The theme for my opening blog this morning is

weather. At the moment it's -23/-28 out there. Its the 2nd number that concerns me at -28 and it supposed to get colder as the morning progresses to -41. The good news is its supposed to warm up over the next ten days to about -8. I can handle that. 

Yesterday during my commute I bought a blackjack scratch n win ticket at the redimart, and played on the train as it was waiting to pull out of Clareview. I won $10! Wu who. What the hell I can always catch the next train. I went down to catch it and there was a line up as there was this one person two down from me tying everyone up for five minutes. Then there was a debit card, yeesh. Finally my turn. I got my $10 and went to get my next train there waiting upstairs. I knew I was going to be late, what the hell? At least it was bright and sunny on my way in. I got to Southgate and from the platform I could see across 109th my #52. Would I make the connection? I began to pick up my pace in the pedway and hurried down the stairs. As soon as I got outside the doors the bus was raising its entrance and opened its doors for me. Any longer I would have missed it. Whew! 

I was able to make it into the office right on time. I got the Metro, the area manager said, "Hi Jim, cold enough for you?" "Oh, yeah," as I'm taking off my face mask, scarf etc. I told her a brief story as she was heading about where my wife is working and how I tried and failed to write a test to work their. "So she's working this weekend," She said "Well, your a better fit here, have a nice weekend," That was nice. I felt good about that. So I got a hot chocolate, settled in and signed in. By 4:10pm we had 6 people. Looks like a short crew as others began to show up, eventually. At least I never handed in a empty recap at the end of the shift. A colleague from Brazil and I walked down to the bus stop and joined by one of the new girls as we waited in front of Tony Roma's there on 51st Ave and Calgary Trail but the bus was delayed or it felt like it was a long wait because of the weather. Five minutes can seem like 15 in this weather. At Southgate the new girl and I were on the pedway there was our early Clareview train ready to pull out, crap. I checked on the Edmonton/Wild, nhl game tied at 2 ready to go into ot. I'll catch this oncoming Nait train to someplace further up the line where its warm but my iPod Touch battery was in the low red. At Grandin, I checked the game and Minni scored in ot. We're losing too many of these ot games now. That's 5 points we let go. Next game will be a Sunday event I'll watch tomorrow. I got home shortly before 10pm after leaving out of the office before 8:30pm. That late #6 was the difference maker last night. After dinner I was able to watch a bit of the "Late show," shut the computer off and I went to bed.

I'm out of here at 9am. I'm sure its going to be very chili. At least I'm not in at the other job. Their shift for Friday was cancelled and the office is closed for today. At least I have my other job I was at yesterday. I'm in the market research job office on Wednesday at 3:30pm and for Thursday hopefully Saturday. I need those 3 days. The market research job is done for Christmas break on the 21st and the South side job where I'm at today, closes on the 22nd and resumes in March. My 4 hour shift today is done at 2:15pm and I think Mark is there today. He usually drives me and Brazil to Southgate, which makes a difference in this weather. 

So after work its my commute home and I'm going to buy a iTunes card at Shoppers so I can get iM1. If I can make it across the street in 1 piece. I'm home all day Sunday and I have the Oilers game to watch Sunday night. Anyway, that's all for now.

Yesterday about 9am I was on my

morning commute and in at Tim's by about 9:20am. I had a nice breakfast feeling good about my day ahead. 

I got a bad feeling that due to the amount of new people they hired last week, my hours are going to be reduced. In other words, I'm expendable. I'm taking steps while I have the time and going out tomorrow afternoon and set some things up, before the inevitable happens. I'm not saying 100% it's going to happen but I just have a feeling it will. At least the economy is good and that's in my favour. I've got 3.5 years left in the work force anyway before I retire. .

At least our local weather will begin to improve about by Wednesday. We should be in a warming trend until the end of the month. In another 5 weeks, it's going to be daylight savings time again.

I'm relaxing today and out tomorrow around noon to get downtown for 1pm. Not that I have a appoint but I'm going to set some things up. Anyway, that's about all for now.

