The Oilers advanced to the 2nd round

of the NHL 2022 playoffs and are now playing against Calgary Flames, not seen in playoff hockey in over 30 years. Flames took game 1 but the Oilers took game 2 last night 5-3. What a game. Game 3 is at Rogers place arena tomorrow night.

I uploaded my Berlin dub-style jam yesterday. That was after I found Remix Live. I'm playing with that now, as I canceled my Launchpad subscription for Remix Live. Now I'm working on a Boom Bap-type beat. Should be fun. 

We're right in the early part of the Victoria Day long weekend. It's +16 under sunny skies. So far no signs of work. In the 8 years, I've been with Y-station, we've always had a project to work on in May. Until now. Not sure when we're going to have another project. Anyway, that's all for now.

I woke up yesterday morning

and a blanket of fresh snow on the ground! It was cold waiting for the bus.

*An overnight update; Anne said the guy that is doing our taxes called yesterday. Maybe it's to say he wont be in today (most likely the weather) but I'll call this afternoon before she leaves to meet me later today at the office. I'm so exhausted I could call in and cancel for today, but it's on with the show.

This one is just too weird, suddenly being swallowed up by the earth on a golf course's fairway drove a wedge between Mark Mihal and a stellar round. The 43-year-old mortgage broker was counting his blessings Tuesday and nursing a dislocated shoulder sustained four days earlier when he tumbled into an 5.5 metre deep sinkhole on the 14th hole of the Annbriar Golf Club near Waterloo, Ill. Read more here:

At work this morning I need to ask the boss if I can book off half an hour early so Anne and I (she’s meeting me at my office) at 4:30pm can go to her building to see if we/I owe Revenue Canada this year or if I get a break as one of her co workers does taxes as a business. Now I won’t mind if I owe something like $50, $100 something like that. We need it paid off to get that GST check every 4 months. We might not even qualify for that. Then after that, we’re boarding the #12 bus by The Bay out to the Kingsway Ramada Inn for her birthday dinner.  She’s got some shopping to do and I’m heading back downtown catch the train home to watch what’s left of the Oiler/Wing’s game and watch Smackdown. I’m up early to get my haircut, Tim’s breakfast, Audrey’s for my book down to LM pay off Machine bill at LM catch the #2 bust to The Bay and walk down to Freemason Hall. So, I’ve got a busy next couple of days.

 Another one for my WTF files: One of Britain's most famous "madams" announced in January that she was coming out of retirement to set up a brothel exclusively catering to disabled people and the terminally ill. An ordinary brothel would be illegal in the town of Milton Keynes (45 miles from London), but Becky Adams insists that the government could not shut hers down without illegally discriminating against the disabled. [Milton Keynes Citizen, 1-11-2013] Unfortunately I don’t have a link for it but that’s why we have Google, right?

This is good local news: Yesterday the Ottawa announced $250M in LRT infrastructure money for the Millwood’s/Downtown LRT. The line will begin in 2015 and will be open for business by 2017. It’s the 2nd route over the North Saskatchewan river. This means the City of Edmonton has $1.050B, they still need about another $800M and the City hopes to get that much from the Province (despite current cutbacks) We don’t need the money now, we can get it in 2017. By that time the current Government might not be around. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Well as short as it was, that was my weekend.

This past Friday night I got Machine and I’m playing around and having fun with it. I watched the Oiler’s lose 0-7 Friday night played around with my new toy all day Saturday. Sunday another Oiler game but with Shawn Horcoff (team Captain) is back! The Oiler’s won 6-5 and playing around with Machine and here I am.

My wife went and took our T4’s down to her building because at her job site there is a semi retired guy that works in her office building Sunday & Friday’s. He prepares taxes part time but last year Anne and I qualified for the free tax service at the library. This year (collectively) we don’t. So her colleague said his going rate is $50/couple as we’re filling separately. If I don’t owe the Feds anything then after work if I can get down there by 6pm to LM I’m going to pay them off for Machine. Anne was saying before I open another account I need to have an RRSP. I can see that.

