Our cat Sparky hasn‘t

been feeling well lately and Anne is just salivating over putting the cat down. I suspect her real motive in all of this is because we have 4 cats and she‘s having trouble keeping up with all of the cat litter cleaning. She went and bought this special kind of cat litter that helps keep “dust down.” We take turns feeding them. I feed them in the morning before I  leave and she feeds them during the day. She wants to take Sparky to the vet and I know what the outcome is going to be, put him down so I can spend what little savings I have and she says, “I‘ll pay you back”, yeah right. 

Our previous boss had this dog named Gus. A bulldog type of a dog. I liked Gus he was friendly and loved people. My boss would always bring him around in our old office. The dog had trouble with his rectal area over the past few months and the talk in the lunchroom was Gus had died over the weekend. Staff that knew my boss and the dog circulated a card of condolences.   

I had a slow typical day on the job. I got line hour for half a day. I didn’t feel all that tired at the end of the day getting home shortly before 10pm.    

At least some good news, is, the Oiler’s won this evening and the Flames lost. Anyway, that’s all for now. 

Yesterday I left out of here about 8:50am feeling

feeling pretty good. I went to get my breakfast at Tim's and this time I brought my insulin. I had a slow start to the morning but got a few sales and a card and did great sales wise after lunch. Then in the 2nd half, nothing. That was the  longest 2 hours I've had and I was certainly relieved to get out of there. It was overcast but mild. I didn't want to go out any where to spend any serious money except I indulged a little to get a coffee and a blueberry fritter at Tim's and caught the train for Clairview station and then home. I was inside by 5:30pm. 

Before I left Anne had asked me to call at 10am just before I began my shift to give her a wake up call. I'd forgotten 40 minutes later and I scrambled to the reception desk to use the phone. No answer. I called Donna (my wife's sister because she was to meet her at the airport and she needed to take the airport shuttle bus. Oops. I called Donna and she wasn't answering her phone. Anne had suggested I call I call at 3pm and I called earlier no answer. I called again and no answer. I wasn't feeling very good about the situation when I left kind of hoping they'd be outside as I left the front way. I could see Kyle and Warren by the front entrance to BP's but I don't think they noticed me, so I headed the other way. I probably could have used a beer.

I had a decent night though and the phone rang a lot while I was on YouTube and I thought it could be Ankit wanting to install those programs but I wasn't in the mood to deal with that sort of thing at that time. Then I picked the phone up and it was Anne worried about me. 

I was going to work Sunday because Anne wants me to gout with her and her sister over to Royal Pizza on the South side. Works for me then I noticed our Lodge WM in an email to me about Sunday's practice and he'd pick me up. Sunday at 6:30pm. I'll be having dinner with Anne and Donna. We haven't seen Donna in over a year and she usually pays our dinner on her company's expense account but I can afford my own. So I sent off an email to WM saying I wouldn't be at practice but I knew my part in the exam, I'd see him Thursday. I hope he got my message. 

Other then that, I'm going to have a nice weekend as I oped out for our last Sunday shift. I'm still going to have 33.5 hours in on my next check for next week anyways, so I'm ok with that. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I got my laptop back Wednesday night

and I haven't had much of a chance to get into it but I'm sure it's ok. We've got to install a few more programs in the partition before I can begin to download FL Studio, etc.
Other then that, I've been working all week. 

This morning when I went in for my morning commute I was surprised to see City Police checking for tickets? Where were ETS police? I learned latter that it's part of a City Police community initiative. Huh?

Yeaa, payday today and a full 8 hour day. When we go back to our regular Monday-Saturday shift February 1st Monday will be from 2-9pm, so in the morning of that day, I'm going to be looking for something else that pays better. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Finally I got my

Itouch fixed. It's working perfectly, almost. The only problem with it now is the Apple game centre. I'm not having much luck with the registration part.

Also, I got a call earlier this afternoon from Keith saying he's going to work on it tonight and I could either meet him at Clairview or he can bring it in. I should have asked him what's easiest for him but I suggested bring it into the office Tuesday and I can take it home with me after work. 

That's 2 pieces of good news. Wait, there's more. I was watching The Sharks/Oiler's game at Rexall and the Oiler's scored first. Usually when they don't score the first goal, they're something like 4-16-something. Sure enough they scored the first goal with good ol' Dubnyck. The Oiler's won in a shootout 2-1. If Khabibulin was in goal, the Oiler's would have lost for sure 3-1. 3 pieces of good news today.