This week I put three days down for my hours at my

first job because my 2nd job breaks next Friday for the month of February and resumes in March. So in the meantime I'm off Sunday and working 11-7pm, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and at the 2nd job Thursday and Friday.  

Next weekend I'm getting a 500Gb SSHD hard drive and Windows 7 for my laptop. Once I get the hard drive and the OS installed I'm re installing Komplete 8, Maschine, my midi keyboard controller software, audio interface software and the drivers including the ASIO driver updates as well. It's a big project. 

Because of my hours next week I have some options. I can go to Lodge Tuesday, Wednesday or even Saturday afternoon. I can go get the SSHD drive and OS on my way into Lodge and install the drive Saturday night. I finally have a weekend off next weekend. 

Tonight it's a easy 4 hours in and out and same for Saturday. I'm thinking about leaving out of here early tomorrow morning about 8:30am to get my breakfast at Tim's and head out for work. Anyway, that's all for now.

It took me awhile but

I finally figured out how to send photos out of my camera via email but its not letting me save the receiver's email (me) and I have to type that in every time. I can send movie sharing type file sizes via email as well. My camera and iTouch (iT) device work very well over wifi. Now I just got to figure out how I can play back movies on my iT without a third party app but it seems I might just have to upload to iTunes and download it onto my iT device, which seems like over complicating things. Here's a I took  last night from my Samsung camera:

 I'm up early because in an hour I'm going to be on the road and into work for another 8 hours. It's a solid 10-6pm shift. I'll get off at Bay station get my Tim's breakfast upstairs and head for the office from there. I get a half hour lunch and I think 2 ten's and I'm done for 2 days. Well 1 day because of the repairs.

Tuesday night I'm going to make every effort to get out to Lodge. I tried contacting their WM but I guess he was out and doesn't know I'm working today. They're holding 5 Master Mason degrees. I'd like to get out to see this while I have a night off. 

I'm trying to figure out how to do a video capture from my laptop and there are a lot of "free" versions out there. A YouTube visitor to my channel has been asking me about a guitar tone I'm using and I've got the tone ready, I just need to get the video up and running but there's no time to do that this morning. Anyway, that's about all for now. 

I got up out of

bed shortly after 9am a few minutes ago. Outside a new blanket of snow had fallen overnight. Hint: The skies are still overcast. It also looks pretty breezy out there as well for my late morning commute. Seems like the snow stopped falling awhile ago but we could see an encore latter today possibly again overnight.

I’m still looking at getting that Kingston mobile link. Most likely I’ll need to register the product read the instructions as part of the set up process. If it works, along with the last iOS update then it’s almost like having a new iPad. I’ll be doing this on my day off Tuesday.

At the moment, I’m enjoying a morning coffee but I still have time to go over my email and do some more “research” on this Kingston device.

As for today, I’m out of here about 10:45am for my morning commute. I had about 6 hours sleep so I’m ok for the day. My day at work is from noon-6pm today. I wish all my shifts were like that. At work I’m calling Audrey’s to let them know I’ll be picking up a special order this upcoming Friday and Anne. Then after work my train to Grandin and then home. Anne’s going to have our Sunday brunch ready and I should be home to watch the Oiler/Kings hockey game. The rest of the night is mine. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

It's been a rough couple of days

but at least I have a full shift next week, which is good. 

The only thing I got going on for the weekend is the Lodge BBQ I'm going to ask one of the guys if I can get a ride from North Town Mall by the transit station there. The #11 like last week will put me right there from Clareview.

 What with no Internet connection on my iPad I'm focusing more on my Warhammer 40K book. I can read a page on  my morning commute and a couple of pages on my breaks and a couple on my afternoon commute. After the "Space Wolves" 2nd Omnibus has been on hold for a while, now I'm back into it. It's my summer read.

The flooding in Calgary is so bad it flooded the Saddle dome up to the lower bowl and wrecked the scoreboard that sat on the floor where the ice would be. The whole downtown core is flooded. It's probably one of the worst disaster's in Alberta.