From my WTF files (in case some of you missed it) comes today's strange date: March 11th 2013. Omit the 20 take away the / and the numbers read 31113! Those have to be winning lottery numbers for sure.

This week, its Monday night Raw and the Oiler’s are on the last leg of their 9 game road trip Tuesday in Denver. For me this week, its work and playing around with Machine. Anne has a week off and wants to replace the couch we‘ve had for 13 years. Friday night after work I hope to meet Anne at her place of employment to sign the forms as the guy doing our taxes is filling them electronically. If I owe the Feds like more then $200 or so, I‘ll be paying LM on my account. Saturday, I‘m heading to Freemason‘s Hall again for Commercial Lodge and because it‘s Anne‘s birthday after Lodge, we‘re heading out to as I‘m taking her to dinner. So, that‘s more or less my week. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.

I had a decent day off yesterday

I was able to configure my usb set up as before I figured this arrangement out my Cubase dongle wouldn't function on my usb hub

Now I've got the hoarse voice to go along with this cold. Lovely. Hopefully it wont be as bad as the one I had last year. That took me out of action for about 2 weeks before I got any strength back to my voice.

At work I write down the date of every time I make a notation. So, when I began writing the dates down Friday I thought, WTF? It's 3/1/13. Here in North America we write the date out month/day/year. In Europe they write it out day/month/year. When the slash is removed Friday's date was 3113!

Next month in Calgary they are having their annual comic and entertainment expo. We had ours last October.I wanted to meet John de Lancie but I didn't know about the show until the last minute.artist Michael Mateyko created this poster, featuring minimalist portraits of the myriad Avengers members throughout the years. He created the poster for April's Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, but it's already available at Komboh's Society6 store. Some of this was from the i09 site. It's s nifty poster to celebrate 50 yers of the Avengers. 

 

On tap for this week, Sunday Oiler hockey game, Monday night Raw, Tuesday Oilers/Wild, Wednesday is open, which means I can bus over to City Centre mall get that Warhammer Omnibus book and a bite to eat. Thursday it‘s book off work at 4pm head home clean up, get ready, head out to Lodge to get there by 6pm and then we go to Freemason‘s Hall for a Lodge to Lodge visit. With any luck, I‘ll be done by about 9:40pm and will meet Anne after she gets off work. Friday after work I do my banking and pick up Machine. Can‘t wait. So the above is my week next week.

We're supposed to get about 15cm of snow overnight just to remind us that winter hasn't left. Even though Spring is only 2 weeks away and daylight savings time is next weekend. 

If possible when I get my copy of Machine Friday night I'll try and get one of the guys to take a video of me un-boxing it. I'm also going to get some of the Reaktor ensembles from Twisted tools.I like "Rollodeck" and "S-layer". Anyway, that's all from me for now.

Yeesh. That's about all I can say for now

I can't site any details but yesterday I lost  my job. I spent 12 years and 3 months at it. I was always on time for all my shifts. I did the best that I could. It's the end of an era. The worst part of all of this is I worked with some great people that I'm going to really miss. They were like my family. There's an empty feeling in my stomach right now. I'm not going to dwell upon it here as I can't say anything. Suffice to say I'm going to be ok, no need to panic or anything.

One thing is understood: I'm canceling my website until I can obtain something steady. My website saw me post 1723 blog posts. Many of those entries were excerpts out of my diary and or  copies from Blogger. Of course I'll keep my Blog open here. Maybe I'll come back to the website this time next year, we'll see. As for my 2Gb internet tablet at $37/month, I cancelled that yesterday afternoon. I'm back to the Flex plan at $5/month for 10Mb but I have wifi and my home internet. 

This morning I'm back in the office with some papers to sign and I'm picking up my last cheque on Friday. Next week, I'm applying for my CPP. I didn't want to do this so soon but it's necessary to get on it right away. I'll probably do this Thursday and next week I'm going to register for Alberta Works and get that thing going. 

I have 2 big bills to pay off, LM and my Lodge dues and also my current bill for my tablet. Not the $5 one.

