Well it was 25 years

ago, Friday was our infamous "Black Friday." hard to believe it was 25 years ago on that afternoon. I was 34 years old working for the Army & Navy Cobogo warehouse (now called Cobogo lofts) I recall a torrent of rain while I was standing on the roof of Cobogo enjoying the rain on a slow work day. I didn't know what was really happening until I got home (9710 156th street #305) about 5pm that afternoon. When I got home my caretaker (I was paying the rent) had said how we had got a Tornado. We were looking at the sky from her 2nd floor balcony facing West and some of the clouds were actually green. I got a call from my parents living back home in Coquitlam BC (lower mainland) hoping I was alright. On the news later it had been confirmed that 27 people had been killed. It still brings back memories 25 years later.

 
At this moment, I'm not that far away from the location in this video.

We'll I'm back to work in the morning. Not a lot going on for today. It's just a regular 8 hour working day.

I was reading in "Above Top Secret" just now that James Holmes' father is Robert Holmes who is about to testify within the next few weeks before a US Senate panel on the largest bank fraud scandal in world history that is currently unfolding and threatens to destabilize and destroy the Western banking system. I don't know if we can connect the dots here or anything but it's interesting coincidence.

Apparently James Rhodes is still going to be playing the role of Captain America "The Winter soldier." This is the working title of the proposed film and I hope they stick with it. I like it. Captain America is one of my favorite comic book hero’s, still is.

Coast has a bunch of soft shows this week. Nothing to get excited about.

There's only 2 CFL games on this week because it's a by week. Two teams from the East and Two teams from the West play. Four teams only 2 games until all teams have a week off. Maybe there's a MLB game I can parley against the two teams. or I might just wait until the normal schedule returns in week #8. The CFL does this every year. Anyway, that's about 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.

to tie, did. I picked the Riders to win but that game was tied and the Argo game last night was tied. A tie game in Proline/CFL is within 3 points and now it's half time and BC/Calgary and this game looks like its going to be a 3 point game. I'm picking all ties next week.

What a day I had today doing OPC and I got $30 bucks worth of bonus money last night and $10 today, so I'm going to have a nice check next week. Other then a few days of low totals and the couple of fights Anne and I had and made up, this week has been really good. I needed that solid day today.

I haven't got things firmed up for Fort Edmonton for next weekend but I'll call tomorrow just to make sure that my volunteer partner and I are on the same page here for next weekend.

After work as I stated briefly in a Twiter post I went Audrey's said I'd pick up  my 2 Star Wars books and after that I went to Rexall Drugs to get a 6/49 ticket then to Tim's for some of their lasagna and it was really good and it filled me up. I just took the train after that and of course the usual 5 minute wait in the tunnel. All in all today was a great day except that last hour where nothing was going my way sales wise.

Now I have a couple of days off to relax and work on my music now that the last of this CFL week is underway now.

The gang after work went down to Victoria Park for a get together and Tim brought a whole bunch of KFC for the gang and of course in a "responsible but controlled manner," lots of beer but I didn't go because I didn't want to get eaten alive by the bugs out there.

So, the Northern Gateway pipeline could be stalled because of this war of revenue sharing between BC and Alberta. I can see both arguments but this is something bigger then royalties. The whole pipeline is worth about $82B over a 30 year period. Crazy. Anyway, that's about all from me for today.

I woke up about

11:40am Monday and called LM to see if they had the Mustang 1 guitar amp and the Bullet strat. Yes for both. I left out of here about 12 noon and got to Clareview and downtown listening to some tunes on the way to Corona. After a breif sweaty humid walk to LM they had the guitar and amp waiting for me. Great. They wraped everything up in their LM bags but I had to leave the amp box behind because it wouldn’t fit in the bags. It weighed close to 20lbs. It was tough going sweating like I was in a steam room. I had to rest across the street from Money Mart. After a brief hike to Corona and a wait at the station platform my train came by and I could relax for a bit. I wanted to come through the back way because it would have been easier going through 1 door then 2 like in the front. Up the stairs down the hall, inside. Whew! I‘m glad I don‘t do that all the time. I had a shower to cool off. Imagine if it was one of those +32C days!

Anne wanted to make a trip to the bottle depot as I was tinkering with my new toys and she bought me a A&W sirloin “Uncle burger/fries” it really hit the spot.

I watched the historic 1000th show of Monday night Raw. So because of interference, does this mean Cena keeps his “Money in the bank” brief case?  

After a bit of tinkering I‘ve got everything set up. I can get the shape to do some bare chords and the amp is very loud for a 15 watt amp. Loud enough for what I need it for and the Master knob was turned up to about 3. I have the amp registered to Fender although I haven‘t got the Ableton lite or Fuse downloaded yet. I‘ll work on that over the week.

By Wednesday the $40 funds I uploaded to PP should be in and Telus already took their internet preauthorized billing, so that‘s ok.

So the Oiler‘s have signed Yakupov to a 3 year entry level deal. Lets see of he makes the team during training camp about 6 weeks away.