Tonight, I'm watching the CFL Esks/Lions game and tomorrow night, it's game #5 of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs Boston/Chicago. With the BBQ Sunday I've got enough to keep me busy this weekend. 

*Update on the CFL game at half time: Esks 17 lions 8! Good start for Edmonton: Anyway that's about all for now.

So far I’m having a nice couple

of days off and about to watch a bit of the NHL playoffs. Speaking of which it came as no surprise but  SJ won game #2 in Vancouver. The Canucks are in real trouble now that the Sharks are up 2 games to none. I think the Sharks are going to take this series. Game #3 is tomorrow night, game #4 would be Wednesday.

This afternoon we got up to +19, which was the warmest so far this year. We should have been here a month ago. 

This is a recent story from Space.com, even if it's a few days old but after clocking nearly 100 million miles in orbit, one of the space shuttle program's huge robotic arms was unveiled to the to the public Thursday (May 2) at its last stop — a museum in the country's capital.The 50-foot (15 meters) Canadarm 2001 completed 23 space shuttle flights before, read more here...

This week, I’m going to try and get out to Lodge a couple of nights and watch some of the playoffs but I’m also out to get a $50 gift card so I can get some drum sample packages for Maschine.  

Saturday was important locally because it was part of National Comic Book day and our own Happy Harbor comic franchise were giving away free comic books. Also a reference on the news about "The Force" (Star Wars) as in 2007 Los Angeles City Council declared May 25, 2007, as Star Wars Day, in honor of the 1977 release date of Star Wars. I think we got the movie released here in Canada May 27th on that Friday because I remember when a friend of mine and I went to the Surrey Drive in theatre to see it in his car. It worked out great because there was a break in the rainy weather that Friday night we both knew that that history was being made that week.

I was up and out of bead a bit earlier then usual on a Saturday. Usually I don’t get out of bed until noon on the weekends but I was up doing my stuff at 9:30am. Even when I was unemployed in the 1990’s I was always up early, even when I didn’t have Internet. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

This weather has been

getting me down lately and that's saying a lot because not much gets to me. After decades of doing telemarketing I've developed a thick skin and an abundance of patience with people. However I'm losing patience with this weather here in central Alberta. We have been for the last 10 days or so way below seasonal by at least 10 degrees. 

The way the Oiler's played last night, they deserved the loss they got. My teeth (or what little I have of them left) have been bothering me and I've got the makings of a soar throat and lodge later this evening and Thursday. So with this crappy weather the Oiler's playing like shit,I've had better weekends then I'm having now. Its not a lack of funds or anything I'm ok in that department. It's just everything else is pissing me off.

And I thought after getting my library card after work Friday and that nice Wendy's baconator after work, I'd have a good weekend. At least I have a cold beer here and hey life isn't so bad. 

On the news last night the end story had to do with a Roman archeological dig in London. At a construction site in the city workers began discovering more remains of an ancient Roman London. This is where the original city was when it was called Londondinum. At that time the City had about 60,000 inhabitants on about 360 acres of land and thriving port some 2,000 years ago before the Iceni led by their queen Boudica. Anyway, that's all for now.   
 .

Other then a bit of

running around later this morning, my weekend is more or less open.

It's so cold out there right now, we've got ice crystals in the air or ice fog. Ice fog during winter isn't that unusual in the evening or overnight. I've seen it during the day a few times during my 35 years here but not many

Coast has another lame topic this evening: Human development. They're also talking about current events and constitutional rights. Some boring shows on this week. Coast has only one good show next week: UFOs & Covert Programs.

I was reading this fascinating article in i09 about the fate of the Vikings in Greenland. I recall when I was with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) here in Edmonton we had a few members in our Shire of Borealis that had Viking persona's. Ok getting back to the topic. The question is, what prompted the Vikings after 500 years in Greenland to finally move back to their mother country? Some speculate that it was disease or at the time of the 10th Century thee Vikings were mostly farmers as weather conditions back then were different then in recent years. So what made the Vikings leave Greenland? Was it disease? Trade? Or something else? Here's a link to the rest of the story. 