The reason why I went with something SF then book #2 of the "Song of ice and fire" is because I don't want to get burned out reading this series and lose interest, so I went with another series and something in first person. I'll read it in March or when I'm done with this, anyway that's all for now.
 

No laptop

so far today but I think I'll have it Tuesday night.

I'm just about ready to wrap up "A game of thrones." and I'm ready to begin book #2.

My wife went to the Clairview medi centre earlier (something I should) and they gave her some kind of pills to take. The Doctor told her she had bronchitis. That's probably what I have and if I don't get any better, then I'll be heading there as well.

This kind of old news but according to Science fiction today, George Lucas said he is retiring from making blockbuster films. That's kind of sad because I'd like to see another trilogy of the main original characters (those still alive) as a kind of a last hurrah's adventure. I'm sure Lucas has thought about this before but how many of the original actors at their age would agree to do it? < Anyway, here's a link to the story.

This week I want to go in hard and put in a full 38 hour work week to save some funds for the Korg SOS, my next project. Anyway, that's about all for now.

My afternoon was slow

but in the evening I had a fantastic night. My best day ever since we came over to the new office.

I called LM yesterday morning before I left out of here and yes they have K8 I might end up getting it regardless after work on Saturday and head over to Wendy's for a burger or something.

After work I went to catch the #5 bus after a wait and I needed to use the bathroom bad. I got to my bank to take out $20 and to check my balance so I'll have enough to get K8 if I decide to get it. Keith wasn't feeling well so I doubt he did anything to my laptop I'll probably get it back on the weekend, we'll see.

Well the Oiler's dropped another one last night in St Louis. It was a 1-0 Sl win so the Oiler's just before the Allstar break have 38 points 7 points ahead of lowly CBJ. The way things are going this season the Oiler's could be in last place again as I think that's the direction they are headed, again.

Seems some Ipad customers pulled a prank at Future shop, best Buy and London drug stores over the Christmas holidays and took out the Ipads and stuffed th boxes with clay. I got the link from i09. It's cute story but for some reason escaped my attention. < so here's the link to the story.

 

I don't ordinarily watch US politics but this year I'm looking over my shoulder. On one hand I'd like to see Obama get in because he could be the only thing that stands between SOPA yet I'd also like to see the Republicans get in because they'd put the Keystone pipeline through. They don't want our oil heading to China. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I've been hearing smatterings and bits of

rumors but when I went to Wikipedia yesterday, imagine my surprise when I discovered SOPA and its consequences. After reading up some more about it I'm  more fearful about the demise an armageddon of the internet then ever before I hope it doesn't pass.

The other thing: I watched the news last night and Obama turned down the Keystone pipeline. It can reapply again and another attempt will be made in 2014. The thing that bugs me is that the pipeline was stopped at Nebraska. I'm asking if there was no opposition to the pipeline beyond that, why don't we just stop there why don't we build the pipeline just before Nebraska ship the oil out from there? Seems like Americans would rather have conflict oil then oil from Canada. So I'm asking myself, why do we need to ship any of our oil to them at all, ever!

I'm calling LM in the morning and if they don't have Komplete 8 I'm getting the Korg SOS and the Vita game system. They might not have both but Future shop will have Vita and the Itouch 4th gen.

I went in for 4 hours last night and I had a decent night. It was cold going in but I bought a 6/49 ticket at the Redimart I brought my power supply and cable to Vinny so hopefully I'll have have my laptop Friday or Saturday morning and if LM has K8 I might just get it or the SOS and then go to Future shop and get the Vita. Anyway, that's about all for now.  

When I went into work this morning

I left the apartment and it was -30 with a -40 windchill but surprisingly it wasn't all that bad out there heading into the office or even coming home. 

I had a better day of it today and I tried a few things from my co-workers. The best part of it was I stayed in it for the full day. Also, our Sunday shift was canceled as of the end of this month and we're back doing Mondays again which is ok by me except I'm going to negotiate having Mondays off unless its Lodge night other wise, this gives me 37.5 hours also changed and back is Friday's we're off at 8:30am again. So if this works in my favor, I'll have Saturday nights off Sunday and Monday (unless it's Lodge night of course)

The other thing is my hard drive will have to be completely reformatted. This means no factory default They're going to install Win 7 and I get MS Office and that's it! I get a bare bones system. I'll have to reinstall all my programs etc but I have a lot of stuff backed up I can reload, like a lot of photos etc and I get my wifi back so I can transfer a lot of things between my desktop and laptop if I have to. I'll have to reinstall I tunes FL Studio etc.

