Anyway, I got us a membership card

to the community league. I'm interested in their crib nite for cribbage. I love playing crib. I wish there was an organized seniors crib or and chess groups here. I'd like that.

There was one person in the main floor lounge when I went to the community league meeting. She said her name was Dee. I said I had enough on my plate between lodge etc. She held out her hand and she was wearing a Masonic. Ring. She told me her husband that passed a few months ago was a Freemason and she was in the womans arm of Freemasonry. She had some friends of hers she wanted to sit with and excused herself. I later learned of the "Hadaf women's Masonic group" refers to the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons (HFAF), which is a women-only Masonic organization. It's also known as Freemasonry for Women. HFAF was founded in 1913 and has a network of lodges in the UK, Romania, Spain, Gibraltar, India, and the US. HFAF focuses on friendship, inspiration, and empowerment for women through Masonic principles and practices. It's not part of the United Grand Lodge of England. There are several HFAF bodies here in Canada but nothing in Western Canada. Interesting.

Happy Birthday, NASA! In response to the Soviet's 1957 launch of Sputnik, the US Congress passed legislation on this date in 1958 to establish a civilian agency coordinating America's space exploration. 

On July 29, 1947, a gas leak explosion in a beauty parlor caused the death of 10 women in Harrisonburg, VA. Anyway that's all for now.

When I first got into chat rooms

was about 1999. MSN had a lively chat room called A God(s) Fight. Or AGF (see side bar) AGF chat was really lively lots of politics and religious talk. That chat room fell by the way side when MSN brought a message board style kind of discussion forum to AGF. It was still really lively. Then MSN got out of the message board business for what ever reason, I can't recall, and the owner of AGF brought the message board to the Yuku platform. The Yuku AGF message board was developed in 2008, and since then AGF gets a few posts/year. I usually go under the name of sebek and post updates about me a few times/year. About 2008 I discovered a local message board/forum called Connect 2 Edmonton (c2e). It was is all things (mostly) about Edmonton. It started in 2003. I got on as envaneo. Envaneo was an old occult Fraternal name with some Latin meaning, which I don't want to get into now. What I like about c2e is how it was robust and current with topics not just Edmonton but the Oilers, Eskimo's etc. and I liked the "Must Try" for all the restaurants in the area. It ran on a vbuiltin platform. I especially like the NHL and Oilers off season threads, and all the various construction projects going around town. I never would have known what half of these projects were if not for c2e. C2e would be my first go to email after I woke up. Early yesterday afternoon when I went to answer my c2e subscription messages, and logged onto the threads I had subscribed I was shocked. Assaulting my visual senses up comes a splash page saying how c2e was a 10 year project, and the owner didn't know if c2e needs to be retired or reworked in some way because the interface was old. I didn't like where this was going. The other option was for the board to still be up and running because its such a huge resource with a lot of historic and current photos of Edmonton. Uh-oh. The owner of c2e said he had some decisions to make between now and the weekend. I hope he doesn't retire c2e. I'd hate this to be another AGF. C2e was to me like a family. We seldom ever got along but did agree with each other quite often. C2e was engaging, informative often humorous. I got to know some of these people. Some people used their real names, most had nic names, like Top Dawg who always referred to himself in the 3rd person. There was Moahunter, Sonic Death Monkee, IanO, The Cat, Noodle, Edmonton PTR, Legion, Drumbones, Edmonton Cowboy, EavB, KC, and many others. C2e has over 35,000 subscribers. There were always lots of photographs, links etc. I began a few threads myself. Posters could also receive private messages from other posters, and c2e I discovered to late would be a good place to do local networking. I felt really connected to the city with my time in c2e. If I liked someone's post without replying, I could hit the "Thanks" button. If the owner of c2e decides to retire this board I hope somebody else picks it up. Or at least keeps it up for people to say goodbye. One of the long time posters started a "Go fund me page." If I had the money, I'd make a contribution. I love c2e. I hope it doesn't go but gets better. 

I'm really enjoying this "Eagles of Talons" Jamie MacCallister saga. There's lots history in these books. If this is historical fiction, its now one of my favorite genres. I like reading these Westerns because they read so fast. The only trouble with Audrey's is they have no Western section. If it wasn't for Fantastic Fiction, and in my email "Any new books" I would not know what new books are up and coming. One of the guys that works at Audrey's that I directed to Goodreads, talked about a series of books from a local Edmonton author Janice MacDonald. She writes the Randy Craig mysteries. My colleague said its set in Edmonton and many of the books include reviews of local restaurants. This would be a good post for c2e's "must try." I hope I can still post this there.  