Not much going on at the moment, just reading watching a bit TV and some music production that sort of thing. It's going to be a lame weekend but I do have a few things going on. Anyway, that's about all for now.
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Things worked out for (Friday)

me yesterday ok after all but next week is the real test of what could happen. I can't talk about anything but I have a couple of offers. 

So Friday the NHLPA approved to launch a disclaimer of of interest, which is a faster form of decertifying the union. Jan 14th is the deadline for when the rest of the season could officially be cancelled. January 2nd is the official day the of filing. I believe that something significant will happen between then and now. Personally, I'd like the idea of the season being cancelled. For the second time in just nine years since Garry Bettman took over as NHL Commissioner and 2 season lockouts later is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. This is an embarrassment. The NHL doesn't own the Stanley Cup but the Trustees of the Hockey Hall of Fame decide which league gets to challenge the cup. If the season is renewed why not an East/West 15 team round robin tournament to decide the Cup this season? Something to think about

Well the end of the world didn't happen. Yeah no kidding. There were some though that thought it would and took refuge in various remote locations around the world, like a mountain in Quebec,places in China etc. Some believe that the end of the world or they Mayan calendar would be around the 21st or within a few days of the 21st and this morning on Coast (underway now) George Noory will check in with various guests on the status of the post Mayan calendar world. 

On this date in 1970, (Yesterday) Elvis Presley paid a visit to the White House to suggest to Pres. Nixon that he be named "Federal Agent at Large" to help combat the drug problem. And Nixon's response? Ok, I wont say it.

Sometime later this morning I'm off to Audrey's to get another Warhammer 40K "Space marine battles book" and then a block West on the same side of the street to Rexall get a $10 iTunes gift card,my lotto/649 ticket and home but I might decide to sleep in instead because it's so cold out there but if I time my bus connections properly, this morning I'll be out there for about maybe 5 minutes. I'll be out of here at 10am as Tim's stops making breakfast at noon then home. I should be home before Anne gets up and out of bed.

Actually speaking of Pages and my diary, my current  "MS Work's" diary is 2 years old and has something like 725 pages or about 5Mb of text. Pages syncs automatically to iCloud where I'm going to store most of my diary. That's almost like 10 years of text documents! Anyway, that's about all for now. 

Friday was busy

what with running around doing banking in the morning and work during the day and banking a night, I was bushed when I got home. Saturday I went into Tim's to get my breakfast sandwich and I took care of some personal business with Kyle. I had a slow beginning to the shift but after a few sales, I was doing pretty good. I tried to call Anne but she wasn't answering the phone. I had a better afternoon. Actually I had one of my better days as I was able to pull in about $1010 on card alone! Our whole office did good.

After work I met the guys over for a beer at BP's and had a few laughs. I stayed for one for a few hours. It was a good time.

I think I dozed off there for awhile on the train and got home shortly before 7pm. I watched some TV and dozed off there on the couch for awhile. I got a call from Anne at about 8pm.  
I was going to go down to LM this weekend but I plan on doing that, next weekend. Also, after figuring things out from YouTube etc, I'm now able to get Cubase to record my guitar. I'm getting there, slowly. Anyway, that's been my busy couple of says. .

The 8am alarm got me

out of bed soar and aching all over. I had my shower and I think I hadn’t even changed my underwear. I got my things packed up ready to have a day but why was it so dark looking outside for daylight? I got my answer after I had packed everything up and locked up and went outside. The weather was rapidly changing for the worse. The winds were gusting and as soon as my bus came by we got a dose of winter. Snow was coming down thick but it got better from the escalator exit upstairs as the snow had stopped.

Tim’s had just put the hash browns in the oven so they wouldn’t have been ready for another 20 minutes but I got the breakfast sausage egg between a biscuit thing a bunch of salt packages and a bottle of diet cola and a double chocolate donut for later.

I actually had a bang up day and watched some football and had the fireside beef/mac/cheese thing. I called Anne at 2:20pm. We’re having trouble with our sink being clogged up. I thought she was going to make a little entrée for me in case I didn’t eat out. I was too soar to do much of anything.