I’m happy with the amp because it reads fine in FL Studio 10 and I laid a sample track down. I just need to tweak the settings on the guitar and the amp and I’m good to go. On a scale from 1-10, Id rate Monday a 10. What an excellent day. About 7pm there was even a heavy rain storm that took 5 minutes to pass through here. Anyway, that’s all I have for now.

I'm having a pretty

good weekend

Yesterday was ok as well except sales were low. I got 1 all day worth $200 but it wasn't line hour I need. I could have used 2 more sales on card or a $100 on card. I don't understand why I was having so much trouble and other people on similar source were getting all the sales.

After work yesterday I went over to have a beer with the guys and a few laughs. After about 2 hours in there, I was hungry to gets something to eat but BP's food is a bit lame. I ended up going into Tim's for a bowl of their new lasagna. It was really good and it hit the spot. I went home after that.

Over the weekend I’ve been Tweeting here and there about my Proline Sports select CFL games. I had a ticket for all 4 games. Two of these games were picked as ties and they came in causing a bit of a stir in the office. Then when Edmonton won in BC, my ticket was causing a bit of a buzz. If I would have won on this ticket, I would have won $682! Yesterday at BP‘s I was following the game from my iPad as they didn’t have the game on where we were sitting. The game was about half way in the 2nd  Q 10-22. I know my Proline ticket boat was taking water. On my way home from Tim‘s it was late in the 3rd at 39 something for Hamilton. I should have picked a 2nd win on this ticket. Picking 3 games is a lot easier to win on then all 4. From now  on its just 3 games. My ticket sank faster then a iron anchor. But it was an interesting run to say the least. 24-39. There was about 8 minutes left in the game but Hamilton was too much for Montreal. Week #5 is Edmonton/Winnipeg (W) Argo’s/Montreal, Hamilton/Saskatchewan(T), BC/Calgary(T) I’m not even going to touch the Argo/Montreal game. Forget it. 

Coast has a lame show on over night: Greed/ Media Manipulation. There's only so many UFO shows you can do I guess. Tuesday nights show is better: Redefining Space & Time Nassim Haramein.

I've been kind of delaying the guitar because of the difficulty in transporting it home. It comes in a cardboard box Tim was saying. So I thought, why not put it in a garbage bag and carry it home that way? This is a good idea actually, so I'll call ahead first and ask if they have the Fender Squire bullet strat. If so I'll run down and pick it up and ask for a guitar to amp cable, some picks and take a look at the Mustang 1 Fender amp. I have the usb cable that will go right from my amp into my laptop. Until then I can plug the guitar into my audio interface and utilize my Guitar Pro 6 that I bought last November. I also want to take a look at the Fender Mustang 1 amp as well, while they're tuning my guitar. 

The other main concern I have is the Lodge BBQ. Dan said he had a back up cook for me if he can't make it due to work constraints. We also need propane and a BBQ lighter and of course any fixings. I'm calling Mike tomorrow as he's in charge of entertainment. I'll be glad when I'm done this  post. It's interesting but it sure is a lot of work and when you don't have a vehicle your at the mercy of everyone else. I'll be really relieved when I'm done being IPM and I can maybe do the Registrar again but the way things are going in our Lodge, we might end up merging with another York rite lodge in which case, we'll most likely merge with Strathcona #77 or something like that. But I'll be relieved when it's September. Anyway, that's about all for now.


 

It looks muggy out there

this morning. I'm enjoying the summer but in a way I'll be glad when it's over and ETS returns to normal hours. The #12 I used to always be on time for at about 9:25pm, pulled out of Clareview station as soon as I got about half way down the ramp. I had to wait about 10 minutes for the #183 and another 5 at Clareview. Now, I don't get home until about 9:50pm half my evening commute is spent waiting or on ETS.

Last night I didn't mind waiting to much. My Telus Flex plan was working Ok, temperature was +24C and the air was mild with a nice evening breeze and despite having a better evening then an afternoon (sales wise) my spirits were high.

The CFL begins early week #4 as the games begin, Wednesday night (tonight) Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Tonight it's Winnipeg/Toronto(T), Thursday it's Saskatchewan(W)/Calgary, Friday it's Edmonton/BC (T), Saturday it's Montreal/Hamilton(T), so I'm getting my ticket on my way into the job. I'm picking mostly ties because that's where the money is and it seems that's where the wins are within 3 points of each other for Proline purposes a 3 point game either way is a tie game. Matter of fact, I might just make all these games to be ties. I'm still pissed at BC in week 2 for not making the field goal.

I'm doing some genealogy research at the moment. I'd like to ask my brothers but they are nor very forth coming in giving me any information. I doubt they know much information then I do. But I'm pretty sure the materials I was supposed to receive when mom died in 2000, contained things like dad's birth certificate etc. I'm about to contact the California department of vital stats to get my fathers birth records because in those records they might tell me the names of his parents and so on. Birth records go back to the mid 18th century and costs about $20 for a search/copy, I guess. I need to contact the right department where to send a money order in US funds and wait for the results. I'd like to get some information this summer if possible.

