Good news, bad news?

Good news is Winnipeg Finally got a NHL hockey team after 15 years! Bad news for Atlanta that saw 2 of their NHL teams leave to Canadian cities. That's not the "bad news." Winnipeg or whatever the team is going to be called, will have to sell 13,000 seats before. The City owns the team logo/name "Jets" and the former "Atlanta Thrashers" still might be called "The Jets" or even something else.

The bad news for me at least and it isn't really bad news: I got my "review" so I'm being moved back to residential but only for a month. My hours will be 12:30pm-9pm Tuesday, Friday. Less half an hour for Friday. It also kind of sucks because this means that I'll be getting my paycheck at 8:30pm. I can cash it at anytime but I like to be able to get out of here on a Friday afternoon, cash my check and go get a bite to eat. Now this means I have to cash it Fridays at about 9pm after everything is closed and get up early Saturday to work until 2pm but I get 2 days off. Like I said it's only for a short time. Anyway, that's all for now.

This was a decent Friday

I had a decent trip into the job and decided to move and I sold some tickets and got it on card and I sold a line listing as well, which was pretty good but that was it for the rest of the day. I called Anne at 2:30 and had a chat and we got our checks shortly before 4pm and we were released for the day. I headed out to my Scotia bank and put some cash away for FL Studio 10, which I should have before the July 1st Canada Day long weekend. The initial idea was to head over to Wendy’s on 50th street but the #2 bus I was on puttering trying to get out of the downtown core rush hour bottleneck. As I was approaching City Centre mall, turning the corner by the YMCA I figured, why not go get a bite to eat at Sizzling Wox and then I can check on those Star Trek Corps of Engineer books. I got only 2 items and a drink and went over to Coles. Heading upstairs on the escalator Telus a section of what they were offering and was that the Blackberry Playbook I spotted? So I went into Coles, they had 4 of the Star trek books. I was looking for Book #2 of this series as I can easily get book #1. Heading off the elevator to my right, I noticed “Fat burger.” So that’s where it is. I’ve been hearing some good things about this company. I went to the Telus area and had my first hand look at the Playbook. Its about the size of a trade paperback book. The guy powered it up for me and I noted it comes with a Kobo eBook reader. He said all they have for this version is wifi for now but we’re getting or have already got the 4g network here in Alberta and soon RIM is going to announce the Playbook with 4g. How cool is that?



After that I worked my way down Rice Howard Way towards Central station and went to get the LRT home. I got in at 6pm as the TB/BOS game was just getting underway.


But what a game that was! Both sides took no penalties. I don’t think that’s ever happened before in an NHL game 7. It was closing in on the half way mark and I had this feeling that whoever was going to score would win the game. Boston scored 1-0 and closed out the game to win. Their first time to the finale since 1990 and we know what team won that year! Also apparently because it’s a long weekend in the US, the media are saying that if an announcement about Atlanta is to be made it will be after the long weekend. Yeah right. I’m also looking in at placing a bet with Gerry I know I can’t lose. Boston or Vancouver. I say Boston to win. $25 bucks. Boston has Gary Bettman in their pocket.


I’m trying to find a way to get out of here about 1:30pm tomorrow so I can meet with Warren around 4pm. Then I can go get my RJS hardcover and get a beer with the boys and then head over to City Centre for a “Fat burger.” Anne will leave out of here at 3:30pm and I’ll be right on her heels by ten minutes and I should be in there by 4:30pm. The only thing is, after I have my drink I’ll be out of there at about 5:30pm at the earliest, there won’t be enough time to go have that burger. If I just come clean with Anne and say, I’m going to meet with Warren and little James for a beer after they get off work at 2pm but I’m not staying for any length of time. I’m going down there for 1 beer and then head on over to City centre mall for that “Fat burger” and home. I should be back by 6pm. That’s the idea and of course get my RJS book. Book first, then beer and then “fat burger.” Anyway, that's all for now.

I got a sale the first half hour

into shift for a listing and nothing after that all morning and all afternoon. I pitched 35 times and got nothing for my efforts. Everyone else except 4 of us were over $200 out of 10 of us. I'm convinced calling Winnipeg for anything in the Spring is a bad idea. Not even their own office wants to call this one. The good news my bank last week was good and I got a few nibbles for tomorrow and Monday.

