I'll be leaving out of here by about

2:30pm this afternoon. I haven't been out of the apartment in over a week and I'm getting a little stir crazy.

Not much going on yesterday. Mostly in front of the computer answering email, that type of thing. I watched wrestling and the Oiler's/Denver game. We beat them 4-1, getting a couple empty net goals. 

Anne made us a nice chicken dinner oven baked potatoes and I'm in bed by 3am up about 11am this morning. Anyway, that's about all for today.

From about 3 to 9pm I was

watching Wrestlemania kick-off show and a four our Wrestlemania after that. We were watching 6 hours of wrestling. 

I'm not sure if I want to use my old Acer laptop for composing music. The cpu isn't fast enough for music production and the hard drive is bloated. I'm not using a genuine copy of windows because the laptop was compromised with a virus about 3 years ago. The idea was if I could format the laptop, I might be able to recover the original Windows 7 Home Premium edition of the OS that came with the laptop. I'd have to go into the bios and mess with the settings. The thing is, I can't format the laptop because I don't have a original OS recovery disk. There is no way to format the laptop back to its factory default so I can recover the original OS. I searched YouTube and found no format solutions. I got to thinking, do I really want to use this old laptop for music production anyway? I can't see myself upgrading the desktop and or even buying another Windows license. Basically all I need is a synth with the sounds on board, convert them into wav files and sequence them on my iPod. I can get a computer monitor for about $100 at Best buy and hook it up to my iPod, no problem.  

This week I've got training for the job Tuesday, and Thursday night I have lodge. Friday I have a pcn appointment to get insulin, so if I'm ok as far as the job is concerned I've got a busy week ahead. Anyway, that's all for now. 

What a shocker yesterday

morning, when I learned that Future Shop (FS) is closing all 65 of its national locations. FS and Best buy are the nation's leaders in consumer electronics and computers. Three here in Edmonton will be permanently closed, and some of them will be re branded into Best Buy. Best Buy bought out FS in 2001. Best Buy retains the FS store here in Clareview, Grant MacEwan, and St. Albert. The other 3 FS's to permanently close will be the West End (I used to go to that one all the time before I got married) Northgate (that's where I bought my iPod Touch last December) and Edmonton common. Its the end of an era.    

I'm an "environmentalist" when it comes to animals, the forest, overfishing, things like that. What I can't get is this flaky junk science of "climate change." I couldn't help mentioning this only because yesterday was Earth hour. With the global threat of those rouge nutcases making news every night in the middle east, it boggles the mind that some weirdo's are so enamored with "climate change" they can't see the forest before the trees. 

Update: Anne noticed while channel surfing this morning that the WWE network is now on our Telus "Optix" tv. Its $11.99/month but after deleting some channels (thanks to the crtc relaxing rules that favour the subscriber called pick and pay earlier this month) she doesn't watch anymore and now that I've got a job Tuesday, she ordered the WWE network. it now means today, we get to watch Wrestlemania 31. I think it starts at 4pm. If I had money I'd order my favorite pizza but we'll do that when the next pay-per-view wwe event comes out. "Money in the bank."

So Nasa wants to have astronaught's live in space for a year. It's the longest continuous stretch of time a astronaut will have been in space. It's an important stepping-stone on our journey to Mars. Its quite a mission. I don't know if I could be cooped up like that for a week little alone a year. I'm getting stir crazy just living in this apartment for the last month without a job. I'm looking forward to Tuesday. Anyway, that's all for now. 

The snow we had from last weekend is almost

gone. Still lots of snow patches and puddles of melted snow in low lying areas remain as ground conditions dry out. We're getting some +12's and 14's out there but a bit of a cool down is expected next week. Still, not to bad.

Last night at Rexall was Oiler fan appreciation night: Dallas Stars we're in town. Eberle got the only goal for the first 2 periods. Then the flood gates opened up. 2-0, and in a penalty shot the new guy Andrew Miller got his first goal on a penalty shot 3-0. Then it was 4-0 Oiler's. Not only that but the goal tender Bachman got his first win as an Oiler and a shut out to boot against the team (Dallas) that traded him to Edmonton. Sweet. If the Oilers get McDavid great, if not, meh. Anyone of the top 6 in the draft lottery this year are solid prospects. Dylan Strome is tearing it up in the minors and so is Jack Eichel etc. We also get a 1st round pick from the Perron Pittsburgh trade from the Pens. The off season looks good as well. 

More information is coming forward about co-pilot Andreas Lubitz that brought down flight 4U9525 Tuesday morning. Officials said the plane had been last checked by technicians on Monday and weather conditions were reportedly good at the time of the crash. Apparently Lubitz was suffering from mental illness and was told he was unfit to fly but he disobeyed doctors orders. It seems Lubitz was medically cleared anyway. The passengers were disintegrated. There were no bodies to recover. Very sad.

Not much going on for today. On the agenda is work on my track, reading and hockey sometime tonight. Its a quiet weekend even though Wrestlemania 31 is on my mind, unfortunately its not in the cards due to financial reasons. I can always get the highlights. Anyway, that's all for now.