I'm about ready to post this and shut things down, pack my things have some cereal and get ready for my late morning commute. I'm usually in the office shortly after noon. Our shift starts at 12:30pm-4:30pm and at 2:25pm we break for 10 minutes, I call Anne and have a quick touch base chat and a sandwich or something and back at it until 4:30pm and have my lunch in a mad rush to the microwave and after that the game tonight starts at 7:30pm. I'll "see" the first half and then it'll be all but over by the time I get home tonight. Tomorrow will be much of the same as today same with Friday but I'll post. Anyway, that's about all I have for now.

I was doing a bit of

research on my family. More specifically on my father's side. The only thing I know about  my father was that he was born in El Centro California January 1st 1922. Richard Warren Shannon. I know he had a brother and a sister Evelyn. She was married to some guy  named John and they lived in North Vancouver. I can't recall what his last name was. I remember when I was recovering from my back operation dad's brother came up to Vancouver 1968. I don't recall meeting him but I had a chance to talk with his kids. They were blonde twins I vaguely recall and I think about the same age as me. I think I met them once. I don't know much about what brought my father up to Vancouver. We have a photo taken of him on the street in 1940 when he was 18. I'd like to know more about my father prior to marrying my mother in 1951. My mother is Anglican by background about my father I don't know. From what my mother tells me, my grandfather died from some kind of an accident. I don't know if that was work related or what. I did some research that lead me to the California department of records or vital stats. I think the photo we had of dad was when he went to enlist in the armed forces shortly after Canada declared war on Nazi Germany. A lot of boys his age joined because of the depression.

Switching gears here, I was able to contact our Lodge secretary about the BBQ and he is unemployed again but might be taking a 3 month shut down job, which like last year could take him out of action as far as helping me out here. Apparently his sponsor in a pinch often help him out do the cooking and all and he's going to see if about enlisting his aid again to cook the steaks etc. I'm apparently going to be getting a follow up email, soon but we're running out of time.

I'm back at the job thing again in the morning. I've come to the conclusion that I don't care if they fire me now. I'm going to be getting my CPP pension in September. The thing is, this is going to only provide me with about 10% of my monthly income but I have some other options but I don't want to work in another call centre again if I can help it. Anyway, that's about all I have for now. 

I got up out of here

about 10:40am and had some cereal and fed the cats and got ready for my little jaunt downtown. At about 11:20am it was muggy out there but I had our Itouch player listening to some music by The Clash. I had a 10 minute wait for the train and a brief wait between Stadium and Churchill and I was at Scotia making my deposit. A brief wait for the train and (on track 2 this time, finally.) I was home about 12:40pm, so just under an hour. I got the funds uploaded to pp and this means I’ll have the funds in pp by next Wednesday.

ETS tunnel construction from the Bissel Centre to Churchill station is at the half way mark. They should probably break free to Churchill by the New Year if all goes well. I think they are 60% done and will have the new line opened on time April 2014. Which isn't that far away.

This upcoming round of CFL games are as thus Winnipeg(W)/Toronto, Saskatchewan/ Calgary(T), Edmonton/BC(T), Montreal/Hamilton(W). I'm going to play any game with BC and the Riders on the road as a tie. Week 3 I bombed out, again.

I like where I work downtown. What would make this perfect would be if I can keep my job or at least my next one, work in the general vicinity. I have Audrey's, BP's, Corona station, my Scotia bank, Tim's, Rexall Drugs and I'm within walking distance to LM. The only downside is my RBC bank where I do all my pay check cashing is a little out of the way. I hope I can stay at this job but I feel I'm on thin ice. I know I've said this before but it's a different company now where management is in the US. I won't be just called into the office on a moments notice. If anything, they'll give me a week to shape up or ship out kind of a thing. I'm ok with this, I just need some options to work with. I have a few. One thing I won't work for is for collections or Regional. I feel I have about a week or 2 before I get called into the office it's not a matter of "If" anymore it's a matter of when. I have some options to work with but I need a few more and I know a place where I can get those. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Not much time for this

for this morning when a Tweet is probably good enough but I have "more space then time" this morning but not much. 

Looks like we're in for another scorcher but nothing like +31 or anything like that. We get a break early this upcoming week for a few days then we're back into another heat wave. Yesterday morning we had a lot of smoke from forest fires up North.

It's been a rough week for me on the job, getting called into the office as an "investigation" is underway about a colleague of mine asking me to come forward with any information to rat out on somebody I've been working with for a long time. Sorry I'm not going to play those games. I get along with this fellow but I'm not going to play head games just to give somebody something to do. Then I get called into the office over a minor complaint from Mrs. Jones because I'm trying to get to my next call that might actually make me some money. I wasn't rude or nasty to the customer but in this business, Time is money. Planting seeds is one thing but spending time with somebody that appeared to have broken English, isn't helping my cause Anyway, the boss gave me heck over that one.

Anyway, it's been a rough week, sales are low and the summer heat is getting to everyone. Yeash, maybe I need a change of scenery after all. Anyway, that's about all I have for now.