At least the weather is nice at +18. There's a nice breeze out there. I love May and June. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Hey hey, we're finaly getting

some much needed rain around here today. Its especially good for all those forest fires out there and on the news their forecasting snow in Calgary.

So, last night the Vancouver Canucks scored in the 2nd OT period taking them into the Stanley cup finale. This is their 3rd visit in 40 years and their first since 1994. Now it's BOS/TB and BOS is winning in the 2nd 2-1 and it looks like(unless a miracle happens) its going to be Boston and Vancouver in the NHL finale, wow. Also, in keeping with the NHL theme here, I was reading this interesting article in todays Sun sports and in it some intersting details: In 1996 when the Winnipeg Jets left (because nobody would step up to buy the team.) ticket prices were an average $23 a ticket. When Anne and I went last October, tickets were $190 in the upper bowl! When calling into Winnipeg today most people I talked with were broke. No kidding with an NDP Government and taxed beyond belief? Anyway, there was no announcement that the Atlana Thrashers are going to Winnipeg, if at all. 

I had a decent day Tuesday on the job getting back to work, and a tad better today pulling in $140. At least I got a line listing.

Also, yesterday I finally got dbGlitch to load as a VST in FL Studio 9. I was wondering why I wasn't getting any sound and it was because I did not set up any Ins/outs in my mix master because it plays off the Host's Transport controls. I also got my AD program going and I found the DVS guitar  as well. Anyway, that's all for now.

That was a nice Vivtoria day long weekend

I checked the AD forum when I got up at noon and I got a reply! So I can manage my licenses from that page. I tried it and after fooling around for awhile, I looked closely and there was a code similar to my computer ID code. Is this the authorization code? I copied it down and closed off FL studio 9 and reopened it and entered the number and saw the process bar light up. Authorization successful! I went and closed that off reopened FL9 and opened the file and no dialogue authorization request! Yes. Works great. So I emailed a thank you reply to tech support, and replied a Thank you in the forum. I was kind of worried I wasted all that money for nothing, I couldn’t use the product etc. Everything is fine now, program installed registered and authorized, very happy. On with life.

Last night before bed I was watching a Star Trek movie “Generations.” This was one of my favourite Trek movies. Anne however informed me that Space doesn’t have “Doctor who” on and another channel up in the 400’s has it but we can’t use our PVR on this station. Seems space is overhauling their line up. I’ll have to check into this.

We’re getting some badly needed rain out there at the moment. Its not beading or teaming down or anything like that and its getting the sidewalk a little wet. We don’t get the rainfall that they do in Vancouver.

Anne’s still sleeping as its almost 2pm and I’ve been up for a couple of hours now and already had one coffee. By this time tomorrow I’ll be in the office hard at work. At least thanks for today it being a holiday here in Canada, its going to be a short week.

Tonight, I’ve got the TB/Boston series and Monday night Raw. That’s all on my plate for today. What would make my month is if Tuesday the NHL announces the Atlanta Thrashers are moving to Winnipeg and Vancouver takes out the Sharks and moves on to the Stanley Cup finale. I looked at some footage of when the Islanders won the cup and how small it looked compared to all the 30 years or so since then. I had a nice long weekend. Anyway, that’s all for now.

Why do these

software developers need to make software so difficult to register? The Addictive Drums install was a lot easier then I thought. To get it going inside FL Studio 9, I ad a channel click on Addictive Drums and it pops up in my Step Sequencer. I click on this and the AD panel pops up. The trouble I'm having is I authorized the demo ok but when I call up from my step sequencer in FL I see the AD panel behind the authorization process. They have my regkey. I enter the special number they generated for my computer and a Remove button pops up. I ignored it and began again and they say I have registered this product for 2 computers and the 10 day grace period countdown is under way.

