The other day while browsing through my email

and Connect 2 Edmonton threads. The topic of the Wee Book Inn came up. I have a bit of history with this company. I met and dated a lady that worked in their downtown location in 1980. She invited me over to where she had a suite in the old Arlington apartment building. Anyway, she had a 2nd floor suite and was heavily into Tantra yoga. Her place was a mess and she had a ton of these books lying around. I kind of got the hint right way but I'm usually not the kind of guy that goes for the home run on the first date. I think she felt burned about that, and when I went to see her the following day she gave me the cold shoulder. I would see her once in awhile after that but I don't think she noticed me. She had a few toddlers with her she was managing and pregnant. I have a history with the Baker Centre as well (the white building on top of the grey podium) where I worked with Xentel from 2006-2011. That's another story. Lots of fun times working in that building. When I lived out in the West end in 1983 at this address from 1985-1995, the West end Wee Book Inn, was where I met Chris. I had the bachelor apartment behind the trees on the top floor there. Anyway, Chirs and I had our one and only encounter in this building. She had the basement suite by the stairs with her daughter just behind that big tree I recall. I found out that their  their West End location was closed. Knowledge of this information hit me like the end of an era. So much history with this company.

We have yet to hear from the City about our low income rec centre application/pass. It's been 3 months now so we're expecting to hear from them soon. If I have time off this summer, I'll be enjoying that. 

Another bit of history when I worked at the Army & Navy department store (not the warehouse, that's another story) after the warehouse the general manager at the time was a Mr. Jay Siderson. I had never met this man before I was told I was being transferred to the store. I was in the warehouse from 1982-1989. Lots of history in this building as well, the Edmonton Oilers winning 4 of their 5 Stanley Cups, the 1987 Tornado etc. My "office" was where I hung out during days that were not busy where I ate my lunch, had a lot of naps where I had a portable typewriter when I wanted to be a paperback writer. So when I got transferred to the store at this address I was stunned, another end of an era. I met Jay Siderson, my boss. This would have been at the end of January 1989. The building I worked in was the Army & Navy department store. It's an iconic building here in Edmonton. Today the building has fallen on hard times and sits empty in its run down condition. In this building on that fateful day in March after a West End Doctors appointment I wanted to check into a job I had with ACT. It was a call centre in this building. Now owned by the Edmonton Association for the Deaf. In my chat with Gavin he asked me when the Spring campaign came up how could he get in contact with me since I had no phone. I opened my big mouth and said I'm working at the Army & Navy, North side store. That was a blunder that would come back to haunt me for the rest of my life. The day I returned for work, I got a message to report to Mr. Siderson. Ok. He said he received a call from a Gavin --- about a job for me. I said yes, it was a part time evening job. So right then and there he fired me. "None of my employees are going to moonlight on my job. You can pick up your last cheque on Friday." I was stunned. What just happened here? I pleaded my case but it fell on deaf ears. I even had the assistant manager Murray (who befriended me while he was working with me at the warehouse) plead my case. He just negatively shook his head. Because of that the 1990's were really hard on me. I never did get that job at ACT until the following year and even then it was temporary. From that moment on when I had left Army & Navy, I never had a steady job in the 90's. I regret it to this day. I don't blame Siderson for that. This was me mentioning to Gavin where I worked. If I would have kept my mouth shut during that talk or just mention I'm unemployed (Maybe it'd be better if I called you, etc) type thing I would have had my job through out the 1990's and work part time. Opening my mouth got me into trouble at Malatest as well a few years ago but that's another story. Back to Siderson. I had always wondered what became of him. Last week I did an obit search and his name and photo came up. He passed away (cause of death not mentioned) October 2006 at the age of 74 Apparently the obit had some good things to say about Jay Siderson, loved by all. A bit of history, and some closure. More for me then anyone else.

Ok back to the present. Today I'm home taking it easy. Anne has her sister coming in to visit as we haven't seen her in over 3 years. Its always been tradition when she comes for a visit to take us out for dinner, but we're having Chinese at home. So when she gets here I hope she brings up our current situation. At the moment, however I'm hoping my current job will give me a call in the next few days for work. The boss Friday said we have 2 projects waiting to start. A small crew is there now to test the project. I'm almost certain I'll be called in tomorrow night to start Wednesday or Thursday. If there's work for me for June, I'll have a ei claim and we'll be ok for the summer and beyond. If not and there's no work, then we could be n for a bit of a rough ride over this summer. We'll get by but it'll be rough and I'll be looking for a summer job. I'm hoping all of this will come out when Anne's sister visits. She's been really good to me sending me birthday money etc. She's more closer to me then even my own family. I'm hoping she might offer to help us out if I don't get work this week. 

The other interesting piece of information that our household can take advantage of, is how the City of Edmonton is working on a low income transit pass. I heard that the proposed bus pass is 60% off of the regular fare. This is subject to change but instead of $91/month its $54. Every bit helps. The proposed low income bus pass in my opinion should be 75% of a adult monthly pass. $54 is still a lot of money for low income. $25/month is more affordable.

Over the weekend I worked on another music video. I'm using Hypercam 2 to screen record a Winamp visualization. It opens up in Windows movie maker. I drop the audio in and there's my movie. These are going to get more elaborate. I'm going to have more of these until I get a action cam. For now this will do. You can see the video here. Anyway, that's all for now.