This morning I’m getting my

Proline CFL ticket for all 4 games. This week we have tonight: Calgary(W)/Montreal. I haven’t got my ticket yet. Friday it’s Winnipeg/Edmonton(W), Saturday it’s a double header: BC(W)/Riders and Argo’s/Hamilton.(W) I’m not that sure about Hamilton though. My initial thoughts could be a W. I’m also getting my Max as well, $45M

The last 15 minutes at about 1:30am I was sitting outside watching the lightning and thunder and there’s a nice rain outside cooling things down to a pleasant +22* out there.

Nasa has apparently discovered another moon around Pluto making this Pluto’s 5th moon. For now Nasa is calling this moon P5 but their New Horizon spacecraft soon to reach Pluto in 2015 is supposed to explore the moon/Pluto and others. They haven’t got an official name for P5 yet. Should be interesting.

I’m not a baseball fan at all (game is way to slow for me) but Karl Kissner Ohio from Defiance found the rare set of cards after cleaning out his Grandmothers attic. The cards were from 1910 and in  mint condition featuring some historic baseball players like Ty Cobb, Cy Young (I heard that name before) 37 cards all in all could be worth millions of dollars. What a find.

And finally, tomorrow night on Coast is Paranormal Friday. Maybe 1 should pick #13 on my Lotto max ticket tonight, 8 and 13 are my 2 favorite numbers. Anyway that‘s about all for now.

Its going to be another hot one in E town today as we're in the middle of heat wave with no end in sight

This morning I headed into work at my usual time and enjoying a nice breeze waiting in the shade for my bus. I forgot my shades though. I never made it to the bank appointment. I was dreading work inside the office all day but when I got inside it wasn’t bad. I didn’t do that badly as I ended up with $225 for the first half and 1 card sale in the 2nd half but nothing after 7pm. I posted a couple of Tweets and was counting down last hour. I was glad to rid the day but it wasn’t bad. I was happy to get out of the officered though I had a 10 minute wait. My train was loaded with it being late and full of summer festival goers. Usually there would be maybe 4 passengers on the 9:10pm train and I could make the 9:30pm bus at Clareview. Not anymore. It’s going to be this way until September.

Coast has another decent show on this evening on Tesla and energy and tomorrow Urantia Revelations. A good couple of shows.

I was talking with Tim about the Fender Squier Bullet guitars. I want to get the one with the double Humbucker pickup and the 2 single coil’s. All I need is a guitar>amp quarter jack cable Tim says I should ask for one as they’re about $5 each. Like my mic into my audio interface I can plug the guitar into it and Audacity etc and I’m ready to rock. I should ask for a couple of picks and a strap as well.  The bullet strat is a good first learning guitar from what I’ve been reading.

We’ve got another day of +30 today or near abouts. I don’t mind the hot weather really. It’s all good but I’m ready for bed, that’s about all for now.

heat wave now. We don't usually in the Summer climb to much above +25* but once a year we'll get a +30* temperatures or warmer but nothing like they do in the US. We'll have this heat wave for this week and most likely by the weekend we'll be back to our +22* for the rest of the summer. (I hope)

This morning my wife and I sat out on our balcony sipping these "Breeze" Rum/pineapple coolers. Very nice and I got a nice buzz going to bed about 3am. I had a nice sleep.

I have to give my head a shake here. All my CFL Proline picks came in for me (on paper) I could win about $50 bucks here. All Home teams to win. Winnipeg/Montreal 30-41 on that Friday night. Game 1, 1 down 3 games to go. The double header continued on my way home Friday night. Hamilton/BC. The Lions had possession of the ball with about 20 seconds on the clock. it was 36-39 Lions. It was something like 1st and 20. A field goal kick here would be all that was needed to give me another win on my ticket. So what do the Lion's do? The run out the clock and drop the knee. Second down. They run down the clock again. WTF? They run it down to a 3rd down and drop the knee to 0 time on the clock. A tie game in the CFL is a difference of a 3 point spread. So even though the Lion's won, I lost because Proline says this is a tie game. I still have my ticket here and I'm going to bring it in in case I'm wrong or if Proline has changed the rule I didn;t know about but I think that stands. Oh it gets even better: Saturdays game Calgary/Toronto same score 36-39 but the Argo's were in a similar situation to BC but at least they kicked for a field goal to get the 3 points. Yesterday the Esks against Riders 1-14 for Regina. Edmonton didn't even show up. On paper my picks came in but the actual Proline results, we're 2 wins and 2 ties. But that was week 2. Let the games begin. 

Last night on the news they had this story about Mars and the Mars rover Opportunity that's been tracking all over the planet for about 10 years now. It gave us some fantastic images of the planet and others as shown on the news last night. I'd like to see NASA launch another probe to Mars only this time have one of those hobby type aerial drones so it can float over target sites. That'd be cool. It's going to be decades before humans actually land on Mars and certainly not in my lifetime.

We're losing so many Hollywood celebrates from my generation. February we lost David Jones from the Monkees and Ray Bradbury and last week we lost Andy Griffith and this weekend we lost Earnest Borgnine. All of these actors and writers were special to me growing up in the 60's but David Jones especially because he was old but he wasn't as old as Andy, Ray or Earnest and David was more closer to my age group. What a loss and we still have another 5 months left on the year.

