have a computer. They hang up right away. I'm almost at the point where I don't want a home computer other then to do music production. I don't need to be online for that. I can get everything done from a smartphone. 

In about an hour I'll be making my CFL weekend picks at the Redi mart. I have about a 15 minute wait for my #4 at 
Campus to read more of my Horus Heresy book and in at the job from 3-9. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I booked off work

at 4pm yesterday and got the train and was home by 4:45pm. I had a bit of time, changed and left out of here before 6pm.

Although accounts of a large aquatic creature living in Scotland's Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the first modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was reported in the Inverness Courier on May 2, 1933.

I had a bit of a wait at the Lodge and Nathan was first to show up. I didn’t know John (Hall custodian) was there but evidently he was and after ringing the buzzer he let us in. I had a great night. I was almost letter perfect this evening. I had a beer at the festive board and Roger drove me to Wendy’s on the way home where I had a baconator and fries to take home as I wanted to take some stress of Anne’s shoulders from making me late lunches.

This from i09 today. It’s a cute story: Why would aliens come all this way just to invade Earth? In movies, when aliens invade our planet, they usually have a ludicrous motivation. Like, they're after our water. Or our gold. (Hint: Asteroids have gold.) Space travel is incredibly difficult and expensive — so why would aliens actually bother to come and invade us? We asked some experts for reasons that actually make sense. There’s more of this story here:

I watched the CBC late night news for a change. Peter Mansbridge, their main anchor has been there for 25 years. May 2nd 1988. Wow, hard to believe that was 25 years ago. I was 35 years old thin and had teeth and working at the Army & Navy. Where has all the time gone?

I think what I’m going to do, the weekend of the 18th after Lodge, is run over to LM if there’s time and then order the monitors to take home. It‘s a plan.

Today, I‘m in for a full day, then over to get a book at Audrey‘s Rexall for a bag of chips a 6/49 and head for home. SJ/Vancouver tonight. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.

Yesterday morning was easy going into

work and I got my morning coffee at Subway. Unlike the herd I skip Tim Horton's as I come off the escalator at Corona station and it's long line ups. I even pass by Starbucks on my way as it's pretty busy there as well. However across the street on the corner is Subway and they're coffee (for a medium) is $1.25. No line up's. 

I like my job, it's just the afternoons are slow and after 3pm,I'm watching the clock a bit. Most Owners/managers/HR people, I need to talk with are usually gone for the day after 3pm and all I'm doing is leaving messages. I like it when I actually get a case I can get right into. HO thinks I'm doing a good job but the coding of my calls is inconsistent but I'm getting better at this. About 3pm is when I get a little played out and then I draw some energy from some unidentifiable place and get right into it and that and a bathroom break to  splash some cold water on my face helps make the afternoon go fast. 

All this week I've been having issues with my diabetes,normally in my legs as I get this kind of "numbness" or circulation trouble. That's what I got this morning when I called in sick. It's not very cool to do that especially on the day before a stat holiday. There's only a crew anyway for the weekend and Monday and I'm not trained on any current study except what I'm currently doing, which is why the boss isn't expecting me there Monday night and I called in a few minutes ago to leave a message on his extension. I always do that to cover my butt.   

This is really cool by the folks from Above Top Secret.com. This link takes you to a story about  Ancient Maps That Shouldn't Exist  it's a post by "smyleegrl." 

Wow, big news in the hockey world: Calgary Flames announced that they've traded franchise icon Jarome Iginla to the Penguins for Pittsburgh's first-round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft and the rights to unsigned draft choices Kenneth Agostino and Ben Hanowski! At least Iginla who lives just up the road from Edmonton in Saint Albert will be in the playoffs. Iginla is the face of the Calgary Flames and has scored at lest 30+ goals in every season in the only NHL team he's ever played with. The fans in Calgary must be stunned.

All last night I just relaxed and listened to some YouTube music and reading from a website about the Vancouver music scene in the early 1960's. I was too young to get into the music scene at that time. I missed a lot of bands like the "Vancouver Epics" and the "CFUN Classics." There wasn't much for a 10 year old to do in the early 1960's but it was fun reading about all the bands and the club scene in the Vancouver "lower mainland" area. Here's a link to the site I was enjoying.   

My long weekend picture is a bit less foggy. I've got Friday,Saturday,Sunday and Monday off. The reason why I have Monday off is because they're only running an evening crew and I haven't been trained on that study. I lose a day but I'd also appreciate an extra day off, so it means I get a 4 day weekend, wu-who! Anyway, that's about all for now. 

I got up a little bit

early to do a few backing vocal takes. I did about 8 of them and I'll review them a bit more on my morning commute later. 