The 2 hours were ok still doing WR and watching the rest of the  Montreal/Riders game. Al’s were leading by 34-28 and the riders could have won it but Montreal prevailed and I won our double or nothing, meaning I don’t owe Warren $4 bucks.

I had a bang up day pulling in something like $870 on card and a $1450 total. More bonus money for another pretty good cheque for next week.

Sunday Anne and I are going out to “Smitty‘s” up over hear on the other side of the Manning and I’m going to check out Happy Harbor comics before they close. Then home to watch any more football. I think there‘s another double header Sunday.

I‘m going to listen to a bit of music, relax and then take the phone into bed and have a nap for about an hour. Anyway, that‘s all for now.  

Last night and early this morning

mosquitoes were in here eating me alive, still are and we have them until about the end of August, lovely. They come in because Anne doesn't close the big screen window because she like to have the cats access to the balcony but they don't go out much and my screen window in my office is broken.

So the City received the word from the people to change the name of our Summer exhibition from Capital X back to K-days. Just over 51,000 Edmontonians voted. I can't recall what the other top 4 names were but they received something like 1,500-4,000 votes but the big jump was for K-days at about 36,000! Talk about a landslide. This doesn't mean that the popular Sunday Klondike promenade where Sunday Jasper Ave would be full of people dressed in Klondike garb or even the k in the "K-days" means Klondike days will return. This was just a name change. Capital X was a stupid name anyway. I think one of the names was EdFest and I liked that name as well.

it's going to be another hot one today as temperatures are supposed to climb to about +28C out there. I don't mind the hot weather but I like weather here in Edmonton to be anywhere from +5-+20. Anything in there is fine with me.

I've had this electric guitar for a week now and I can play a couple of power chords and that's really all I need. Saturday after work, I'm back to LM to see about getting a device to strengthen my fingers called a Grip master and if they have them a Spider Capo's. Then it's off to Harvey's for a bite to eat across the street up to Rexall drugs for a bag of chips and a 6/49 ticket then to Future shop for an iTunes gift card. I'm going to buy the gift card and let them peal the numbers off for me. I could get the iTunes gift card from Rexall but they probably don't know at Rexall how the gift cards numbers peal off like Future shop. Then when I get home, I want to buy Vol.1 & 2 of The New Avengers.

I need a week off and most likely it will be around the labor day weekend. This way I'll get an extra couple of days thanks to the  long weekend and get paid for the  long weekend because I'll be on my holidays.

Tonight it's Monday night Raw, show 1001 and I'll wind my weekend down with that and work through a couple of video's James from the office sent me.

The good news is that Dan and I are synced up for Fort Edmonton Park for next Sunday. That's going to be enjoyable as always. If your in the area, drop by and say hello. We're above the cafe there upstairs across from the fire hall. There's a sign on the sidewalk. It's open to the public. Anyway, that's about all from me for today.

It wasn't like the last couple

of days were busy or anything, I just didn't have a lot to say.

I had a decent week, I did some banking and yesterday was able to get a hold of Telus mobility about my preauthorized Flex plan account, which they wont extract payment until about mid July and it will only be about $15 so as long as they go through the billing set up mechanics, my internet service will not be compromised and I'll owe them for 3 months service, then regular automatic debit payments from my bank will occur.

On my plate today I'm out on my am commute and I'm going to have breakfast and then into the office for my 6 hours. After that it's over to Audrey's for my book and then to catch a bus to City Centre Mall for the food court and a bite to eat and the train but I want to get off at Belvedere station to go up onto the overhead pedway which is over the tracks and has a great view of the construction going around Station Pointe and after a couple of photos, home for a nap and then I'm going to work on my music and enjoy 2 days off..