Anne was about to head out and she comes rushing back in and says the GST check is here and another envelope for me. My Government ID that I applied for last week is in. All I need now is my SIN card. I haven't had the actual card in decades but I always know my SIN number. I think my SIN number is on my card, I don't know but it only costs about $10 to have a replacement card. This is going to help me tomorrow when I'm applying for my Scene Visa card. Good news to start the week despite this heat wave. It's still +30* and I doubt we're going to get to +32* but we'll see. Anyway, that's about all I have for now.

Its very warm in here

as I have the fan turned on.

Anne made us a nice brunch and I was hoping for a fun CFL game but the Esks didn't even show up. For  most of the game the score was 4-1 Riders, even well into the 3rdQ it was 7-1. In the 4thQ the Riders got the only TD in the game. So the $2 James gave me, I give to Warren as I had the Esks to win.

Earlier I wanted to order something from Loopmasters and I had a hell of a time trying to figure the process out as they kept on asking for file format. I didn't get what I was kind of hoping to but that was my fault for not listening to the samples. I got a lot of ambiance stuff they called "Future Dub" what I'd call soft dubstep. Boring, just like this evenings football game. I was disappointed on all accounts. That and the Cubase book were slightly over rated and over priced. At least I know how easy it is to order stuff using Paypal and Loopmasters. I'm still going to order from Loopmasters when I get some cash uploaded to Paypal later this month but I'm going to be careful what I order is what I want. Most likely I'll upload some cash next Tuesday. Anyway that's all I have for now.

.  

This morning I headed

out to wait for my bus. It was already at +19* I made a Tweet at Clareview station and opened my email. At Tim’s I got my breakfast but I had a lousy day on the job with only 3 sales. Not good but our office and Vancouver were in a race for 1st place but it looks like we came in 2nd.

After work I went to Audrey’s and got my Cubase book. It’s a bit over priced but so fo so good. I went over to the bus stop by Tim’s and waited for my Clareview #2 bus and got a better look at the development over there on Jasper and 85/84th streets NW and all the homes along Jasper Ave there have been removed.

This is the proposed project it’s actually called the Edgewater:


The big tower will have 32 floors and the other one 26 floors. The towers will be under construction about September.

I had my lunch at Wendy’s and waited on the corner of 50th street and 136th Ave as per my Facebook post earlier. Here’s a brief video. It was a Baconator combo. I could have enjoyed more fries though. Sorry I can’t seem to get the video on my website but you can view it on blogger.

My #183 bus came by to take me around the corner East along137th and dropped me off right outside my place. I got inside shortly before 6:45pm.

Tonight on Coast: MERLIN Project / Prophecy & Hidden Agendas. John B. Wells welcomes futurist Paul Guercio for an update on the MERLIN Project in the first half. hen, radio host and pastor Stan Johnson, will discuss the nature of time, prophecy for the United States, and why he believes CERN has a hidden agenda to open a wormhole to other dimensions which may have an unintended consequence of destabilizing Earth's geology. I love this stuff.

Today while Anne is out at the truck over there by the U-haul location on 50th street, I’m going to do some recording and work on a project. Then it’s our late brunch and later the Esks/Riders CFL. Great stuff.

It was also a big week in physics because physicists at CERN have announced they found the Higgs boson. This is like discovering electricity in its importance. I was reading here that if they can turn the Higgs on and off we might have light speed travel. The next step is confirming that this is indeed the Higgs boson and CERN will know more about that next year. Then CERN is going offline for a major refit for a couple of years until 2015. Then there is funding to keep it going. Physicists are saying that funding for CERN should be their number #1 priority. I agree.

Canada mint is about to release a new $2 coin commemorating the HMS Shannon. Why this is significant to me is because the coin is going to depict the HMS Shannon as its claim to fame was capturing the USS Chesapeake in the war of 1812. Here’s a link to the Royal Canadian mint. I don’t think the coin will be in general circulation at all but it’s interesting the the 5 pack is $99. A gold $10 coin is going to go for $569.95.

This morning I was finally able to get some music on my wife’s Itouch as I added about 3 gigs of mostly my stuff but I’m going to be adding her stuff, eventually. Anyway, that’s about all I have for now.

I've been up for a couple of hours

now trying to get some music synced onto my iTouch player for Anne.

Last night was one of those wow nights. Winnipeg/Montreal saw my pick on Proline (Montreal to win) come through. But I was doing taps for the last hour and got a few sales but the tap file was a slow file netting me out only a few sales. I got my check and everything was right. Just as I had all my stuff packed and ready to go I had one last customer on the screen and he was a $400 tap. I got it on the card but all the bonus money had gone by guys making a lot less then me. I had $635 on card by the end of the shift. The Hamilton/BC game was well underway and BC was leading by a large margin. I felt good about this game and I would catch what was left when I got home. I went to use the bathroom and headed out side into the 1st week of July’s bright sunshine evening. My ticket was still alive. BC was blowing out Hamilton in the 1st Quarter. I felt good about this.