Just as I'm getting a little better Anne has to get the flu. Nice. But I still  have last weeks check and next weeks and the 27th so that's 2/3rds of February's rent right there. Hopefully all Anne has is the 24 hour flu and she'll be up and about in a few days me, I'm feeling a lot better. Now there's another item I need in order to have my laptop restored: My laptop power cord. I've got that ready to go for the morning. If all goes well, I should have my laptop fully ready to go Friday night. Saturday after work, I'm going out to buy (if they have it in stock) at LM Komplete 8. If Kontakt 5 has everything in Kontakt 4, that and FL Studio is all I'll ever need. In theory. Anyway, that's all for now.

This post is kind of an amendment to

yesterdays post on memories.

For some reason I've been thinking a lot about Dave lately and wondered what became of him. I checked the golf club and they showed a group photo of the employees, chefs, pros etc. They even had contact info (email) from some of the staff. I couldn't find Dave's name, even as "superintendent." If he stayed with the golf course he would have been super by now. So this might hint at something like he might have been passed for super, which is why he (USS) might have left. The only way to know for sure is to call the golf club. At least I got a phone # and I might call it this week.

Monday night Raw was ok. Not great, but ok. On a scale from 1-10, I'd rate it a 7.5.

I'm not over this cold

by any stretch of the imagination but my voice is still hoarse and raw in places. I've got no choice but to return back at it for Tuesday, tomorrow. In the morning temperatures are supposed to be about -33 with a windchill of -40. When I;m crossing Jasper Ave and 106th street heading North, temperature should be about -31! Waiting for that 30 second cross light to change will seem like an hour. Tomorrow will be the coldest part of the week though as it's supposed to warm up. By this time next week, we should be back up to about -7.

I've got about another 170 pages left in reading "A game of thrones" and I should have it read by the end of this month.

I came very close to getting 2nd laptop this afternoon but the model I wanted was thankfully out of stock. More coming in on Thursday for a Friday pick up? The laptop is a AMD quad core 750 Gb 6 Ram for just under $600 but all I need do tomorrow is to reformat and repartition the hard drive. I need to reinstall FL Studio, Asio, Fast track, my Oxygen 49 controller. Also, if LM has it in stock, I'm picking up Komplete 8 and I could get that Saturday afternoon. 

I decided that I'm going to have Sunday's off from now on of course unless there's a Lodge meeting. I'll work the Sunday. I'm obviously not getting the wage review I passed from the wage review last October. Anyway, that's all for now.

The unseasonal conditions

that we have enjoyed since the beginning of November have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. As of about 2pm yesterday the air was brisk and you could feel things were changing. By the time I left the office yesterday it was snowing heavily although it wasn't that cold. Anne and I agreed I should stay home and we'd go into the medical centre Monday. Overnight however, it became colder -20 with a -32 windchill This is our first -20 degree temperature of the season.

I woke up around 1pm and read until about 3:30pm. I'm feeling a lot better even though I've got a raspy kind of a cough and there's some blood in my mucus after bringing it up and spitting it in the waste basket and there's less episodes of coughing. I'm still going to go to the medi centre Monday afternoon.

I had this dream of sorts, more of a snapshot of a memory from my childhood. Dave and had this idea that we'd dig this big hole out in his backyard as an entrance to this underground headquarters we wanted. A glorified tree house. I think his dad got mad and put an end to that idea before we hit a gas pipe or something. Another escapade of ours in the early 1960's. I went to Google earth again as I often do to take a look at the old neighborhood. I remember the "big house" on the corner of Smith & Hailey. Fast forward 1970-2012 42 years later the big house is gone and so is the nice hedge that ran from the alley and around the corner onto Hailey. There's another house there now but the veranda of Dave's house still exists along part of the front and the South side of the house. I tried looking up Dave on Facebook but so far no luck. I'm not even sure he and Terry even live in Coquitlam anymore. I didn't hang out with Dave all that much in my 20's. Dave was working at the golf club in the 1970's. I hooked up with him again in the early 1990's and I think he was still working for the club even at that time but even then that was 21 years ago. Dave would be a few years younger then me but not by much. I think I got a phone call from Dave & Terry saying they may be in a position to come up to Edmonton to visit but like I said that was 21 years ago. I'm almost ready to call the golf club and ask for Dave but I think maintenance would be closed for the weekend. I probably could call the golf club and get a recorded voice mail if you want bookings press "1" type thing.