Sitting here unable to get around

because the wife needs the bus pass to go to work. I've got this pent up anxiety over this typing test thing when I go in for training Tuesday. The wife is threatening to cut off the cable, power etc until I get a pay cheque. Money is tight and so far I haven't heard anything on my ei claim and even if I get one its going to be 2 weeks away. 

Yesterday our Premier released the long awaited 2015 Alberta provincial budget. For decades Alberta relied on oil royalties since the 1950's. In 1982 Liberal Leader Pierre Elliot Trudeau and then prime minister, imposed the national energy program or nep. Alberta suffered the worst. I was working during the 1980's and temporary permanent in the early to mid 1990's. Our economy grounded to a halt in 1982. Alberta was in a recession from 1982-1996 when the price of oil eventually rose. The recession of the 1980's took billions of dollars out of our local economy. Alberta's economy is cyclic, boom and bust. In 2008 the price of oil went to about $32 barrel responding to the market money crunch. We experienced a mini recession. Oil prices per barrel rose in late 2009 is when we finally got out of that recession. What this budget is supposed to do is to set a 10 year plan to get our economy off the reliance of oil royalties. This budget will hit some people hard but for this household it wont affect us. Some of the highlights: A return to health care premiums for Albertan's making over $50,000 (not us) annually. Its called a health care levy. A sin tax on tobacco and alcohol. I have about 1 beer a month, if that and I'm not a smoker. No Alberta sales tax. The Alberta Government under all Albertan's is also expecting to spend almost $30 Billion over the next 5 years on infrastructure projects etc. its a pretty good budget. More about Alberta's 2015 budget here.

Over the last few months the thought of not using a computer to make/process my music has held a lot of appeal for me. Not that there isn't anything wrong with using the computer to make music. Most EDM/techno is made this way. Its just that my laptop memory where most of my vst's and programs live is at 80% full to capacity, and has a lot of adware on it rendering the laptop all but useless for accessing the Internet. When I get back to work and once we're caught up with our bills,  I'm looking at getting an affordable synth. I'm looking at either the Yamaha MX49, or the Roland Juno Di. I like the guitar sounds on the Di. I haven't heard many of the guitar sounds on the Yamaha MX yet. The MX is cheaper and newer. I can use the iPad and for $18 I can buy Yamaha's Mobile studio sequencer. That's all I need.

So tonight I'm watching the Oiler's entertain Dallas and this weekend trying to fend off the wolves and attempting to keep our marriage from falling apart. Anyway, that's all for now.

Allthough I appreciate having the time off and all

I'm not bringing in any income. I'll be glad when I start the new job Tuesday so I can get back to work and contribute around here. 

On the news last night Investigators of the tragic Flight 4U9525 disaster examined the cockpit voice recorder yesterday.

It seems that one of the pilots stepped out of the cockpit and when he returned the door was locked.

The audio heard the locked out pilot trying to smash the door open.This leads me to believe that the pilot inside deliberately locked the door to the cockpit. Or the pilot inside was having a medical emergency. I feel badly for the families of the victims of this disaster, tragic. 

Hinze ketchup has or is about to take over Kraft foods. The makers of K-Dinner (kd). I always liked to have ketchup on my kd. Lots of people do, so when I head about this, it just came out of nowhere.

I'm looking forward to getting back to work. At first after I left Malatest, I strengthened my resolve never to do market research again. Nothing against Malatest, they are a great company and I enjoyed my stay there. Now I might be back doing market research, again. If I keep the job one thing is for certain: I'll be transposing what I learned there to the new place. Anyway, that's all for now.

So the fellow from the

job called me earlier about 5pm yesterday and asked me to come in for 4pm Tuesday. I need to know what project I'm doing. 

I think its tomorrow but the Alberta Government is supposed to release the budget. For decades the Alberta Tories relied on oil royalties to balance the Provincial budget. Its not going to be quick fix but the Premier has a 10 year plan moving forward that will reduce the Province reliancy on oil royalties and the high cost of oil to balance the budget, in the year to come. Some of these measures will mean a return to health care premiums. Its a step in the right direction. It also means that if the price of oil remains at its current levels, we wont be going into debt.

Over the weekend I've been doing some html coding to clean up my link list. I hope it looks a bit better and I have a bit more to do yet

In the wake of yesterdays Airbus A320 aircraft crash in Europe, there are no shortage of theories. This is the same aircraft that disappeared last December. M370 and The miracle on the Hudson. Its a strange case for sure. Anyway, I have almost a week off, that's all for now.

As I was about to head out of here Monday

for a temp agency across the street from Corona station, I decided to make a job lead phone call. Its a market research firm. Yes they were hiring could I come in for a interview? Sure 10:30 Tuesday morning. My wife used to work there years ago at this firm. 