Last night I watched Star Trek 3 "The search for Spock". I really enjoyed it. The only Star Trek's I didn't like were Deep Space 9 and the animation TV shows. I loved Enterprise and was disappointed when it was taken off the air. Other then the STOS and STNG, this has been the longest gap between any Star Trek TV shows since stos and next gen. I hope we don't have to wait 13 years for another television Star trek, or in this case 8 more years.

We're in the middle of a long weekend here in Canada and I'm loving it. Yesterday I felt my first bumble bee whizing along side my ear. I protected it making sure the cats didn't get at it and positioned the fan towards it in hopes the wind would blow it outside. It worked but it got trapped between the screen door the window cell and the frame but it found it's way outside after I closed the screen all the way.

What I like about Addictive Drums is on the Beats page, you can get a loop that you like in Verse, Chorus and Bridge modes. Plus FL Studio's Edison can record the loop into the piano roll and the loop can be edited from there. For example if there's too much open high hats I can edit them out as needed. I really like this product if only I can stabilize the Authorization process.

Today its brunch, Doctor Who, Game #5 of the Canucks/Sharks game. If the Canucks don't win this, they could be in big trouble come game #6 and could be faced with elimination. What screwed it for them was in game #4 when a Canuck forward took that stupid penalty behind Sharks goaltender. the Sharks took advantage of that and it was all Sharks in that home game. The Canucks really need a win on foreign turf tonight to get back in this series or up next Wednesday night they could face elimination.

Its so nice outside, little wind, warm about 20C although we could use some rain over night Anyway, that's about all for now.  

Not that I needed the

jacket this morning. It was nice all day. I got in feeling good and before break Dan taking over for Gerry said some of us had to move. I was kind of po’d about but I managed to sell some tickets all on card $80 worth. My only sale for the day. Dan moved me beside Carl and Don, (new guy) which I like both. I didn’t get the banner ad from Josh and I couldn’t connect to LM until later and they didn’t have “Beatstation” but they put the “Ez drummer” package back for me. Then I had the idea to call Axe music. They actually had “Addictive Drums” there and they would hold a copy for me as I’m an Axe customer. I asked if they had FL Studio 10 and the clerk asked me “Producer of Signature?” I thought Signature was going to be like $500 and he said its $317! Wow. I didn’t get any sales for the afternoon. I was the lowest total, again. We got out pay checks just before 4pm and out early. I walked with James over to the Scotia bank and cashed my check and then the train over to Rexall and then went to underneath the overpass at Rexall and caught the Montrose bus to the Axe. They had the program there for me and the clerk showed me the box for Fl Studio 10. Cool. This is my next project. I had a look around at the Synths and monitors. They had the M-audio axiom 25 for just under $125. After paying for my product I walked over to the LRT around Rexall and was met by the train announcing its about to pull in. I got home shortly before 5pm. Cool.

I’m going to go through the registration process tomorrow as I decided not to go to Lodge tomorrow. So, I’m going to register AD and install and have some fun. Anne’s got her $200, I’ve got enough diet cola and there’s dinner in the fridge and hockey on at 7pm. Plus I’ve got just under $100 here on me COH and 3 days off. Unless the “Rapture” takes over tomorrow. I’ feeling a sense of “Gloom” at the moment because this recent “end of the world” thing seems to be a world wide phenomena. I mean people aren’t jumping off buildings or anything and stocks aren’t crashing or anything like that. But the sense of trepidation is strong. The Metro paper even had a huge full page ad about this in the paper this morning. I’m pretty certain that the “end of the world” (version 2.0) isn’t going to happen. But I bet Coast will have a lot to say about it on their show tonight. When I wake up in the morning/noon-ish, the world will be pretty much the same. Cars will still parade up and down the street, people will still be going about their business, it’s kind of cute though. We were joking about it at work for awhile there. Anyway, that’s about all, for now…Or is this my last blog post? If so, it’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed my stay here. Hope you did to.

This upcoming

weekend is a long weekend here in Canada what with Victoria Day. Its my favorite long weekend of the Summer.

Yesterday I mentioned about how a CBC camera trained its lens on Darryl Katz and Gary Bettman, who were at the SJ/Vancouver game. Well, they had just received a call from Edmonton City Mayor Stephen Mandel that a principle framework for the downtown arena is a go. All that remains is to finalize some odds and ends and to get $100M from either the Province or the City or both. It also insures that the City keep the Oilers in Edmonton for another 35 years.