Ok enough of that, the The Kings/Oiler game is on like in 10 minuets and if the Oiler's don't get the first goal, it's over. Anyway, that's all for now.
 

I feel I'm getting better a little bit each day

but far from out of the woods just yet.

I've got another 5 hours ahead of me but I don't mind a Sunday shift. It happens every other Sunday but management is fickle and always tries to "change things" so this Sunday shift introduced I think in September will be short lived as management changes as well. Since I've been with this company, this is my 3rd office, my 4th general manager, 11 managers, 2 name changes latter and the people I've seen come and go from this place is staggering so I'm not worried whatever they through at me.

And on that blessed note, anywaw, that's about all for now.

On the train during my morning commute I realized

a couple of things: I left my insulin at home and I forgot the Linux install disk. Rats.

My Saturday morning commute was under a cold -6 overcast sky. You could feel the weather pattern changing. Colder weather is on its way. I got a Tim's breakfast and grumbled to  myself where were staff to let me inside? I didn't need to do this in the Baker Centre. Finally James let me in and I found my station and I had my breakfast in the lunchroom. Keith said after work he'd help me out.

My voice was holding up better then Thursday but not by much. By this time next weekend my check will be a 3rd of the size it is now but it all goes to my wife. Noon break came around and I already had a couple of sales and a card. From noon until 2pm was slow as I only had 1 sale and my voice wasn't holding up very well at all. At break I headed outside down to Tim's and what a difference in the weather. There was a real bite to the air. I got 1 more sale on a card and someone said "finally, here comes the snow." As bad as I was sounding and all I stuck it out for the full 6 hours and those 6 hours went by fast. 

I brought my laptop into the reception area and opened it up. Keith tried and so did Vinny but with out the install disk, not much can be done. So Keith said for me to call him at 8 this evening and hopefully over the phone he'll be able to help me out. Failing all of that, I might have to bring it in tomorrow...again.

So, I'm going to grab a nap for an hour and give him a call. Anyway that's about all for now. 

I was ready to go in this morning

but at the last second Anne said ok, go in for 4pm. Then when we woke up around 1pm as I was in a savage bronchial coughing attack she said I'm staying in for the day. I called J and I said I'd see him Saturday morning. And I'm bringing my laptop to see if Vinny an do a quick diagnostic and see if he can recover my win 7 over the next few days. I'll bring my back up drive in as well.

Sunday after work Anne and I are heading over to the medi centre to see what's going on with this cough/cold or whatever it is. 

This evening I watched what I thought was going to be a better Oiler hockey game. The injury ridden Oilers were 4-14- something when the other team gets the first goal but that stat wasn't made available to my knowledge until the post game show on the radio. Sam Gange and Hall were the only players that showed up tonight. Too lose 5-0 to a team in the standings behind the Oiler's after the Oiler's lost 5 straight is deplorable. With LA Kings coming in here Sunday, I won't mind being at the midi centre with Anne. With the way the Oiler's played tonight I can say for this evening "Oiler's suck".Anyway, that's all for now. 

I met one of my co-workers

across the street and he gave me an update saying one of the big bosses has been here lately. The boss noticed me looking ill right away and recommended I go home for a couple of days. I said I'd like to try and stay for the afternoon. I ended up with one sale but I knew the difference between me with one sale and everyone else with 2,3,5 sales was my cold. I called Anne at 3pm and said I'd be home this evening and wasn't to cozy with the idea which kind of put me off because earlier she said if I have to even take the whole day off, I could. I needed the hours and I went in and tried it out but with my voice, I was crashing and burning as the rest of the afternoon went on. I told J I'd be calling it a day and heading home. No protest from him.I went to the Baker Pharmacy and picked up a bottle of cough medicine and walked over to the train.

I forgot to take some toilet tissue home with me leaving it at my station bad mistake. I was dripping with mucus on my commute home trying to read at the same time. I had to blow it out after the trains left and I was the only one there. Messy.

I got home about 5:30pm. It was a short day and not entirely unproductive, I talked with Vinny about my laptop woes and he's going to take a look at it tomorrow for me. Anyway, that's about all for now.

.

I had to call in sick again

Anne gave me a sleeping pill and about 4am and some reading later, I went to bed and passed out

I'm coughing, runny nose, watery eyes. My sinuses are plugged up but at least my voice is more or less returning and I'm going through a roll of toilet tissue a day.