I left out of here to catch the bus shortly before 9am for the train and I barely made it for my 10:30am appointment. The interview went well and I start training on Tuesday. It doesn't mean to say with any surety that I got the job yet, though I've been hired on the spot. I should have asked what does the training consist of? Would there be any aspect of the training that might not qualify me from doing the job? At the other place part of the training process was a typing speed test, which I didn't have to take at the time. I never asked why. Was it because my boss told supervisors at the time not to bother with me taking the typing test, because I had over 10 years of customer service? Or was it because my boss who knew me from before said something like,"James doesn't need to take the typing test." Or was it because the unemployment rate being so low 2 years ago he was desperate for workers? Maybe it was a combination of all 3. The person who hired me this morning dropped the name of the last call centre he worked at and I said, my wife used to work there (about 8 years ago)."Oh what's her name?" Anne. "I remember her, I was her supervisor back then." I also mentioned another colleague I used to work with that works here. Even though this guy was Anne's supervisor from before she still had to take the typing test. I was probably so happy at the time I got the job I forgot to ask about the training. Some guy is supposed to call me later tonight for me to confirm when to come in for training.The shift starts in 10 minutes so I hope I get a call sometime tonight. They pay by a cheque and have only the Edmonton office. Maybe I should ask is there any part of the training that would disqualify me for he job?

Also the other guy from the work from home might call but I'll be calling him back to get further details. So in case I fail at the typing aspect of the job and don't get the job I have the work from home thing to fall back on. So on it goes. Anyway, that's all for now.

I'm off today but planning for my week ahead

in my ongoing quest for work. I've got a couple leads and I'm applying for some cash jobs, paid by the day. I don't mind pushing a broom 8 hours a day for minimum wage for the  next few days or even years. 

Speaking about jobs and stuff and due to the downturn in our economy, a lot of tfw's (temporary foreign workers) come April 1st of this year will be told to leave the country. This has been in the works for awhile now. There are of course hardship cases of tfw's that have since arrived here have become disabled or have other situations. They hope to be granted special status to remain here and for those people I feel for. This move will also open up lots of jobs for Canadian citizens. Apparently there are about 16,000 tfw's for example here in Alberta. 

All I know is I have 2.11 years to go until I can get full pension. Add that and living here with Anne and a small part time job is all I need. If I can get a couple of days cash jobs in the short term and If I can do that work from home job if its feasible long term until I get something stable, we should be ok. Anyway, that's all for now.

First day of Spring and we got a blast of winter

out there, typical. I wasn't out in it but Anne tells me we got about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Nothing like they had back East or anything like that. According to the long range forecast, were supposed to get 3 more days of snow after the weekend. Weather related, yesterday was a solar eclipse. There were only a few places in the world that got to see it live. 

Anne received a coupon for a free pizza/wing meal from work last night as a reward for training new staff. After a bit of hassle spending about 40 minutes on the phone trying to get the pizza, she finally closed the order. Its on its way so hopefully it'll be here in 10-20 minutes. Since our finances are so low right now, the free pizza meal was a blessing.

When the pizza meal arrived we sat on the couch watching George Lazenby's James Bond enjoying our pizza meal and a bottle of diet cola. This was one of my favorite Bond films because of the location Switzerland and guest staring Tele Savalas. I used to like him in Kojack. Speaking about movies, we have got 2334 scene movie points. Just in time for the Summer releases. 

*Update: This morning Anne rescued a semi stray cat she was looking after since last Autumn. The "owners" left the cat out in the freezing cold over the winter as Anne discovered the cat under a tool shed for shelter across from us taking cover from the winter elements. Anne brought the cat fresh blankets and cat food every night as part of her take out the trash routine in the early hours. No matter how cold it was, Anne went out there. About a week ago she noticed the cat pregnant. The "owners" still kept this poor thing left out in the cold, abandoned and left to die. After months of looking after the cat Anne couldn't bare it any more and gathered a cat cage and brought kitty in here and made arrangements with a 24 hour vet service downtown and called a taxi. Anne said she was waiting outside at 5:30 this morning and noticed the taxi speeding by her going the other direction. She came back into the apartment to call the cab company and the taxi driver called her back asking where she was. So she went back out got the cab and had a dispute with the driver along the way. She didn't know about Uber. I said "If you knew, you should have said something like, 'next time I'll call Uber' " That would have shut him up. The cab ride cost us $22. Anne wandered in at 6:45 this morning. The sad part of all this is this pregnant semi stray cat was Skippie's mother. At least now the cat can have her litter in comfort. I said, leave those cats alone. I think she got the message. Anyway, that's all for now.

At the moment I'm setting up a

work from home job (wfh). They just need to test my internet speeds. I'm getting 20 download milo-bits per second. Its not bytes its bits and 5 mbps upload speeds. I hope its enough to do the job.

If I would have known about this work from home job last year when Malatest cut my hours I would have done wfh when projects slowed down and balanced out the two. It would have saved me all kinds of grief last year and this year. I always for some reason, equated wfh jobs to be like where my wife works, based on 1-2% commission. This still might be like that but I'd be calling a tap source and I still don't know if its a guaranteed wage. My contact said it's minimum wage and performance bonus. I'm sure that's how it goes or if I meet my line hour then its wage etc. I'm sure that's the format. If its a straight minimum wage if I meet my line hour, I'd still do ok. I'll know more about this Tuesday.