Oh, I meant to mention earlier that one of my random calls the computer made for me was "Absolute power." This is a video/computer game store for people that don't have powerful game computers who still want to game. They charge $35 for 10 hours or $3.50 hour to play. That's bot bad really. But at $35 week can get to be quite expensive. I can see myself going over there on a Saturday night to play a couple hours of "Warcraft" or say "Warhammer 40k." I might actually even look into this, time for bed. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Other then Monday

my morning buses seem to be running on time. I got into the office on time as usual, no problem. I got 2 sales right away and thought, ok, I'm going to have a good day. I got nothing from about am break until noon and nothing all afternoon from there and nothing on card. So it looks like Wendy's coming back and even though I just saw her from the top view apparently according to Keith, she's pregnant. Probably no doubt living in the Boardwalk ravine situation building. She;s always kept things on that level private and I heard she was in a relationship but I never pressed to ask her. Not that I was trying to look down that road, I'm a happily married man and I don't want to mess this up. Going after another woman is the farthest thing from my agenda.

At noon I went down and got a haircut from Jack "M'Lords" barbershop. He charges $15 but I gave him $20 he does good work.

The boss shut us down at 4pm but I wanted to continue on as I felt a sale coming on. On my way out I bought 2 6/49 tickets. The first one with my "Template numbers" the other one hand picked numbers. I just checked and I got one number on both $2 tickets and the draw picked 4 numbers all in the 40 range, yeesh.

We're finally getting a little bit of rain outside. It's just barely a trace hardly enough to wet the road. Anne's on her way home stopping off to get pop on her way back, so she should be here in about 10 minutes.

The SJ/Vancouver game was...amazing. The score ended up 3-7! This game reminded me of game #6 when the Oiler's shut down Carolina 5-2. The Oiler's owned the Hurricanes that night night on home ice and momentum was certainly going there way. I think that game was on a Thursday night and game #7 was the following Monday night. The Oiler's were one goal from winning it all and Carolina barely got that win. The in typical Kevin Lowe fashion, he dismantled that team and the Oiler's have never been able to recover since. Sure we have Tyler Hall and others, but as long as we have our current starting goal tender, we wont even make the playoffs. As a side note, the CBC camera spotted Gary Bettman was with Oiler's owner Darryl Katz sitting together high up in a press alcove with hand held's in hand. Wonder what that was all about? Anyway, that's all for now.

Yesterday while watching

Yesterday while watching hockey and Doctor Who, my daily does of our local news got put on the back burner. I discover while watching the weather channel this morning that the town of Slave lake 250 Km north of us got completely wiped out by a grass fire. Hundreds of homes and businesses destroyed. The whole town! Apparently it started by a grass fire and burned almost every house in the community including the Town hall as well. Other then black Friday 1987, which I lived through, this was the second largest disaster in Alberta‘s history. Incredibly no loss of life occurred.

The other news story I heard just before Monday night Raw, was that the NHL 2011-12 schedule is printed and apparently it has in it The Winnipeg Jets. I can not confirm or deny this but local news said that its almost certain that Atlanta Thrashers will be coming to Winnipeg. Wow! This doesn‘t make sense because last year the schedule wasn’t made public until a few days before the 2010 draft.

Ok Ubuntu is installed but I can’t get my wifi settings worked out. Vinay said something about “Refresh hardware devices.” I cant find that in my control panel, so I’m going to mention this to Keith and bring my laptop in on Wednesday.

It was this day Friday May 16th I recall that special weekend when Richard/Ellen and I were all together 31 years ago. The more I thnk about it the more I'm leaning over to the possibility that Richard didn't deposit his stuff in E because even though she was on the pill, she was only recently taking it. She might have got pregnant by Richard but i don;t think so.