But I'm going into work tomorrow. My check next week will be pretty low but I have savings in my bank for rainy days like this

Weather wise, we're supposed to get winter on the 15th down to some -20 days. We haven't had a -20 this season. There's only a dusting of snow out there now.

But I need to get back to work so I can make some money. As it is now with me going back tomorrow for 8 hours, I'll have Thursday 8 Friday 8 Saturday 6, which is only 22 hours. I won't get anything out of this check myself but next week I'll have 37 hours as I'm taking Saturday off for Lodge. The other reason I need to get back to the office I need to get some info on this grub rescue so I can get back into my laptop.

This weekend I'm thinking about getting the Epiphone Dot ES Studio guitar. I think I saw it on the LM website on sale. All of these guitar software emulators aren't so much expensive as their sound libraries are so large. "Electricity" for instance has a 52 Gb sound library. I have about 32 Gb left over but you can hear its Midi. With a real guitar all I have to do is plug it into my audio interface and into my Guitar Pro 6 tweak the sound a bit and I'm there. I don't need an amp or a stomp box, every things right there. No Sound libraries, nothing. 

I tool 2 incidents of cough medicine swallows so far this morning and 1 more before Anne leaves for her job. 

Ok by now most of you reading this has heard about the Gateway pipeline project but like the McKenzie valley pipeline (which has been under construction since 2010) this pipeline line is years away from completion. I'm not opposed marketing our oil to Asia it's just the question of the route. I think Prince Rupert would be better then Kitimat. Just having the pipeline running over rocky terrain like this is an accident waiting to happen. The area is prone to avalanche slides, not to mention soil erosion could tale out a section of the pipeline and then you have a disaster in the making and never mind negotiating those tankers out of narrow fjords. Now I'm thinking instead what we ought to do is refine the oil here and transport the oil down by tankers. I've heard something like 1 million barrels of oil/day. I did some research and came up with this from yahoo answers: 

"Supertankers" are generally defined as those greater than 250,000 tonnes deadweight (meaning the maximum weight they can carry when fully loaded). Today's supertankers, on average, can carry about 2 million barrels or 84 million gallons of crude oil and petroleum product. The largest supertanker in the world is the Norwegian-owned Knock Nevis which is 647,955 tonnes deadweight and can hold 4.1 million barrels of petroleum. Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/pdf.pdf

That's a lot of oil in one of those suckers. But it's also not like there's a dozen tankers out there waiting waiting to come into port everyday. I don;t think there's that many available tankers for this thing. So 2 million barrels at $101/barrel as of this post translates into rough $2 Billion/tanker/day. Of course my figures are just ballpark estimates the price of oil changes daily. Right now it's high, by August it could be back down to $43 something. 

The other thing about this is aboriginal groups. Special interest groups outside Canada are playing these aboriginal people for fools. They're playing the environment fear mongering card at the end of the day it's all going to come down to money. Who wants it more? How much money is this going to cast us? Its all going to come down to how much do you want? Everyone has a price.

If my math is right at $2 Billion/oil tanker/day that's a lot of cash. That's a lot of cash, if it ever comes into fruition. 

Ok, enough of that. I took another shot of cough medicine, which seems to help but I'm running out. So on tap tonight is the Oiler game. I didn't buy a Proline or a 6/49 ticket as I haven't been out since Saturday. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Your having a good shift when

you have a couple of sales in a 4 hour shift totaling anywhere from $120-200. That's a good 4 hour shift. I don't like the office lay out. I took a negative look at it the first day we moved in December 13th. Ive had so far 15 days there and it's an office that's hard to get used to. There's a lot of things I don;t like about the office: Firstly, the lunchroom. Lets begin there, which is about the size of hour living room. There are 4 tables from the old office, which can seat about 9 people. Then there are these little cuby hole areas about 5 of them. So roughly about 14 people can sit in the lunchroom. before I get a chance to get a seat, there are at least 8 people already there and the rest of the staff occupy whats left over. People are moving all around in the cramped little area. Plus there's a camera watching everyone. Most time's I've been reduced to sit in the stairwell and the elevators are shut down after 4:30pm to even use the bathroom. Secondly the lighting in the office is bad enough and hard on the eyes. We're all in these little pods. It's not very comfortable.There's no place where one can get away for a bit of privacy. it's not so much the office it's the work. We're using VOIP to do the calling and many times if you want to perform an action on the calls by using the "hot keys" there's a slight delay. The office looks like it was put together on a budget. I don't like  using a mouse. At the end of the day, I've got a headache.