Earlier I learn that ETS this weekend is shutting down the lrt (again). The city is getting ready for the Metro line handover from Thales Monday. Then its 4-6 weeks of training for the  operators. I'm thinking the Metro line could be up and running by the May long weekend. In theory.

Just as I was checking out a YouTube video about 10:40pm my computer went dead. Wtf? Other lights dimmed out. We were running on 50% power. Anne buzzes to get in and explained what happened: All power South (our side) of 137th went dark, and within the last 3 hours we got dumped with about 2 inches of snow! Our usual Spring snow storm. 
So lets recap: Lrt shut down this weekend, power outage, water shut off for today. Situation normal.

Still no word about my ei claim but its only been 3 weeks  now, My roe says a shortage of work, then vilified me in my notice of termination. The only thing that might save my ei claim is the shortage of work and the my roe start date claims April 2011 when I started and the fact that I haven't been on ei since the year 2000. I was at Xentel 2011 and I mentioned this to ei. If I get this work from home job, I might just abandon ei and keep the home job until pension kicks in and do both. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I lost another job but

it was a job that I never got paid for. They tried me on for 3 days. The first (Monday) day I got no sales and I wasn't expecting any. Then the last hour of my first day they put me on leads. My job was to call businesses and ask if they would be interested in receiving a short email proposal. My 2nd day at Medlaw was to continue on with asking to send out email proposal's. They said to send them out regardless of weather the decision maker approves or not. Then after about 2/3rds of that day (Tuesday) I asked the boss if this was "legal," to get the email proposal's out as unsolicited email. He said no, I should be pitching only the decision maker. I probably could have got 20 out a day in that case. Sending out these emails unsolicited sounds like spam to me. So at the end of the day yesterday, the supervisor said my flow rate for leads was too low to keep me. Tha's ok. I couldn't see myself up at 6am every morning taking the 7am bus and then the train and the #5 and then transferring to the #3 up there by 107th and 124th street every morning. 

Out of working at Medlaw I got 3 job leads. I'm going to contact one of my other employers to see if I can start working from home. Its $11 hour. I'll be doing that today. The thing with Medlaw and Crime watch is at least Crime watch paid me. I'm glad I'm out of Medlaw or whatever its called. Anyway, that's all for now. 

I didn't get lucky

this St. Patrick's day I'm on a trial basis it seems. I might last another day or 2 more years, hard to say. But I do have options. I'll know how to proceed once I know what's going  on with ei.

I've got another full day ahead of me. Its been 3 days now and I can't take another day without getting paid for it. I can only be patient for so long, then I've got to move on. Anyway that's all for now.

It was easy heading into work this morning as I made all of

connections but I realized waiting for the #5 across the street from Corona, I was going about this the wrong way. All I need do is to catch the #3 from City Centre mall leaving out the middle man. So I'm getting out at Central station and boarding the #3 from there to work. Same thing getting back. 

I can't believe this has been the first job I ever had where I where I didn't get paid. They gave me another script which had nothing to do with selling but more to do with emailing proposals but I only did that the last half hour.

I got home at 6:30pm but of course this was my own fault more then anything. I took the #201 Saint Albert bus to Glenrose and then the rest of the way downtown and I got off at the courthouse across the street missing my #16 Northgate. I got home an hour and a half, yeesh. I'll give it a couple of days. Anyway that's all for now.

I haven't been out of the house since last Wednesdau so

imagine my surprise when I stepped out to see 90% of our snow gone! That was the big surprise of the day. I thought weather wise it was going to be cold but it wasn't that bad. Actually quite pleasant out there. I could have got away with a sweater and a windbreaker.

We got our #11 bus across the street heading West and off at 72nd street and 144th Ave, and walked a block to the strip mall. We popped into Giant Tiger and then to Capital Pizza. After we got seated I checked to see if they had wifi and the server gave the access code. We waited for our pizza. I like their bathrooms at this place because they are so clean. Anne and I had a chat about my week ahead, what with being up at 6:15 this morning. I'm going to give this place a try. One of the other options we talked about was a call centre I worked for 2 days last October because Malatest was starting up again. This place has been closed from January until the end of this month. This place has a work from home wage/commission structure, which sounds promising. So if this place doesn't pan out this week I can always try the other place, and there's the ei possibility as well. The pizza was as good as ever and we took what we couldn't eat home. After pizza over to Dairy Queen. I had my strawberry Sunday. I'm going to have the peanut butter Sunday next time. Back to Giant Tiger and then we walked back to 72nd/144th Ave and had a wait for the bus and home. It was a nice outing.

Now that the snow is mostly gone and the sidewalks are mostly clear I can wear my running shoes I'm up at 6:15 this morning out the door by 7am to be there by 8:30am. Hopefully they'll have the coffee on. I hope I do well at this place. Its going to be a long day up by 6:15 home by 6:15. If I can get on the payroll and do the job, I'll keep it until they kick me out. Anyway, that's all for now.