The other day I discovered Twitch, live broadcasting for players that like to play video games. Now, I'm not big on video games. From my initial look at Twitch its hard to pick out what broadcasts are in English, and which ones aren't. Some of the real popular new games have audiences of up to 300,000 subscribers. Of course depending on what time of day it is and what time zone it is. Streaming live where the broadcaster is shown inside a picture in a picture small window at the corner of the screen is appealing to me. Twitch also looks like it could have a live chat feature in the broadcast in real time as well but I'm not sure. I'm not sure if Twitch is just for pc, console or hand held devices. This would be so cool for i0S devices and other hand held devices. Ntendo 3ds has a forward camera. So does i0S devices. Anyway, that's all for now.

My wife should have had her week off this week

then last week as this is her birthday week yesterday. She bought us Maximus pizza, which I paid for at the door from cash she left before she went to work.

I've changed this blob post title colour to indicate Saint Patrick's day. I'll reset it back tomorrow. I wish there was an easy way edit this just for one day without having to go into any complex css code. 

  
I left for work at my usual time and caught the bus to Clareview. I had a quiet trip to Central and upstairs/street level. I caught the #3 bus to work. I made good timing and had a good shift. I got home and went to visit my friend down the hall and asked her about her laptop. She mentioned that she doesn't use it all that much but she said she uses it for important things. Ok, no big deal. Anne came  in and she said because she got some birthday money from her sister, I could keep my new toy:

Anne picked up the new Ntendo 3ds xl at Eb games (Games stop) for me Monday night. The Hyrule edition. She also bought me the accompanying charger as well. the reason why it took me an extra day to open it because she didn't know if her other sister would be sending her any birthday money. I don't have any games for it yet except for the AR cards. I want to get the Korg Ntendo ds-12 music app but that's next month and I have a bunch of books that are coming. 

Anne suggested that because I've been going strong for 7 days I deserve a unscheduled day off. I'll call in later today. Having the day off will allow me to play around more with my new toy. Anyway, that's all for now. 

We're more or less out of that cold

snap. Ragnar on the cover of the Space Wolf Second Omnibus book looks about as cold as it is out there today. Except the illustrator forgot to put froth on his breath even after climbing upon that icy perch.

January has been a cold long month and I'm glad it's about over. February is begins tomorrow and is also known as Solmonath (mud month) and Kalemonath (named for cabbage) both old English names. For us here in more modern times we have Valentines day and here in Alberta we observe Family Day which is a stat holiday. My favorite Monday of the month. Plus February is a short month as Spring is just around the corner.   

Last nights Oiler's/Phoenix game had about as much excitement for most part of the game as reading some of my blog posts lately. I think I dozed off on the couch with my feet up on the coffee table for most of the 2nd period. If it wasn't for Anne calling me from her work place I might have slept through the game. Good thing she called because near the end of the 3rd period things got interesting. On a WTF? kind of head scratching penalty against the Oil, Phoenix manages to tie the game. In OT the Oiler's managed to win. It's going to be a different outcome tonight in San Jose. That game is televised as well, woo-who!  

I'm considering taking out a subscription to "Strategy & Tactics" magazine again and subscribing to "White Dwarf." S&T has a game in every issue and both magazines are published bi-monthly. A 2 year sub to S&T (with the game) cost's about s much as a ps3 game console. With White Dwarf I can order a subscription in the Games Workshop store at WEM. 

Speaking about Warhammer there is (in development?) an online version of Warhammer (not the 40K version) It's an RPG like Warcraft. I think it's by Bio-ware (based here in Edmonton) but I don't know if it's in development or in hiatus or folded or what. I'd be interested in playing this as I don't see myself building huge tabletop armies or anything. Anyway,that's about all for now. 

It was an awesome day

I got off the train not going into Tim's and went right to the office. I had a brief wait outside in front as staff began to show up, Kyle, Lawrence, Karen etc. Finally James let us in and upstairs. I had a good start getting a $210 sale after the lunch break on card and a couple more for $200. I think I ended up with $210/card and a total of $610 for the day, it was a nice day at work for a change. And I was on 1 campaign.

 After work as it was mild Warren, Kyle and I went across the street to catch a crowded #5 bus to Coliseum Piazza. This place has been around since the 1970's. It took us about half an hour to get there as the place was just beginning to get busy. I had the cheeseburger platter. On a scale from 1-10, I'd rate it a 7.5. Not a Wendy's but good and non stop pop. Kyle went along his way and Warren and I worked our way to Rexall. We had a bit of a trouble getting our ticket but got our seats in the barrier free section and enjoyed the game. The above is our sight lines to the game. Anyway, that's all for now.