I was thinking about

voting Wild Rose in the upcoming Provincial election but after hearing Smith say supporting any funding for a downtown Oiler arena and the new Royal Alberta museum is not on their agenda, I immediately did an about face and said "No!" We're not voting for her. I'd even vote NDP if they said they would at least look into it. 

The Edmonton Journal on the front page this morning said that in a recent poll from a marketing group here in Edmonton, 67% of Edmontonians said they would rather have the LRT go to Mill Woods then to a new downtown Arena for the Oiler's. The poll surveyed in 3 days this week 1,215 "Albertan's" (I recon a special interest group with a Mill Woods agenda probably hired the marketing group to do the "survey" and said call into the Mill Woods area. They do this to try and sway public opinion. "Well if 67 % said no it must be a bad idea." The poll also said about 30% said they would support the arena. But that's just out of 1,215 polled. Personally I don't think the LRT to Mill Woods is as much as a necessity as the LRT to West Edmonton Mall. obviously if you live in Mill Woods having the LRT go through there would be a good idea, anything else that would take funding away from that is a bad idea. The Journal is a leftest media anyway. The article this morning is biased. 

Over the weekend I'm going to be looking for any candidate in the 2012 election who's platform is sympathetic to the arena. anyway, that's about all for now.

Next Tuesday after the weekend I'm almost attempted

to drop $100 into my Scotia account towards my new laptop as I have no firm date ahead when Revenue Canada (RC) will send me my tax refund. I want to have at least $700 available for the new laptop before I'm ready to buy it. If RC has a check in the mail for me say next week, I could have the funds for the laptop by the end of the month but everything is subjected to the whim of the mail. However, I hope that say I get the funds the before the weekend I want to order. I'll call Best Buy ask if they have any in stock. If so, I'll go after work on a Saturday get the laptop and make sure that the connector plug is working, last time it wasn't even threaded in. I want to check out the hard drive capacity, the webcam mic and then make my purchase. I don;t think they'll let me do that because it will void the warranty. 

Often I like to check out the Beatles on YouTube and there is this outdoor shot of them doing a song from the album "Help" from 1965 and it looks like they are on a military range. I did some research about this and they were at a place not even on the map called "Knighton Downs and woods." The Beatles did this location for 3 days Monday May 3rd, Tuesday 4th, Wednesday 5th. I was 12 years old when that film (Help) was being made. What was remarkable was that at the time, the story goes that on that Sunday late at night a black limousine pulled up to the Antrobus Arms hotel and parked the car in the garage and the Beatles checked into the hotel where they would stay for those 3 days. Somehow the word got out that the Beatles were there and apparently the limo was looted of Beatle hats cloths etc as hoards of teenage girls blocked the way the Beatles needed to get to to do the filming for the movie. How did these girls know that the Beatles were even coming to their town? It's not like they had Twitter or anything like that. That was 47 years ago, crazy.

Tonight on Coast the topic is about Science breakthroughs such as biology and astronomy and later on artificial intelligence (AI) Should be a good show. As for me, I'm about ready for bed soon.

It was slow going for me in the afternoon yesterday but others were at $50-$80 somewhere in there. Best I could do for the first half was $25. All I got was seniors and the unemployed and answering machines. I did better in the evening as most of my sales were done after 5pm. I got a $100 sale and $50 on card, all day. Anyway, that's about all from me for today.          

The other night I

went and downloaded from Itunes about 4 Podcasts that I haven’t listened to in about a year: Starship sofa and SF Signal. That’s what I like about Itunes, you can upload your own music and videos and get free stuff like podcasts. I like the “Star ship Sofa’s” because they have free readings of short stories.

Because of Sparky passing away from us last month and lodge stuff this month, I haven’t been able to read as much as I would have liked. I just started reading short SF from my Itouch from “Daily Science Fiction” or what ever its called and I’m reading a flash piece of SF fiction every day on my commute.

I’ve also been doing music production research and acquiring various pieces to my library of noise. I’m working on tweaking my drum sounds and I’m almost there when I get the new laptop at the end of the month. Hopefully this summer I‘ll make my Youtube début with an EP.

Last night most of us on the campaign I’m working on were struggling. We have 1 guy doing taps I ended up just short of line hour for the day by about $5. I closed yesterday at the end of a shift with a $100 sale, which is always nice to close a shift on a sale. Or as I call it “Close on money.”