Anne called me from a

Telus pay phone on her way home at Rexall saying that there were about 70,000 spectators taking in the Red bull crash ice event downtown. The trains were being back logged. The Red bull event is where ice skaters skate down a luge type ice course made for skaters. It was a free event and with the warm weather it brought out tens of thousands of spectators. The lrt system had trouble handling that many people for the finale day of the event. From what Anne was telling me there hadn't been that many people on the trains since the first Heritage Classic that November 22nd 2003 over 10 years.

I was following a bit of the Flames/Ave's game working on a beat last night having a great evening. I had a nice couple of days off and when I'm on full pension, I'm looking forward to 3 days on 4 off. Thanks to Anne.

On my breaks at work since I'm on commission over the next few days next week, I'll be making phone calls sending out resumes. If I not on commission, no way I'd do anything like that. There's only about 6 people that work the phones in the office anyway. Anyway, that's all for now.

So for the first while at this

new job (3 days probably to see if I can sell) I wont be getting paid. That's ok because I'll learn my ei fate on Friday anyway, apparently. Beyond that, I don't know.

Its overcast out there and the sun is shining above the clouds somewhere. We got a high of +16 today but we're closer to about +14 now. Tomorrow Anne and I are going to Capital Pizza for her birthday treat, so it should be about +6 when we head out.

I was looking at the Vermona DRM1 Mk 3 drum machine yesterday. Its pretty a pretty slick piece of kit with 72 knobs in total divided between for the kick, snare etc. There's a line of knob controls for each instrument, Its rack mount piece of hardware with gate trigger inputs. This thing isn't cheap either on Ebay I've seen one for about $1000 per unit, but if I had the money...

Today is Pi day. Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant-the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter-which is approximately 3.14159. Why so special? The date is 3/14/15, the first five digits in the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Apparently the next Pi day won't be around for another 100 years. I've tagged this under strange stuff. You can learn more about Pi here.

Yesterday I did my first ei report online dated for the period before yesterday. Technically I haven't started a full time job yet and if I last beyond the week, I'll have to report it. Everything is done online now. Gone are the cards in a self addressed envelop mail days. Anyway, that's all for now.

Thursday was nice and relaxing

and when I get full pension if the status quo remains the same when I turn 65, I'd like to work just a few days/week. 

Today I've got a few phone calls to make and the Oiler game on TV. Saturday is much the same as today but Sunday Anne and I are going out for her birthday. I'd like to go try that new burger place that's going to open called "Burger priest." Hopefully we'll try it out next month.

A day late with this but On March 12, 1894, the first bottles of Coca-Cola were sold. Invented by an Atlanta pharmacist, the original formula included lime, cinnamon, and coca leaves. I got addicted to Coke in the 1970s and after 3 decades of drinking 2 L of Coke a day, gave me diabetes. My mom even warned me  that drinking this stuff is not good long term but I was a kid bullet proof. If I could go back in time to correct that mistake I would.

Other wise not much going on today. The weather is improving as we got up to +14 yesterday. Anyway, that's about all for now.

My interview yesterday morning

paid off and I got the job. Its an ad job, which basically means if I can sell, I'm in. If I can't, I'm out. If I get a paid week, out of this place, I'll be happy and like everything else, move on. If I last longer then a week, great. It is what it is. If I don't last there, then I go on to the next ad job. Rinse and repeat until my ei claim is finalized. They said by the end of this month. Then depending on how many weeks I have, I take courses until the economy improves. I start this job Monday as its from 8:30am to 5pm. I like the office its a nice place.

Monday is my wife's birthday Monday and we're going out Sunday. As luck would have it the city has shut down the lrt and has contingency buses instead. Or as they call it "replacement" buses. It limits our options where we can go out to eat. We might go to Capital Pizza which has nothing to do with the lrt. They have a Giant Tiger and a Dairy Queen. Love their ice cream.

Have you been following this controversy over Robin Thick/Marvin Gaye "blurred lines" issue? Crazy. As I understand it, anyone can cover any song so long as they either ask permission from the copywrite holder, or if they are not making money from the song itself and credit the original artist. When I cover Louie, Louie (eventually) I'm pretty sure I'd be in the clear as long as I state that I am not making money from this and credit the original artist.

Because I got the job and I start Monday, I'm sleeping in today and watch the Oiler game tonight. I have 4 days off. So over the course of those 4 days I'm going to work on a beat. Anyway that's all for now.

It was a bit of a shocker to

hear over the phone a near last ditch job lead say, they have no openings. Now watch by next week that's going to change. I sent them out a resume anyway and got out of here about 1pm to my bank and got the form I needed. I caught the train to Service Canada and read read my Warhammer 40K book while in line. All that just to drop off the form. I caught a Northgate bus from the library and picked up my form at pcn and home. I called another job lead and I have a interview set up at 10:30 this morning. I'm up at 8am out the door by 9am. Its out in the Inglewood area. Its about an hour and a half long bus ride. All I do is take the #5 at Corona transfer to the #3 about 111th and 124th street and I'm there. The good thing about this job is I know people I used to work with that are there from the old Xentel days. Anyway, that's all for now. 