This time, I decided to walk up to my RBC as that end of Jasper is reduced to just 1 lane. The first ATM had a bit of a glitch as the envelope deposit “tray” or window wouldn’t open. It cycled through trying to open so I went to the next one and did my banking and I had trouble getting 45 day statement. The 2nd effort I got my statement. Yeesh.

For some reason a huge crowd got on the train at Churchill. What was going on at Churchill I had no idea. Maybe Jazz City, probably.  I got home and I think the score on the game was something like 14/33 in the 3rd quarter but Hamilton was making a comeback. There was a 3 point difference point wise (Tie game in Proline) and the Lions had the ball on the Hamilton 10 yard line 20 seconds on the clock. It was 1st down and rather then kick a field goal for the extra 2 points, they ran out the clock! So much for my ticket. The other 2 games are meaningless now. BC won all right but a 3 point spread difference in Proline, is a tie game. Pissed me right off!  At least wrestling was fun. Anne made me some lunch and I went to bed, or tried to sleep but best I could do out of all of that was maybe 2-3 hours of sleep.

I got a full day ahead of me. I want to go get some breakfast this morning. I’ve got a 6 hour shift. After this I’m getting my book at Audrey’s “Going Pro with Cubase 6.” Then after that, I’m taking the #2 bus out over to Wendy’s as I have a craving for their Baconator combo and I’ll wait for the #183 at the half which takes me home. Then pass out. It’s nap time.

Most likely I’ll go to the casino next weekend because I’ll have a bit more cash to play with. I’m already wiped out. It’s been a big week:
 
Tuesday am I had to go over to the Registry and get my Government ID and I spent an unexpected amount wiping out half my funds in my account. I didn’t realize coming home I had left my bank card etc there at the office with my new Scene debit card. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were slow for me at it was. I was lucky to avoid the LRT ticket Police that night but they were out there asking for tickets the next night when I had my bus pass. If they were out there the previous night when I had left my buss pass behind, I would have gotten a $150 fine. Then Thursday I had to get a form filled out from my employer for CRHC and yesterday a bank statement from my Scotia bank and then last night one from my RBC. Yeesh. The good news is at least I got my Government ID and my Cubase book is in and so are my Paypal funds (Wednesday). It's been a busy week, that's about all for now.

I've been doing a lot of

running around all this week getting my Government ID and bank statements. I've got to go down to Scotia and get one from them this morning and watch, there's going to be 10 people in the line up on a Friday afternoon. if that's the case I'll see if I can get this done by way of ATM but I need to talk to someone at the counter anyway on how to go about a Scene CC and a current bank statement. I'm sure for the Scene CC I'll need to fill out the application. 

Today it's a 7.5 hour day instead of 8 because of Fridays people want to go to the bank that sort of thing. I'll go to my RBC and I'll need a bank statement from them from the ATM and then I'm done with all of this stuff. This is probably why we were passed over because this stuff wasn't on our file 3 years ago. I'm wondering if they'll pro rate this because of the previous 3 years we had to wait and pay us for the waiting time? I doubt it. After RBC, it's home and I'm done with all of this crap from CRHC so we go through all of this to wait another 3 years mainly because immigrants get first crack for subsidy and the rest of us stand in line? I don't know if that's the case but it seems that way.

I was able to do a bit of recording in FL Studio a work around in creating a double track, so that's ok. There could be typo's and spell'o's within this post but right now I I'm in a bit of a hurry and at the moment I don't really don't care. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Again I'm up early

but mostly because of my bus pass. I'm worried that someone lifted it or the cleaning staff had got a hold of it accidentally with other papers off my station and it went  into the garbage. Unless Tim found it and put it aside but otherwise it should still be there if the cleaning staff hadn't touched it. People will be filing into the office in about 20 minutes or so. Especially James. He's probably in the line up at Tim's now getting coffee but he doesn't have keys to the office anymore so he has to rely on Keith. So far nobody knows about the message I left from Clareview station last night. Keith will give his kick-off to the business room and that should be about 35 minuets is when I'll call, but how this all came about is listed below.

I had nothing all day except when I did WR after dinner. I felt my blood sugar dropping over the last half hour of the shift as I couldn’t wait to get out of the building to get something at Tim‘s. I waved up to Anne‘s building as she sits near the window on the 17th floor. Brian asked the (new return) who I was waving to: “My wife sits by the set of windows in the Canadian Western bank place where from my office/station, I can see a partial section of probably floors 8-12. The building has 30 floors. So I split from him at Tim‘s and I‘m trying to get a donut but the kid in front of me cant decide what to get, while I don’t want to miss the train so I‘m getting PO‘d by the second and the clerk at Tim‘s is moving slower then a slug. Then I get a Boston cream donut and I got to the elevators at Corona to read the ETS Summer hour changes: Trains ever 15 minutes after 9pm or something like that. I could have ordered pizza delivery fast.