Another typical day today although tomorrow I need to break up the routine and make a detour to the barber for that haircut for the last 2 weeks I keep telling myself I need. I need to tell the boss the day before I could be 5 10 minutes late, anyway that’s about all for now.

I had a nice couple of days off

Sunday & Monday despite Anne and I having our little episodes (mostly her) of marriageable bliss."

This morning I was woken up shortly after 9am to gather my ID and everything to head down to the Edmonton Public Library. Anne and I filed for our taxes. I'm getting about the equivalent of half our rent. It's about 85% of what I need to get the laptop I want. As of this week, I'll need 2 more checks and I can pick it up and some logitech speakers. I should have my return by about the end of April. Providing they have our address right. 

It was overcast heading out this morning and nice to get out as it was a little bit crisp in the air but nothing as chilly as Saturday morning. 

I found a couple of un-boxing YouTube videos of "Critical Hit." A 3rd party ASL company that has some intriguing products. I'm thinking about uploading some Paypal dollars and getting a couple of them next month after my laptop.

The laptop I'm getting is the Acer Aspire 15.6" AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M (AS5560-7476) blue, I need this for my music production and it can play games as well. I'm not big on video games. Anne's getting the laptop in my header photo above. 

Tomorrow is my first day back at work for the week and I hope to have another 37.5 hours in, which is a full week for me. 

This afternoon Anne ordered Wrestlemania 28 for me, which is Sunday 5pm April 1st. It's a 4 hour wrestlemania and she's making me a plate of baby back ribs to go along with it. It's going to be about a $60 hit but we only order 2 WWE pay per view events/year: Wrestlemania and Summer Slam because Summer slam is close to my birthday. 

Anyway, not much is going on through out the week. It's just up at 10 out the door at 11:15am into work from12:30pm-9pm home by about 10:45pm have a bite to eat catch the news and answer my email do some stuff on the net and then into bed. Cycle the above Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday except Friday night is my banking night and I'm off half an hour earlier. Saturday I'm up at about 7am and out the door by 9am for a 10-4:30pm shift. other then Lodge night (in which I work half a shift on Thursday) The above is my weekly daily ritual. Next month I'm tweaking this a bit because I want to begin going to my Saturday Lodges Ye old Craft (second Saturday) and Commercial (third Saturday.) Other then the above and heading out with my work colleagues after a Saturday I'm not at Lodge, that's my life. 

I'd love to get back into playing ASL again and once I apply (if I get it) for my early retirement I can take a couple of Lodge Saturdays and head out to play some ASL. The first Saturday Lodge is in the morning and done by about noon and I can head out to play some ASL somewhere. My 2nd Saturday Lodge on the 3rd Saturday is Commercial and they're usually done by 5pm. Time to head out to an evening of ASL. Ideally that's what I would like to do in theory. 

The other thing I want to do in September (the date I should have my first CPP check) since I have Sunday and Monday off (pending Lodge of course) is get involved in a senior bowling league. I know of a couple. I've always liked bowling but never found the time. 

The only time I have to myself to do any music production, Lodge memory work or reading etc, is after supper and the late night evening news. I have about 2 hours to do my stuff. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I had about 6.5 hours

of sleep, so I got out of bed about 9:50am to do my thing: Kettle on the stove with water to boil, turn on the computer, shave, shower fix coffee and about 5 minutes after 10am, I’m at my diary. Now I’ve got about 40 minutes to myself.
I had a decent day yesterday, although I had a slow start and was last on the board total wise but at the end of the shift I had a call and the caller talked a lot. Why couldn’t I have had this call at 6pm? But she was able to stay on topic even though she kept me on the phone as most of my colleagues had left but she did make the sale and James got her on a card as well. Good stuff. It wasn’t anywhere near top total for HDI but I was 10 away from line hour. I had about $190 I think on card as well for the day.

Here we go with another franchise in the making of a book series for young readers: “Hunger games.” It’s about a bunch of teenagers out to kill each other. Here’s a synopsis of what the books are all about from Fantastic fiction: Katniss (there’s never any female protagonist with names like Martha or Jane or Susan) is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place. The Hunger games is causing a hysteria among teens because that’s it’s target audience. There’s already a movie that made its red carpet debut the other day. Not my type of thing mainly because of its intended age group, but looks like. Kids love it especially teenage girls but at least it has them reading, so that‘s a good thing. If I had children (that I know of) I‘d rather they be reading stuff like this then going out to a Rave taking tainted ecstasy.