I've got to make a call before noon so I can

send out my resume. From there I've got to I get to my bank to get a dbd form for ei. So its down to Corona station get the form get the train to Churchill to sc and drop off the dbd form to ei. Then get the #16 outside the Edmonton Public Library to Northgate. I'm into pcn to get the medical forms and over to aw to get some job search help, then home. That's my day Anyway, that's all for now.

That sleeping aid was most helpful

and put me under right away. I got up to my alarm thinking the  Oiler/Hurricane's game was at 11:30am but it was at 1pm. I went back to bed and woke up shortly before the game.

I passed out with the effects of the sleeping pill still in me and woke up a bit here and there. It was 1-0 Oilers. Ok. I woke up fully and it was 2-0 Oilers. I was getting excited. Then 3-0 2 goals by RNH! This could be good. Things broke down in the 2nd as it was a tied game at 3. Oilers took way too many penalties. Then it was 3-4 for the other guys. Then they had a five on 3 and scored 5-3, then 6-3. RNH got a hat trick in the 3rd and they got a open net goal for a 7-4 win. Uggh. This Oiler season was written off when Hall got injured during practice in mid January. The copper and blue are in Detroit tomorrow.

I had a nice Facebook chat with a colleague from the old Xentel days. He gave me a phone # to call and depending on how tomorrow afternoon goes, I'm going to try that place. I was going to try it when the Metro line is online but now that its Spring anyway and the weather (for now) is improving, if the visit doesn't pan out, I'll try that Tuesday. At the moment the main thing is to get a job and pay for my lodge dues and get caught up in our bills.

I also want to save up some cash to take a online security guard course. This course is imperative for any would be guard here in Alberta. If I get the ad job I can take the course at night from home. Anyway that's all for now.

At least the weather is decent enough as

this is daylight savings weekend. Even though at the moment its +5 it feels like +1. Its because of all the ice and snow on the ground and the wind circulating the cold off it.

I got to thinking, why am I limiting my options to just customer service? I've done light warehouse work before (even though that was 30 years ago) and some janitorial (almost 20 years ago) and security guard work 15 years ago. The way my conditioning is now, I doubt I could do heavy duty warehouse work but light warehouse work like stocking shelves, that kind of thing. Maybe. At Malatest the cleaning crew would be working around us from about 7:30pm-8pm. I could do something like that. The key there is to keep moving. Security guard work though is my best option for anything other then customer service. Holding me back from any security guard work is a course that seems to be mandatory for all guards is called "Tip of Spear." Its $100 online and $200 on site. I need to check this out in case my ei claim doesn't go through, then what?

The plan Monday is to call a job lead too see if they are hiring and how do I get my resume. It's days. Then I've got to gather all of my roe's and head down to Service Canada. Then down to my bank to get a couple of direct bank deposit forms. Then to call the above job lead to confirm they have my resume. Then, timing is critical here, head out to another job lead and wander in at 4:30pm and ask if I can get my job back. Hopefully I can citing the other job at the time has a shortage of work but at the time I left they had a long project with lots of overtime. I just hope that I didn't burn my bridge with these people in October, when last I was there. 

As for today, I'm getting some pdf files for ei, reading and working on a track. Anyway, that's all for now.   
 

I'm getting a lot further ahead with ei

then I thought. Apparently my roe was sent to Service Canada last Wednesday. I have enough hours for a claim for how long I don't know yet. Monday I've got to go back to sc and bring my additional roes from previous places of employment. They call it labour force attachment. They want to see how long I've been in the work force without drawing ei. 

Then I got a return call from pcn and I explained my situation and based upon what we earned last year, this year we qualify for medical benefits. My case worker is going to leave the forms at the front desk and I can pick those up at any time next week. We need a few other things like bank statements, medical forms and prices etc.this may be tricky because I've been getting my insulin free from my pharmacist and test strips from Alberta Monitoring. Anne needs to sign the forms with me and hopefully we wont need to resend the paperwork again like we had to last time.

Anne made me a bit of supper and apparently went to pay on most of the rent, balance to follow.

I sent the job lead another email with my resume and this time I got a call back from somebody with accent. From what he told me over the phone it sounded like I got the job and all he was going to do was email me telling me what to bring on Monday as I said that's when I could start. I got the job! Then an hour later he said in a email, that he forwarded my resume to HR and the area manager for further screening. I don't know if I got the job yet.

Even with all of the above, nothing fruitful, so far. As of now, there's no t much I can really do. There's some pressure and stress in our household. Monday I'm at sc and applying at a temp agency and another job lead. That's all I can do for now. Anyway, that's about all for this weekend.

Lets see now I must have placed

about 3 calls at home to the job lead and all I got was vm. The only thing I could do at this point was leave a message. 

So I headed out to catch my #11 Northgate bus. Much better weather out there today. At pcn I had about a half hour wait, so I read and met my 3pm. I had a chat with my pharmacist about my current woes how it was 1 week ago today I was let go from my job with still know roe. I got my blood pressure checked and a couple of boxes of insulin. I didn't meet up with the aw lady for the medical benefit forms. My appointment said he'd try to raise her but she was tied up. Hopefully I'll get the forms at our April meeting. I called one more time to my job lead and left a message. On my way out of the mall I stopped into Coles and they have 5 Warhammer 40K Omnibus books I could easily spend $100 bucks on. If I had it. I had a 5 minute wait for my #11 home at the Northgate bus loop and home just after 4pm. There were no calls for the day from my job lead. 