Not a lot going on for today. I'm not at all that concerned about HO leaning on me and my colleagues. HO must think that we're all in a recession or something, which here in Northern Alberta (for now) we're not. This is Edmonton, not 10% unemployment rate in some US city. Also, I think we have about 30% of our office empty during the day and about 60% empty at night. I'm hearing what management said (improver your diallers or add more diallers.) If I get a pink slip in my pay check, fine I'll deal with it when it happens. If I can get passed the end of July (and I'm taking it day by day) I'm taking 2 weeks off to get my CPP in order and I'll be looking to see what my options are. I'd like to check out a few operations maybe even go in for a few interviews and talk to some people, get some names and numbers etc. You know, I like my job and I like the management I'm working with, I'm there every day and if they want to kick out a solid employee like me because I'm not up to the national average sales wise, well they may as well fire everybody in the office and shut the whole company down. I think HO knows all of this and I met most of my higher ups and they're good people.

Anyhow, that's enough of that. Today it's in for my usual 8 hours. It was this week, 32 years ago I fled the Meyer's place. By 6pm on that Wednesday afternoon it was all over. I was in my new place breathing a sigh of relief. I didn't stay very long because the land lord that let me hadn't realized that the previous tenant before me had left temporarily and said they'd be back. I had a week to find something before said tenant returned. I did the same thing when I left uptown New Westminster for Calgary in late November 1976 living in the Anderson house. I returned back to New West in May back to my old room which was awaiting for me. I think I was paying $100/month at the time, which in 1976 dollars would have been like about $200 in purchasing power today.

Other then the job thing, I slept ok over night, except around 6am I find it hard to fall back to sleep. I got another 8 hour shift ahead of me my 3rd one for the week then tomorrow and 6 hours Saturday (I hope) Saturday I'm going out with the guys and splitting a jug of beer with Warren. A jug is $13 and I'll give him $7. There's about 3 pints of beer in it, which I only drink 1, watch some of the Argo/Edmonton game and at half time head for home to watch the 2nd half. Anyway, that's enough silliness for now, it's a beautiful summer say out there and I'm going to enjoy my commute. This time I'm bringing my headphones. Anyway, that's about all I have for now.

.

Hard to believe its

Thursday already and the month of May is just clipping by. 

My work week is going slow but I've got 2 days in the  bank and today is day 3/4 as I decided a short week this week because I'm going to Lodge Saturday. I haven't had a Saturday off this year. it's a long weekend and I'm entitled.

The NDP leader Tom Mulcair is bad news for Western Canada and the country as a whole as on his agenda is a National Carbon tax and it wont be anything like the GST either. Yesterday he was complaining that the oilsands is whats killing manufacturing in Eastern Canada. What's killing manufacturing in Eastern Canada Tom is Provincial taxes, like HST's and PST's. If you want to slow down the oilsands there goes your $14B/year from Alberta transfer payments to pay off your rich union buddies. Lucky for us the NDP have never formed a Federal Government and Tom is just the opposition.

So far on my Flex plan I've used  up just 280mb of data. I think I'm allowed 500mb before the Flex plan goes beyond it's initial fee. 280mb in 22 days, I can't tell if that's good or bad yet. I'm off to the bank latter this morning to see about setting up an auto payment structure to make it easier to pay for this thing. 

This weekend I'm going to try and see the Avengers movie over there at Clairview movies across the street from us. The movie starts at about 8pm so if Anne might miss me when she calls. I really want to see this on the big screen. She'll be getting out of the office by the time the movie is over but it depends on how I feel. I might go Sunday afternoon instead, we'll see. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Its a new month

today.

Local news has been covering this story about "Jetman." This is not like the James Bond jet pack thing but a real jet where the man is flying horizontal. Yves Rossay is our flyer here. I don't know if he's the inventor or what but here's the video:

Coast is about Mars, with Richard Hoagland. This is going to be an awesome show. I'm going to listen in on this one.

An interesting story out of "Cosmic Log" about Stonehenge. Researchers using radar have found 2 long pits near the site. Each pit measures about 16 feet long. This excerpt from the original story: Positioned within the Cursus pathway, the pits are on alignment towards midsummer sunrise and sunset when viewed from the Heel Stone, the enigmatic stone standing just outside the entrance to Stonehenge. For the first time, this discovery may directly link the rituals and celestial phenomena at Stonehenge to activities within the Cursus.

My Lodge brother Neil is picking me up at my place tonight at 6pm and we're off to our installation. I'm being installed as Junior Warden. If our Lodge can survive and I can keep my health, I should be Lodge Master 2014 at the age of 61. IPM at the age of 62. anyway, that's all for now.