So this morning I’m out there waiting for my bus and I know there are two Not in Service (Nis) buses that tear past me a minute or so apart. Ok the 2 Nis buses whiz by. Then I see what looks like my bus make a right turn onto 137th. I see a bus in crossing the street North of the 4 way and another that scoots behind. So I got 3 buses. The one in the turning lane and two coming up to the light standard. The 3rd Nis bus is in the turning lane. 3rd? The 4th Nis bus whips past me. Meanwhile the bus that actually had passengers behind the Nis bus doesn’t know that the bus in front of it is an Nis bus so it whips out into the turning lane thinking its going to pick me up. That’s 5 buses! Unbelievable! Finally I could see a bus coming down the Manning bridge. Is this the one? Finally it was and I got to the Clairview station at 8:15am and missed my train. I was getting a headache and my mood wasn’t exactly the best. I said to myself that if I don’t get any sales, I’m going home at noon. So in walks Carl to sit beside me. I like Carl. A year older then me. Good guy. So he says he’s leaving at noon already pre arranged and just before noon, no sales. I was getting a headache and my mood wasn’t helping me get any sales. Ten minutes into the 2nd half, I get a $100 sale and that’s all I got all the rest of the day. To say my day was long, is an understatement. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Having a decent day today

Anne brought pizza 73 home with her and some cheese pleasers (my favorite).

Also, I loaded up the Ubunto disk and it works fine. If this is any indication,I like Linux. I just have to get my wifi connection stable enough.

Anne called at about 7pm We were talking about the possibility of her taking a week off sometime in early July. That place is killing her.

This weekend it being the 14th of May, was the 17th where Richard, Ellen and I got together with a bottle of wine and an evening of debauchery. I recall how I had to use Richard's bike to the nearest ALCB to get the wine, which was located around the area of "Beaver Hill park" to get the wine. I think Richard was ahem "with Ellen" depositing his stuff in her because he was big into this transfer of his "elixir" to gain "magical power" over others men. He did that once with me with his other girlfriend a year later. Of course I had no knowledge of this at the time.That was one of the best times in my life, that evening. Then of course there was "The Empire Strikes back" movie, May 1980 was awesome.

I just watched game #1 of the TB/Boston series, which resumes on Tuesday. The score was 5-2 for TB. Game #1 SJ/Vancouver is tomorrow at 5:30pm. There is a strong possibility that Atlanta Thrashers could be picked up by Winnipeg and the current cone of silence will be lifted and a deal done before the 2011 NHL draft. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I would have posted yesterday but Blogger was down

I had a leisurely commute in this morning with my laptop and the extension power cord just in case the Ubuntu install etc was going to be longer then I expected. Keith was going to leave at noon for personal reasons but said he’d return before the end of the shift. To our delight Gerry ended it early at 2pm. I hung around for awhile waiting for Keith using one of the East Indian kids (Said’s) Iphone which he activated his hot spot so I could use to get email, surfing that kind of thing, while I waited for Keith. Keith returned at 3pm and I forgot to call Anne but Keith got into the Bios so we could have my laptop boot from Cd. He got the disk working but he didn’t have the time to install the other 2 pieces of software for me but I’m to call him Sunday night and he’ll let me know if he can install it for me Monday. He stressed that before I decide to install Linux I back everything up, get some DVD’s and back up. But I have a 250Gb hard drive. I went to Future shop immediately after work and had a look around at the DVD’s. The clerk there said DVD’s can only back up 5Gb’s at a time. Not good. I knew external hard drives were affordable more now then a year ago. The clerk showed me this 1TB external drive by iomega, for $110 the price was right. I paid for it with cash and unpacked my laptop, set it up and opened the tiny box. Was this it? All I got was a black box the size of a pack of a Iphone, no software. I read the small “quick start guide,” (in 8 different languages) set it up and it was working like a charm. 3 hours latter and at only 45% done Anne had called and I updated her. I went to Superstore to get pop and returned and it was at 62%. I read some more from my Star Wars book, watch the end of a Garry Cooper western the back up process was done. I went to “My computer” and the drive shows up as about 30% full. Great. I just wish the back up was a little faster. Other then that, for a Friday the 13th, I had a great day… so far. Anne isn’t home yet. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Despite not having a good day on the job

I had a good day.