I got ready for lodge and arrived there about 6:50pm. Lodge was short with a nice presentation on the psychology of Freemasonry. Good education. Lodge was done 9:15pm and I had a half hour wait at Bay station for Anne. We had a nice ride to Clareview station and walked home. Anne made me a burrito platter, we watched the news until midnight.

Update: I just called my former employer and after a weeks worth of waiting he said my roe gets filed immediately with Service Canada (sc) access code and here I am waiting for my roe in the mail or email. I received a sc access code a few days ago. I opened up a My sc account and called sc and got a real person (probably because its my first time) I was told that the reason for termination was shortage of work but I needed at least 920 hours and I had 200 less then that and even with adding Direct Buy, Pizza wasn't quite enough. They don't have 2 others but when I mentioned Xentel for 15 years, there's more then enough. The sc person said I should bring those hard copies of my roe Monday and the last 22 weeks worked. I'll be doing that over the weekend and in Monday Morning. It takes 4 weeks to make a decision and its already been 1 week. Based on what they have I don't have enough hours for a claim but by submitting my Xentel claim, I should. I'll have a decision by the end of the month, otherwise not much I can do now. I'm on hold to sc to ask how many minimum hours I need to open a claim here in Alberta at this time. I'm on wait time 25 minutes. Ok its (at this time ) 910 hours and I have enough to qualify for ei here in Alberta. They also want what's called labour force attachment. I could get up to 45 weeks, which could be about 11 months. 

I still need to contact my job lead this afternoon. So far all I'm getting is vm. The thing with ei is (or used to) they pay out the weeks waiting in one lump sum. Anyway that's all for now. 

Not much good news lately

other then yesterday the guy that Anne knows that's been doing our taxes for the last 3 years from her job that isn't there anymore, returned my message left on his voice mail. He said everything is the same, same price, when we're ready. So Anne is going to set that up.

The upside of having all this time off is that I'm making some good reading progress on the book I'm currently reading. I'm about halfway through it. This series "Horus Heresy" keeps getting better and better.

I decided that my job lead has had two days to go over my  resume. I'm going to call before I head out this afternoon. I need to know one way or another. If I get the green light, great. If not I'll try my next job lead Friday. I've got my pcn appointment at Northgate at 3pm and then home to get a bite to eat clean up and out to Freemason Hall. Hopefully I'll have good news and I'll celebrate and have a cold one. Anyway, that's all for now.

Now that I have more or less

caught my breath and caught up on my sleep, I'm planning what to do next. Moving forward from what happened last week.

At the moment I can't do much until I get that roe and apparently they have 10 days to get it to me. The job lead Monday said give him a couple of days either for him to call me and or for me to follow up. If I get a call today, I'll go in today and start tonight or even Friday, since I have my pcn appointment to get my insulin tomorrow at 3pm and lodge tomorrow night. Or if he calls me tomorrow when I come home I can go in Friday. Hopefully I can work Friday/Saturday.

Weather wise we're holding -10/-16. We're getting warmer. The number after the / is always the wind chill. Sunday we turn the clocks ahead for daylight savings time. Spring is a few weeks away but we're getting there. 

As for today, I'm home doing a job search, seeing what's out there and getting some more leads. I also need to get my last 22 weeks on paper and for ei so when I get my roe I can present both to them and a job search. Anyway, that's all for now.

Strap in and buckle up this could be a long and bumpy ride so here

we go. This could be a long one.

The computers at the ea were off line yesterday. They wanted me to go to aw and apply. I had a long wait for the #16 express bus between the Matrix hotel and Corona station. It was a cold, howling bitter wind that morning my friends in the midst's of a expected cold snap. Now, I could have applied at the aw on 105th and about 103rd street but the Northgate location was closer to my area. The #16 express bus goes right to Northgate and I was downtown anyway. Aw admittedly were slower then usual so I was able to see someone right away but apparently we did not qualify for income support. We have no children. I tried calling ea back but all I got was vm. I left a message of course. I went to pcn in hopes that maybe if my pharmacist had a cancellation while I was there he could take me in because I'll be back in 2 days but no such luck. I was however able to get wifi in the mall (new feature?) and I Googled a phone # of a job lead and went to pcn and used the phone. Reception at the job lead said they had a change in management (Surprised) The lead said yes they were still hiring and I could email my resume`. I worked with them a few times before over the years. The lead said I could follow up in a couple of days or they'd call me back. I asked somebody at pcn where there was a Tim's and they said right above them in the food court (opened in November). I went upstairs and got my first coffee of the day, and tried calling the ea again but just got vm. When I got home I explained to Anne what had happened. There were some tensed moments but she took the expected news as well as she could. Its not like I get "fired" everyday and between the both of us we'll have at least 70% of our rent on Friday. We're caught up in bills and have enough food in the house, so we're more or less ok. I was able to get my resume` out to the job lead so I hope they have for review it today and either I'll get a call Wednesday/Thursday one way or another.