One thing, I've got some time do get some reading done, that's for sure and maybe even go to Commercial next Saturday. I'm also learning the WM opening and closing charge, which is quite substantial but with all this on my mind it's going to be tough to sleep tonight. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I had a couple

 of hic ups earlier just some things that bug me, little things. This morning I’m at my Scotia bank and I got a fist full of candy for Anne, the leave a bit of candy, coffee for customers etc. I grabbed a fist full of candy and as I pulled my face mask back on just as soon as I opened the door on cue some guy in the vestibule almost on cue ducked out right behind me as if waiting for somebody to open the door. That pissed me off. Despite that I had a good afternoon pulling in a $30 membership and in the 2nd half I got a $200 sale. So far so good. In the evening sift I got 2 credit card sales and another $200 so I had a pretty good day. I even caught my train in good order. Right on time. Then while waiting for my #183 bus the driver putters around getting his bag and crap and leaving the exit door right in front of me opened. As he was about to leave I asked him politely saying please if he could close the back door but he mumbles something and gives me attitude. Excuse me? And at the curb out here as me and another pedestrian were waiting for the light to change one of the bus passengers (little traffic on the street) decides to jump the light and head across the street heading towards my building. “That little shit,” I said to myself (he had headphones on) “I bet he’s heading towards my building about 20 paces ahead of me. If I tried that this time of night I would have been picked up for J walking. Anne got caught over the summer. To make matters worse, when I got inside the elevator was on the top (4th floor) That little shit took the elevator up ahead of me. I know don’t sweat the small stuff but there are things that just give me pause. That’s this kind of a day I had but now that it’s over, I have to laugh.

Last night

I was enjoying Monday night Raw broadcast from Montreal when suddenly in mid match the broadcast went to Commercial, then it was explained by Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler's ring announcer partner that Lawler was having a heart attack and how ems workers were giving Jerry CPR and Lawler was rushed to a local hospital. Apparently he's undergoing a Cat scan. He's breathing on his own and seems to be doing ok. Like most people watching the show my wife and I at home thought it was all part of the entertainment or (my theory at the time) maybe a story line to give Jerry an exit strategy for some much needed time off. I hope he's Ok. Jerry is only a few years older then I am. 

I'm back at the job thing today. The afternoon clips by ok, it's just the evening after 7pm that drags but I'm in for a full week.

Last nights Coast was, boring. The topic was on parenting and voting, boring. Not every show though can be a UFO show. 

We had a nice storm move in through here over night. No Thunder or lightning or anything, just lots of wind and rain. It's nice out there now but windy.

My wife had a lot of fun fooling around with Face time last night talking with her sister. it's a great technology but it's not ubiquitous yet as a ones home phone but it's getting thee. Anyway, that's about all from me for today.

I can breath a bit easier now

for a bit. I did a lot better sales wise yesterday. I was beginning to think I couldn't sell anymore.

At first I thought well this is my Sunday in but upon looking at my calendar, my last Sunday was last December 18th. On the 25th and New Years (Sunday's) I was on holidays. Technically this is my Sunday off but next Sunday I go in for the 15th because I have Lodge on the 21st (3rd Sunday) So I'm ok for a couple of days off.

I'm still thinking about that laptop. It's a quad core i7, which is about the best out there. The version I was looking at is has 8 Ram and a 750Gb hard drive for just over $600. It's a sweet deal but I'm sure something better is out there just around the corner like the 6/8 cor with 2.27 transistor count.

Now I'm not entirely on board with this story (considering where it came from ) but this week it was mentioned that as a young man in his early 20's Obama was part of a secret CIA project to explore Mars. The future President apparently was teleported there, along with the future head of DARPA in 1981-1983 and he went twice. US President Obama with help from the CIA was of all things, teleported to Mars! However the White house denies the story. Question: Why would the White house even deny the story? Read more>>>

Anyway, I hope to get a lot of reading done this weekend on A game of thrones. Anyway, that's all for now.