I got on the train and sent off a Tweet about 9:30pm. At Clareview station I realized uh-oh, something‘s missing. My bus pass/holder. I keep this wrapped around my neck but take it off at work because it drives me to ware it. Then it hit me. I left it at my station on the counter. Shit. My apartment keys are also attached to it as well. I had no way to get inside my apartment and Anne has the only set of keys. I had only a $2 coin (tooney) with me and I asked some of the passengers if they could change it. I got $1 from somebody on the train. I called the office but nobody was answering but I left a message for Keith who is usually one of the first in the office at 8:30am or James. I hung around on the LRT platform for awhile then realized Anne could have come from anywhere, the stairs or the ramp. I sat on the bench on the bus platform waiting for Anne’s 10:30pm train to come in 45 minuets later. I met her getting a cart and explained what happened. All of the staff had left by this time and I had no ones phone numbers to call. I was so preoccupied by my blood sugar dropping and wanting to leave, I couldn’t leave fast enough. Pisses me off. By this time 80% of the office had left at 9pm and by the time I was waiting for the most of the staff had left. I have several things going for me: The cleaning staff do not remove anything from desks because of the surveillance cameras everywhere. I met up with Anne and we walked home and everything I’m sure is ok. I’ll call when I get up in the morning. Anne said for me to leave the front door unlocked, she’ll be ok for one morning.

Switching gears here our local news had something from Cern. Have physicists found the elusive Higgs particle? They are almost 99.95 certain. Not that there are any real world applications for this at the moment but if this is the Higgs, then particle physics have found the Holy Grail of particles linking this to the theory of everything. Now if physicists can manufacture  more of these particles and study them, it’s going to be interesting to learn what they have found.

Other then accidentally leaving the bus pass behind at the office, I had a pretty big day pulling in a $240 sale on a card and a $50 on a card. I needed this but I got nothing from 7pm onwards. Nothing was coming my way. When I get up in the morning I’m going to call the office and ask if my buss pass is still there. I’m pretty sure it is. Next time right after lunch break I’m putting my bus pass holder in my backpack. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

I’m up early unable to

sleep but I had a good 5.5 hours of sleep so I’m ok for the rest of the day.

Yesterday I ended up with just under $300 with $70 on card. Fran comes in from 5-9 and ends up getting sale after sale on WR. I was on TD run CPC tap list that for about half an hour got nothing for me until the last 20 minutes I ended up with a C note and a $25 but nothing on card for this evening. At least it bumped up my sales near the end there. Part of my poor showing was the fact that I had to get up early to go to the Registry yesterday for my Government ID and even though the process was nothing at all, it was still part of my day that showed up in my effort. The perfect day for me is if I have nothing on my mind, no fights with Anne and a source where I get to pitch somebody at home. I don’t think I got my first sale until after break yesterday.

I’m thinking about taking some baby steps in the markets with iTrade. Nothing spectacular just a few investments to get my feet wet with no expectations. Some iTrade stocks.

We’re supposed to get some hot weather on the weekend heading up to the +28-30 range. Not good for me. I like it just like where it is now. We‘re supposed to get a lot of wind later this afternoon with gusts of up to 55 knots. Not good for the trees out behind us.

I‘ve got a couple of calls to make before I head on out of here this morning. I need to call Scene and get more details and to finish setting up my account. If we can earn 1 point for every $5 like it says, then we can earn about 175 points paying our rent every month, 17 points for getting a bus pass, 120 points for getting our groceries, etc. The only problem is I get only 12 debit transactions/month. 24 points for paying our Internet and these points are every month plus every time Telus extracts from my preauthorized flex plan for Telus every month I get 2 points for that. Thing with our groceries is, Anne buys a little for what she needs each week. I‘m sure thought I can get more debit transaction packages. Right now I have the Power checking account to which I pay $3.95/month for. I‘d like to utilize Scotia because RBC has had their credit rating lowered and it‘s a little out of my way to get to. Scotia holds every check for I think 10 days unless the customer has A $1,000 monthly balance or something like that. RBC I don’t need a balance to cash my checks. The other thing that kind of nags me about Scotia (at least at my location across from Audrey’s) is the entrance. Customers have to use their client cards to get to the ATM inside the “lobby.” The thing I don’t like about RBC is to get their by train I have to use three flights of stairs to get up to street level, where before all I would need to do is to take the bus but that end of Jasper Ave is reduced to 1 lane of traffic  and buses are routed to just outside of the Bank of Montreal. RBC has its financial section across from “Rickies” and I think there‘s a street entrance for ATM use but I‘m not sure. I‘m going to check into this on Friday.

Anyway, no other news on the Oiler front NHL wise Devils Richard Brodeur has signed with the Devils. We have to play NK out for 1 year. So much for making the playoffs this year for the ‘12-13 season. isn’t going to happen until we deal with NK.