I meant to head out over to "Alberta Works" (AW) yesterday morning but I didn't sleep very well from about 7-10am. Before I do this though, I'm going to ask that lady if we can get down together to help do my resume before. I'm thinking Saturday at break that way she can print me off a copy and I can have soft and hard copy to work with. If we can get together to do this Saturday and I can get my copies next week, then I can get down to AW for the 23rd and at least get the ball rolling. I'd love to get a nice little "Security Guard Job" (sgj) in an office building where I'd be a bum in a chair. I'd get myself the laptop and a cell phone, to call Anne. Also, this will buy me some time to see if iM would pay me the raise on the next check. If iM doesn't pay me the $1/hour raise, then they're telling me it's time to take a hike. On the week of my resume, I'm checking out a couple of guard companies and I'll put my name in and see what happens. I'll even take the same wage I'm getting now. But if Friday they don't give me my wage increase, I'm out of iM as soon as I can get another job. I'd rather work for Pizza 11-7 because when Lodge is light I can go to Lodge right after work Anyway, it's back to Hell today. That's all for now.
  

I thought the two were unrelated

so I did some checking around on how to delete a New Volume partition on my laptop with Windows 7. I went through the steps. Lets turn off the computer and see if  I got more hard drive space. I get the opening Acer logo and then a command line: Grub recovery (waiting for a response.) Fortunately for me I still have my desktop Xp system (slow). Ten minutes later I was checking the web for this Grub recovery and discovered its a Linux recovery application for when Linux (running beside my Windows 7) gets removed by accident or shut down without being prompted to do so. Great way to start off the New Year! 
When I go back to work tomorrow I'm going to ask Vinay or Keith or anyone of the "brown guys" as James calls them, how do I get back to Windows and bypass this Grub recovery. If I could do it from here today, I'd remove Linux altogether. 

Today I have a day off but no hockey, the Oiler's don't play again until I think on Wednesday. The good news if they can get on a roll and healthy and with a winning streak they might make a run for the last play off spot but that's a lot of if's. 

Today, I'm relaxing and reading. I've got Monday night Raw for this evening. Since I can't get into my laptop I can't make any beats. I was thinking about going down to LM and pick up Komplete 8 if they have it there but I don't like shelling out all that money when my job unlike last year was more or less safe. This year, it's a new company and anything can happen. We don't have taps yet for HDI as this campaign we're on now is realativley new so for the most part were calling cold. Other offices have our good campaigns. Anyway, that's about all for now.

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.

Its been a rough start to the year

for me to say the least. I just got back from a 10 day leave and hadn't even put in a full day except my first day (Tuesday), so it's been hard to gather momentum. Wednesday and Thursday we're also half days and yesterday my 2nd full day getting back was bad for everyone yesterday for the firrst half and then 6 of us are doing another campaign with WW2 Veterans. So this week was hard for me to get things going sales wise. Yesterday I had no sales but the boss wasn;t expecting any of us on the new campaign to actually get anything as this was just the learning curve part of it thought it was kind of disheartening because out of us six I was the only one with nothing on "the board" at the end of the day. I'm sure it's going to pick up today. I like the new campaign.

This morning I'm starting the day off fresh with a bite to eat at Tims and I'm taking my insulin along with me.

Last night I got my first check with my back pay and vacation pay. I don't have my vacation pay on my check like most of the staff do. If it wasn't for the uncertainty of my job I would have gone out after work to get he new laptop but because of my job situation, I'm kind of holding off that for the time being. I'm considering quad core 1Tb situation with 6-8 Ram. But I can't justify the laptop at the moment. If the job situation was ok, then sure but as it stands now I'm on a bit of a tight rope.

Today I've got 6 hours ahead of me and I'm making the most of it. This morning it's down to Tim's for some breakfast and then I'm going hard on the job today. After work if i had a decent day, I'm going out with the guys across the street to BP's I'm buying a picture of beer and after that it's home have a nap and watch the Oiler's game as I'm back at it for 5 hours Sunday. Anyway, that's all for now.

We had a small crowd

at Lodge last night. I think we had 17 guys there including 2 guests.