Despite the snow storm

that came in about 9am yesterday and lasting throughout the day, we still had about 12 people including guests. We had 2 from Eastgate and one from Southgate. That wasn’t one of the worst storms we had here but it was the first for November and it kept a lot of guys that didn’t have anything to do with the degree home. Normally at the festive board, we’d have 3 full tables because of the snow storm, we only had 2 and we‘d barely be able to open Lodge if it wasn’t for our guests. The work I did wasn’t bad, I’d 85% ok. There were a few things I slipped up on. I had pizza and beer last night, it was good. Next up is our installation December 1st.

Today I’ve got another 8 hours ahead of me. Because I missed Sunday, I probably wont get my check. I’m missing this Sunday as well but, for the week of Commercial Lodge, I’ll work the Sunday to make up for that Saturday. And because I worked that Sunday, I’ll get my check Friday anyway and I’d be off for 3 days and still get 37 hours for that week for 38 hours. Tonight, most likely I won’t get my pay check but that’s ok my wife gets hers and I’ve got some spare cash lying around.

I’ve been keeping a watch on Apple’s 3Gb 4th gen Itouch lately. The price would be $315 after tax and this is an item I can make use of. I think this would be the last major item for me for the year as I have my Lodge dues and website fee coming up Dec/Jan. Anyway, that’s all for now.

yesterday was my first

day getting back after a couple of days off. I got a $15 bonus for my efforts on my check next week yesterday and $10 to that Sunday for a total of $25. Not only that but next week will be a full week. I should have a decent check next week.

By about 8pm I was getting burnt out and was glad I was out of there. Apparently the office I spent 6 years in, as we’re going to be moving October 15th. Apparently we have a huge lunch room, but no more eating at our stations. I’m not going to like the idea that my arm is going to be attached to a mouse all day.

This afternoon the pharmacy went and posted the CFL Proline picks for all 4 games. I’ve got Montreal/Edmonton. Montreal to win. BC/SKS, BC to win. WPG/TOR, WPG to win and finally I got CGY/HAM, Calgary to win. Odds for this ticket are 22.87 on a $5 ticket will pay out $114 to win. I bought another $5 ticket with a few changes for $118 to win.

We’ve got a really tasteless pool going on at work the guys invited me to join: How many murders will Edmonton will bottom out with at the end of the year. We’re already at a record high at 37. Highest in the country. I think it’s a $5 pool. I picked 44 but that might be too high. I think it’ll be about 39 by the end of the year.

By now most of you know about comet Elenin I dug up this excerpt from “Godlike Productions” about comet Elenin; “It’s supposed According to a 1/11/2011 article in Space Obs, Elenin will come close to the Earth in the middle of September of this year. What is interesting here is that the perihelion falls on September 11, 2011 (9/11). What is really weird is that in Jewish Gematria, the word "ELENIN" is equal to 119, the reverse of 911. Elenin's orbit resembles that of the purported theories of "planet x" or "Nibiru"... A planet sized object that cyclically enters our Solar System on a elliptical orbit about once every 3,600 year, I have heard 3,552 as well. This is said to bring about a doomsday scenario on Earth and the inner parts of the Solar System. And then NASA says, Betelgeuse is becoming a Supernova this year and the creation of a "second sun" in our skies.. I don’t know about Planet X or anything like that but the excerpt above continues on for some further interesting reading

Also in keeping with a space theme, the UARS climate satellite is supposed to break orbit and break up in earths atmosphere but there are parts that might not break up completely. The chance of anybody getting hit by this thing is something like 1 in 3,200. Anyway, that’s all for now.

It's another Lodge night

I’ve been hearing bits and pieces of this over the last couple of days. The Canadian Radio Television Corporation (CRTC or the equivalent to the FCC in the states) has let Bell one of the largest internet service providers here in Canada has been awarded the right to utilize something called User based billing. What this means is a cap space usage for internet usage. One ISP here (I think its Rogers) has a cap space of 60Gb/month and charges $1/month for every GB over that. When your streaming a movie over Netflex for example that alone can compromise the UBB cap. Ok, a bit of an update on this. It seems that Ottawa is looking into this thing because it might be an election issue. I think the whole issue might be overturned. I don’t know how much I’m using as far as bandwidth is concerned. This is something worth checking into.

Today is a typical work day. My tooth was bothering me all day but not to the point where it became unbearable to work. I drank copious amounts of diet Cola, which helped and I used this kind of oral gel that helped out a bit as well but it really bothered me on the train home.

Tonight I’m in Lodge and finally paying my Lodge dues for 2011. Who knows, I might even get a haircut as well this afternoon. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.