Ahh the memories

Tom Cruise has been under the spotlight lately and not for making movies but more to do with his beliefs in Scientology. I remember my first brush with Scientology. I got into it because Richard Lord (my old occult mentor from the early 1980‘s) suggested this will help me to be a bit more mentally stable because at the time I was an emotional wreck as I had invested so much energy on trying to make Ellen and I work until Richard got in the way. Mixing fundamental Christians, Aleister Crowley and Scientology is enough to make anyone go mental. Of course I really wasn’t mental as gone in the head or anything. I had just come off a court case from a non contact misdemeanor where the charges were stayed. Keep in mind I’ve never been in jail nor do I have a criminal record but I’m on their books for this, which keeps me from getting a security guards license. It was a mistake I made and one of my few regrets in life. But Richard suggested I take this course in Scientology. They had an office in this older Victorian style building not far from where Freemason Hall is now. Of course I didn’t know much about Freemasonry as I do now. The Scientology building in those days was adjacent to the First Presbyterian church. The Scientology location was adjacent to the church and it’s now a parking lot. But that was when Richard suggested I should take this Scientology course. I think I paid $20 for it. I never got as far as their e-meter “testing” but I remember playing with the plasticine toys and that’s when I thought that this was getting silly and that was it for Scientology. I remember getting into it again in 1982 when I was getting involved with Amway with Reg. Reg is now a staunch Amway critic bur in those days he was into the books and tapes the whole 9 yards. When Scientology moved out of that downtown location about 1982 I recall while living on the South Side 2 blocks behind Don Wheaton on Whyte Ave on 80th Avenue between 108th and 107th street (after Theresa left me) I used to go to the Scientology location. At that time it was adjacent to the Princess theatre on Whyte. I lost interest in Amway and Scientology by October of 1982 when I got my old job back at the Army & Navy. I look back now on those days and it was at that time I realized I should have looked more into Masonry but Masonry wasn‘t a blip on my radar screen. I was to much involved in the OTO here until 1996. Other then buying the odd book by L. Ron Hubbard and in the 1990’s their “Writers of the Future” That was my last and only brush with Scientology. When I was entering those contests I think I put in about 4 submissions and got a couple of “Thank you for your submissions” type things. Which kind of in a (Long about way) brings me back to Tome Cruise. Cruise is not the only main celebrity involved in Scientology as most everyone knows so is John Travolta among others. I don’t want to go into a huge rant about Scientology because I have nothing against them. Some people find value in Dienetics. I won‘t say it’s a cult anymore then Freemasonry is a cult. When I was involved in Amway now that was as close to a cult as ever I‘ve been in one but that‘s another story. 

I'm up at 9am so I can wake up and get ready

so I can get ready to leave out the door by 10am this morning for the bus stop by Pet Smart 10:15am and I can be at the Registry by 10:30am. It shouldn’t take me more then half an hour to get my photo taken. If I time it right I should be downtown by 11:30-45am and into my Scotia bank to get a bank statement and I should be in the office by noon, perfect. 

On Coast this evening the topic is on Energy & Space Exploration. Should be a good show. Were still in the stone age period of space exploration in my opinion. Were a long way away from something like Star Trek. Michio Kaku calls Star Trek a type 3 civilization, we’re barely a type 0.

Not much going on this week. I’m waiting to see if the funds were successfully uploaded to my Paypal account. Probably by the time I get home, would have made it 8 days. Other then this, it’s just going to be a regular working week, Tuesday-Saturday. I’ll most likely go up to the Baker Centre post office to get the gift card and take advantage of the 40% off sale Image line has on all of their plugins. But that depends on how much is in my account after I get my Government ID today. Or rather order it today. It’s not like an over the counter type of thing where I buy something I can leave with. It takes about 3 weeks and comes in the mail.

There were 2 winners on the big $32M 6/49 prize Saturday and nobody won the Lotto Max $50M so it continues on For Friday. I’ll get a $5 ticket for that and my Proline. Week #2 Has the following games: Winnipeg/Montreal, Hamilton/BC, Calgary/Toronto, Edmonton/Saskatchewan. Two games are on Friday and one on Saturday and Sunday it’s Edmonton/Sask. So I’ll get the Max ticket and the Proline, I don’t normally play 6/49 until it’s about $8M. Anyway, that’s about all I have for today.

 

in weeks but at least it wasn't a total washout as I got my only sale on a card but it made for a long 6 hour shift yesterday.

I was so exhausted and maybe that's why I didn't have a good day on the job but I met my colleagues after for a beer and some Laughs. I needed to use Tim's bathroom badly and got double chocolate donut for my ride home trying to catch up on the Justin Schultz deal the Oiler's made to get him. It was a good day for the Oiler's and signing Ryan Smyth for a 2 year contract. The only question now is our goal tending. Everything else is in place.

When I got to Clareview station in the +26* heat and seeing the score on the Argo's/Esks game I decided to walk over to Future Shop look around and buy a set of cheep headphones. I paid $10 and headed home. I was sweating so bad I had a shower. After that I had bite to eat and watched the last of the Argo/Esks game. Esks won 15-19. 

Anne called and we had a chat and I tried going to bed for a nap but it wasn't going to happen. I relaxed until Anne came home and had some lunch and had a nice evening.

Earlier I began working on my track but I discovered when I opened the FL Studio file for my track my wav files vanished. Then I realized that I need to have the tracks recorded. Yeesh. 

Anne left to Pet Smart to get some cat food down the end of the block and when she comes home, she's going to start laundry and make breakfast and I might catch the Montreal/Stamps CFL game for latter. Anyway, that's about all for now.