Hard to believe this is the 31st anniversary of my diary!

kind of but not really watching the Vancouver/Nashville game. Anyway, that's about all for now.

That was easier then

I thought.

I followed the directions from the YouTube video and I created a 20 Gb partition drive for Linux Ubuntu 14. I want this drive to run only Linux but i'm not quite ready to install Ubuntu yet. I need a USB flash drive and I can get a 4gb one at Future shop in the morning before we go for lunch. Ubuntu says a Cd is needed as an installer or a USB key. Since I don't have either at the moment, I'd rather get the key. I'll get the key on our way back from brunch at The Source and then go get my Star Trek SCE book and home.

If all works well, I should have brunch today, USB flash drive, book and Ubuntu loaded on the 20Gb partition I created about an hour ago. Once I have Ubuntu on that drive, I can load up Rosegarden and Hydrogen. There are a few other apps I want to get as well but Hydrogen looks really cool.

I've been developing "dry eyes" lately. This is a product of diabetes. Sigh, what else is new?

I've made up my mind. If my income tax return comes in this week along with my pay check, I'm goingto get the PS3. For several reasons, firstly to play games the Xbox 360 doesn't have, second for the Blue Ray player. Anyway, that's about al for now.

I'm having a

decent Saturday evening. Anne's at work and I'm having the night off.

I was poking around YouTube over the past couple of days and I came upon this DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) on the Linux platform called Rosegarden. Then I came across this cool drum machine called Hydrogen. Rosegarden lets you draw notes in on a musical staff, which is pretty cool. Both programs are free. I'd like to start playing with both but I need to download Linux and I've never played around with this before, so I'm in uncharted waters here.

Apparently it's a good idea, (so I've been hearing on the web) to make a partition drive (currently I'm on Windows 7.) I've got a good tutorial on how to make a partition drive and it seems straight forward enough. The only thing I'm uncomfortable about is the formatting of said new drive for my Linux files. What if this formatting affects my files on my C drive? Once I have the drive formatted, then I'm good to go. I'll download Linux and the two mentioned programs above. I'll draw up some courage and give it a try. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Lodge this evening wasn't bad.

The boss let us out half an hour early at 4pm and I hurried home. I got into the apartment I think about 4:45pm. I called some people to get some details about tonight if we were just meeting at Highlands Hall or holding an opening/closing type thing. it was the latter. We did that for about half an hour and then we piled into 3 cars to Freemason Hall. It wasn't bad.I learned a few things in my 2nd Canadian Rite appearance this Spring. After it was over I left out of there about 9:30pm, not wanting to partake in the festive board. I met Anne at Bay Station shortly after 10pm and now we're home.More tomorrow. Sorry for any spell o's here. 

Since Sunday, its been

a crazy couple of days. First the surprise of the decade was the death of Bin Laden. That was a shocker. Then last night the dreaded of all Federal election. Harper won a majority which I was kind of hopeing for. Also yesterday I had trouble again with my income tax return. They had (again) sent my tax return to my old address on 156th street, across from the Jasper Place Legion. Anneand I were wondering why it’s been taking them so long to send me my return. They sent it to my old address on 156th street. So it was returned. After some securiy questions reconfirming my current address, (they have it correct now-I think.) so they said they will send out to my current address Wednesday and I should receive it in about 10 days. I hope.

I couldn’t sleep well early this morning so I read about a dozen pages from my Star Wars book, which take place long after the last movie where Anakin and his brother Jacen are the Sons of Han Solo. At least in the New Jedi order timeline. But this is not a spin off what if, as to my knowledge the franchise hasn’t taken that route yet. I’m enjoying this book.

I had a just slightly under a 50-50 day. Durring the afternoon as I got up to go to the bathroom my left ankle cramped up on me and it was hard to walk. The problem continued again when I left out the building. Its been windy all day with some strong gusts. I was so tired I almost slept on the train.

I’m kind of watching the Vancouver/Nashville game tied at 1 and I thinkk Vancouver is going to lose this game. Speaking of which in our office pool, I went from 1st place Saturday down to 7th place today, crazy. Anyway, that’s all for now.