Linux even

took out my wifi devices but even took out Google Earth I had on my windows desktop. I thought I'd go into Ubuntu and see if I can get a Linux version of Google earth but I can't even find the programs. I was going to get Vinny to help me with Linux. He said something about refreshing hardware devices. I tried finding out where this is but for the life of me, I have no clue. He wasn't there Saturday. Hopefully Saturday I can bring my laptop with me and head out to L&M to be there at 9am when they open and pick up my Sibelius 6 (standard) go get my breakfast and then into the office for my 4 hours and then head over to his place where he has an Internet connection and he can do all that for me there. Then when I get home I can have some fun with Sibelius 6 and get some song ideas down.

Often I find myself over there at Dennis Hurds blog. Unlike myself he always has something interesting to read. I visit his blog several times a week for my New Westminster connection because I used to live downtown New West as the locals call it, in the mid 1970's. Dennis has a nice photo for his blog today of a park I myself often visited as a young man in my early 20's when the weather was good. I envy Dennis and the little park he has access to. I miss having a little place of solitude for myself like that. Sure we have a little walkway just out back here, as in this photo take today. Its a nice walkway and at one time there used to be a bench to sit but that's long gone now. Because its summertime, there are lots of kids out here today and this little place out here is a high traffic area. A small park out here like the one Dennis has wouldn't survive long. It'd be littered with trash or some drunk would piss in it or all kinds of things. We even had a small tree out here the city tried to plant complete with yellow warning tape but the tree didn't survive the winter or was abused by kids.    

Texting and using a cell phone behind the wheel while driving is controversial no doubt about it. There are lots of cases where accidents have happened because of this. Even some fatalities. Our city has put a cell phone/texting bylaw in place and if your caught driving and texting or using a cell phone, its a fine. But that's all its going to be until some politicion's son, wife, daughter whatever is on the receiving end of an accident bearing in mind something close to home. That's the only time any real action is going to get done with this. I got to thinking what could be done to make people wake up about the dangers of these kind of shenanagans. The City loves these red light cameras as its a cash cow. So why not have spy cams at various points of the city take a front photo to get the propertrator caught doing the deed and a back photo to get the license plate. The best part about this is, the cameras can be changed so even though drivers might learn there is a camera at one location, they think, "just get the word out" but then move the camera. This way, drivers won't know where where the cameras will beat any given time. This will stop using cell phones and texting dead in its tracts. The above is a pro active approach. The other thing is, increase the texting rates and watch the usage go down. The first idea is better though. 

The other thing is I tried (again) to download Google earth using the Google chrome installer, which installed Google chrome (naturally) on my site to replace IE7 as my default web browser. I opened up my blog post and the browser changed my functions. I can't do spell check and the font itself changed and to make matters worse, I can't copy, my work here, only paste. I lost a good blog post learning this the hard way. Anyway, that's all for now.

Its been one of those weeks

this week, Most of this was posted on my website just before bed after midnight. Sorry if it sounds a little confusing..


This week was the Postal strike, as it's in debate in the House of Commons. Apparently they're going into their 2nd all night er for tonight and later today. Hopefully, they'll be done and get those people back to work.

This evening was the NHL entry draft. We got our #1 pick again in Ryan Nugent Hopkins and a big D. Both don't look like they'll play this year.

I managed to get the audio in Cubase 5 worked out ok yesterday and after a nap today when I get home I'm going to play around with it some more.

The Esks hosted the Stamps at Commonwealth last night. The score was 37-22. The Esks got a shalackin. I got my 6/49 lotto ticket last night as well. Overnight, I go some gas buildup and I've been cuttin them all night. Rule of thumb, never eat pork n' beans before bed. It's an easy 2 hours this morning and then another 2 this afternoon and my weekend is here. Yeaaa! So, this morning its a Tim's breakfast but with this gas I have, I might not get one this morning. Anyways it's been a long week and I need some sleep as I'm up early this morning but home by 3pm. Round 2 of the NHL draft is today. On the Coast website: Astronauts to Mars on a one way trip? WTF? Anyway, that's all for now.