I got another 8 hours ahead of me. This campaign has got to be the most toughest yet. The script is way to long. Most of the people I was able to reach, fell under these categories: Seniors on fixed incomes, "I don't think my politics are any of your business,"(lots of those) as soon as I get that attitude, I hang up right away, lots of unemployment, gatekeepers, lots of wrong numbers, lots of answering machines, lots of "not homes" No English, a few deceased, moved, and after all of the above, I might be able to pitch to maybe about 10% of these and not even the tax credit motivates these people. $50 the cost to them is like $12.50. I get a lot that say "Can you send me information?" "I can't make a decision without my other half." And maybe in a 4 hour shift, I might be able to get one sale. After all of the above, they want a $55 line hour? My first day I got a $200 sale and I got a $100 this week, but by and large this is a tough campaign. Id much rather do C4K cold, or even "Oldtimer hockey" then this. And they should give us a choice. For those that have a total,keep them on the politics, for those that are struggling,put us over on something else. I got 8 hours of this today, 6 hours of it Saturday and 5 hours Sunday before I have a day off.

I'm thinking about going to Edmonton #7 Tuesday. They have crib night and finger food. Should be a good time and they are a York Rite Lodge as well.

If I have a job by the end of the month,I'll be very surprised. Anyway, that's about all for now.    

Those 10 days

sure go by in a hurry. I’m back at it today in the office at noon, uggh.

This week I’ve got lodge and I’m going to set up a time to have one of the people at work, work with me over a resume, something I can just copy and past in an email. If things don’t improve with the job, then I could be forced out to look for something else. I’m going to wait until they through me out, I’m not going to quit.

Other then that, it’s going to be a lame week folks. Not a great way to start off the New Year. Today I’m at the office from noon-9pm same thing with Wednesday. Thursday I’m off due to Lodge night and pay off my Lodge dues and that‘s going to be a huge chunk of coin but at the same time its going to be the best part of the week. Then I’m working noon-9pm Friday and Saturday 10am-4:30pm. That’s going to be a long 30 hours, but I’ll have stat pay in there as well.

Well, finally the Oiler’s won one on this road trip. About time. The boys head into Buffalo tonight and I won’t be able to catch that. The game probably starts at 6pm and I could run over to BP’s and catch the score. Because Anne is working Wednesday night I think after work I’m going to pop in for about 40 minutes and have a beer and head out in time to be able meet Anne on the way home. Sounds like a plan. Do that once a week will never hurt me. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Happy 2012 Bloggers!

Happy New Year to all my blog readers, family, coworkers and colleagues. Oh and even my few friends This is the first time I had to ring in the New Year, without Anne since t day we got married 11 years ago. Nothing serious, Anne is working at her call centre job taking Pizza orders. She’s working from 7:30pm last night until 4am this morning. There’s some perks that come along with the hours: Firstly, she gets paid double time from Midnight to Four am and the company will pay for her cab home, which is Ok. Bus service is running until 3am this morning and its free all day.


Usually local TV networks here show the last 5 minutes of the year and we see the last of Edmonton’s “First Night” especially the showcase being the fireworks but out of the 5 local networks, CFRN and CBC were absent. Channel 7 was showing a feed from Calgary of all places and Global was in Niagara falls. WTF? So we see no fireworks this year, nice to be on the ball guys. Thanks for the insult.


This year wasn’t a good year for me book reading wise: I read 5 books this year. “A game of thrones” will be for net year. But here are the books I read last year, taken from my webcam. That's Sparkey sleeping the New Year away.

This year, I plan on reading 1 book/month, well that’s the plan/ I’m going to read a lot more then this though. The best book I read this year was A. Lee Martinez “Automatic Detective.” The next book I plan on reading is “Space Vulture” Wolf/Meyers. But that’s after I’m done reading “A game of thrones.”

Hard to believe that if dad was alive today, he’d be 89 years old. He died at the age of 72 born January 1st 1922. I never met my grandfather. Mom or dad and one thing I’m going to do before I pass on is to do some genealogy since my family wont help me.

So it looks like I‘ll be able to pay off my Lodge dues for 2012 after all. At first I wasn’t because I figured, I’d be looking at about $60 and Anne said she’d give me $10 to help cover the cost of the dinner last night. It wasn’t necessary but it means I’ll be able to do that and have $20 left over to get me by until Friday. Also, WM emailed everyone and said how the EA candidate wont be able to make it for Thursday. I’m going to have an easy night Thursday, good stuff. Anyway, that’s about all for now.