We're both relieved in a way that I'm out of Malatest. Last month my scheduled hours were removed because projects were winding down. I probably could have opened up a ei claim based upon that alone, shortage of work. Right now before Anne and I can move forward we need that roe. They should have had it ready for me when they terminated my employment on the spot but they have up to 10 days to get out in the hands of the ex employee (me) It's not like I was late everyday or called in sick or kept ducking in and out of shifts or dressed bad or smelled bad or poor work ethic or anything like that. For the most part I met my expectations. They sited I was disruptive (asking supervisor questions because I was pulled from the project the first time I did it 2 years ago because I was new to market research at the time. Its a once every two year project) I caused a bit of a scene when my hours were being significantly reduced (I was under a lot of stress. My supervisors know I'm diabetic and my blood sugars were dropping) that one time last month and poor performance (on the new project they did not seem to take into account my work ethic during the last 2 years). The first day of Victoria's flagship project we were told to push the online version of the the survey, they were not expecting many completions. I had a scheduled day off this time last week and returned Wednesday. I screwed up on 1 survey but (It was coming back to me) caught on and I think I did a better job from there on the rest. I didn't code a few things properly later in the day. The following morning is when they fired me parting ways as "willful dismissal." I think that was a bit extreme. They could have pulled me off the project or suspend me. My boss wasn't there to defend me (he hired me originally). I probably could have put up a more of a fight but I suspect the results would have been the same anyway.

Anne made me a great burger and fires for supper while watching wrestling and she noticed a "Great clips" ad up there by Walmart had a 50% off sale ending today. A hair cut for $10. (those were the days) So we braved the icy side walks, howling wind to "Great clips." I needed a haircut anyway and I'm glad despite the bitter cold, we went. I could catch up on wrestling during the encore 10pm show. At 11pm Anne made me a light supper I watched what was left of wrestling, which led me to 1am. Anne said, don't do anything today (Tuesday) give the job lead a chance to review my resume` and go from there. I got my last pay stub in my email. I'll wait until Friday for that roe, if not there I'll call the office and ask the manager where my roe is. Are they going to email it to me or is it out in the mail or what?

Monday was a kind of a good news bad news thing. I learned that as long as I don't list any employer as a reference they wont call that employer. Also I got another job lead from the ea if this one doesn't work out. I got a feeling it will though. If I can open a ei claim and get this job (its only for a few months (they become active again in September) I hope to take this customer service course that goes from June-September as ei will allow me to continue onto my claim and I can get back to work in September. That's the plan moving forward. If I can open a claim. Anne gave me a sleeping pill because I've been having a rough couple of days under a lot of stress lately. We might have to cut our cable down to basic cable and keep Internet. I don't watch a lot of TV anyway. I'm calling ea later today to see if the computers are back online. If so I'll be in tomorrow. I hope the ride wasn't too bumpy. Anyway, that's all for now.

This morning I've got to go to the

employment agency (ea) to get my resume tweaked and see what they can do for me, check my web mail do a job search, head over to my pc by way of the #16 bus and see the front desk and ask for the medical forms again, then upstairs to AW get in line and see what I can get accomplished with all my t4's and a job search. I'll ask if I can see somebody today or this week. I can't do anything further with ei until I get my roe anyway. After that I'm calling a place I used to work at to se if they have started yet and if they need anyone. I've got another place like that and an ad job.

I think we got a lot of things accomplished at the lodge last night. I don't need to worry too much at the moment as I'm not 2 years in arrears. One of the guys there is in the same boat as I am but at least he has a job.

The Hyperloop guy is back. Elon Musk’s radical plan to let people travel in 760 mph tubes will be tested in California next year. The man behind Tesla Motors, SpaceX and Paypal joint-founder. Is this another pipe dream or can Musk pull this off. LA to San Fransisco in 30 minutes is almost as fast as a Concorde but faster then a Boeing 737. Its about 613 Km between LA and San Fransisco. Or about the distance from Calgary to Fort MacMurray. Here's a link to the story. Anyway that's all for now. 

I'm taking Dougs advice and I'm having a great

weekend. Monday the employment agency (ea) is going to help me get started and I'm going to tweak my resume and get a job search going. Then check my email to see if I have a pdf of my upcoming pay and roe. After that its to go to Alberta Works to meet Anne and get that going have lunch and do a follow up on a job lead. When I get my roe, I'll be getting that printed off at ei. Ei also needs my last 22 weeks and I'll be doing that later today. 

Did you see this one? A doctor in Turin Italy, Sergio  Canavero has drawn up plans to graft a living persons head onto a donor body and claims that this procedure is only two years away. If this actually works, I imagine the first patient will be the Doctor himself. For the rest of us, the asking fee will be quite high. Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic to say the least. Sorry I don't have a working link but you can Google it.  
   
Even though its cold out there, we're about to warm up. Its supposed to get up to +5 and +6 Thursday and the next 4 days after that. Also, next Sunday will be daylight savings. I might be (for now) out of a job but at least its warming up out there. Anyway, that's all for now.