Finally everything since the beginning

of the week has come to a head. Yesterday, I got the dinner figured out and my parts in the lodge figured out. Too  make matters worse Anne calls me just before break and makes a change of plans for me. I hope she said she wanted me to put my check (what I give her) in my account. Otherwise I would have brought cash. Up until they began handing out checks to everybody at 8:15pm, I was wondering if I had a check at all. And if so how much was it going to be? I’ve seen them dicker me out before and others. Ok, I got my check and opened the envelope, $325 Whew, almost a full check. Instant relief. I headed up to the bank cashed my check and left the $265 like I hope Anne wanted me to do. All of it the festive board, my part in the Lodge, my check all came out ok. Thank God. I even have $100 to play with as well which means I can get my RJS book and a bite to eat after work tomorrow. The only downside to all of this today was I had only $25 on sales but it was all on card. All I can say was, what a week! I even got my iTunes card fixed up. All in all, this week turned out great. It could have been a disaster.

Music over the years has changed so much not only in genres but how music has been produced. It used to be from the beginning a collection of musicians or one person with a flute or plcucked instrument of some kind. In the "modern era" the phonograph was introduced in the late 1800's. Music was then recorded in a control room on a 4 track device and then evolved to 100 banks console to digital music on the computer making the art of producing music open to anyone. So along comes the iPad, which is becoming a serious music production tool. It's going to be a long way off before the iPad will replace a 4 piece band or anything or even someone with an iPad on stage. But with Digital Audio Workstations (DAW's) so accessible for hobby musicians IPad's/Apple's Garageband Gb isn't quiet there yet. I'm a hobby musician. The only instrument I can play (barely) is the DAW, which is an instrument in itself. Gb isn't even like the same thing of it's Mac big brother. For example, I paid $500 for Cubase 6 2 months ago. Gb comes free with every Mac computer but for the iPad it's a $5 app on a $700 device. I haven't produced any music yet but I'm about to as soon as I get over this bout of laryngitis or what ever it is. Here's what the interface of Garageband looks like: 

I gave Anne another $50 to help cover the rent last night. We we're only $50 short of rent and I did want to get that RJS book. Looks like I'm going to have to wait another week

This weekend is a short weekend. I'm paying for it now because next Saturday I want off to go to Ye Old Craft. We start Monday at 2pm, which is ok. It will still give me 37.5 hours on my check next week and more importantly give me an opportunity to visit other Lodges. Me being one of the 3 principle officers of our Lodge I should be visiting m ore and that's what I'm about to do this month. 

Today however, I've got 6 hours ahead of me and I hope J will put me onto "Harper" and not OPC. At  least I can make money on "Harper." After work I'm considering going over to Audrey's to pick up something. It wont be an RJS book but something within my price range. 

The next project for my music is going to be Melodyne editor for my voice as I'm going to need an affect on my voice. I'm  not a singer but I want to "sing" or create noise with my mouth. I want to save up $450 but the product itself is about $350. I don't want to leave myself short. So $75 over the next 6 weeks will do it. So I hope by mid June I'll have it. Anyway, that's about all for now.

  

Saturday/Sunday

So far my soar tooth has given me a break this evening as it’s Saturday/Sunday here.

Earlier this evening (Saturday) I watched “The Dirty Dozen.” In all the 44 years this has been around, I have yet to have seen this in its entirety until this evening. I enjoyed it. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it a 7.5.

We tried watching the 2 Marine movies but our Xbox 360 couldn’t read the disk properly. The Xbox seems to be fine but the disk is probably so used and scratched it becomes un readable, which completely soured the experience. I’m sure it’s a good series.

All across the web and TV ads for Netflex Canada are appearing. Thing with Netflex Canada is that the choice of content isn’t anywhere near what it is in the States because of licensing agreements that kind of thing. I am in no hurry to sign up for this service. I’d rather get Xbox live then Netflex.

On local news from the All Star break skills competition our own Taylor Hall came in second as the leagues fastest skater in the rookie category. Wow. That’s awesome.

We went to bed this morning at about 4am but I had a mild headache but feel a bit better at the moment. I’ve only got half a day for Monday and I want to bring my laptop in so I can get Vinny to download that all for me but I don’t think there will be enough time to even install the disk properly for me. I might have to wait until Saturday or something. Anyway, that‘s about all for now.