I‘ve got another full day today as it‘s a Friday and that means after work run up to my bank cash my check and head home or better yet, out to eat. I‘m thinking about going over to Bo'diddly's Pub & Grill across the street after work tonight. Mainly because Anne doesn’t get home until about 10:40pm then she’s out at Superstore buying us a deli pizza or something and it’s not ready until 11:45pm by the time I want to eat. I have trouble sleeping if I have a heavy meat on a late Friday night especially when I’m up at 8am Saturday morning for work but I‘m not sure yet. I might just come home anyway.

So rather then going out Saturday for a bite to eat after work and since I need a USB hub at Future shop so I’ll get that instead and head home for a nap and get Anne’s “on her break at work phone call” I get around 8:30pm to wake me up Saturday night.

Tonight is another Oiler hockey game as they are in Florida again for a back to back game. Then they play on Sunday at 1pm, so I want to catch that game.

Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it for Lodge this tonight. I’d like to go but I want a full 37.5 hours on my check this week. I want to be able to go to both of my Saturday Lodges next month so I’m working the next 3 Saturdays including this one. Anyway, that’s about all for now.  

Not a lot going on.

I woke up about 5am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Last night I wanted to talk to my boss about having Friday off to go to Strathcona Lodge for their MM degree this Friday but throughout the night I began thinking that, I already went to 3 Lodge events this month: My mother Lodge, practice, March 15th MM degree. If we didn't have the MM degree this month I would have made it out but I need the hours and because of the above I can't justify going. 

I don't know about heading out to RJS April 11th as well either. I mean, I'll get the book and all but i might miss this reading. He'll be back next year.

Last night I discovered this page called "Desperation moral." All things Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). It's a huge resource of third party ASL products and 1 I like is Critical Hit. So much so I made a link to their site on my list of links in my Blog sidebar. They've got a lot of good things, most of it all ASL. Speaking about I checked and made a list of all the ASL official products that had come out over the last 12 years and there's been quite a few. Multi Man Publishing's most recent offering "Festung Budapest" is a historical ASL modual. I'd like to get this product but at a $130 for something I might not ever play is a huge waste of money. 

I want to go to Ye old craft lodge and if I work the 2nd Monday and the rest of the week, I'll have 37.5 hours and off on that Saturday. Then same with the 3rd Saturday, work that Monday and I can take that 3rd Saturday off. I'm allowed 2 Saturday's off/month. I've been working every Saturday so far this year and I've missed a lot. I can go any night I wish as long as I put the Monday night in. Anyway, it's back to bed, that's all for now.      

My wife being off from her job

today was in bed by about 5:30am. When I have a day off and I'm in bed by 4am that's not a good sign for the next day having to much sleep on the 1st day getting back to work. She was up tossing and turning in bed waking me up at 8am this morning. I wasn't happy but I managed to get back to sleep, barely. I could use another 2 hours as it is. 

Looks like a nice day out there, sunny and -3C. I remember the day I moved into my first apartment here in Edmonton, March 15th 1985. I found the apartment that week and when I got my check on that Wednesday (working for the Army & Navy warehouse) right in the middle of the '80's. The Oiler's were winning Stanley Cups just about every year and it was  like one "big party." I was 32 years old having the time of my life. Well, sort of. Hard to believe that was 27 years ago. Weather wise it was a little warmer then we have it now but not by much

I was in bed by 1:30am this  morning listening to a bit of Coast. They were talking about Egypt and the pyramids and how researchers of today tried to recreate the moving of stones of similar size and they couldn't do it. They were even talking about this huge boulder excavators were trying to move recently and they couldn't move it without heavy duty equipment. How did the ancients move these huge stones? Some believe in the traditional method of thousands of workers painstakingly moving them inch by inch. Some have really esoteric ideas like sound waves, hot air balloons etc. I've heard a lot of different ideas. I even had the notion that the workers chiseled out the stone into pieces and it was melted down to form a cement like substance and poured into molds. But who today really knows? Anyway a full l8 hours from me today, so that's about all for today.