A night off too myself at last

and one more tomorrow night. lately I've been messing around with Beat Maker 3. I couldn't grasp all of this Song mode pattern mode scene mode stuff, until I watched a video offered by Doug woods. I'm beginning to see the possibilities of this app. So that's my project for the weekend. And I'm undecided if I want to run over to pick up a mic stand with an extendable boom arm and the iKlip grip expand for smartphones tomorrow for overhead shots.   
Our household has been waiting until video on demand came out with the recent Star Wars movie. Now its here and we are resuming "Movie night" for tomorrow night. The cliché's in Star Wars are getting a bit old, so I hope that aspect of the last movie is toned down.

We had snow overnight. Not a lot but at his hour we're sitting at -11/-17< what it feels like. Its overcast. I'm hoping this weekend I can put together a Trap style beat on BM3, watch some Oilers hockey tomorrow. Anyway, that's all for now.

That was a nice

almost week off. I wish it was a bit longer but like most folks, we have bills. Having time off won't pay them. So, I'm in the office today and then off for another 4 days. I might not have another 4 days off until Victoria day. Its going to be a bit of a novelty going back to work, but then back at it.  



Apples Garageband is getting better and better. Garageband just had another free update. Bringing in "Toy box." Its aimed at kids encouraging them to get into music making with some fun sounds. Apple added some Live loops a bunch of kits to the package. For the i0s I think Garageband is the best DAW out there, and its free. I work mostly in Garageband but I also like using Cubasis. 

Its basically roll the dice to pinpoint where that Chinese satellite crash land. The Tiangong-1 space station will crash land April 1st. Nobody knows where. Is this just another April fools joke?   

It took me awhile to get things sorted out. I did a lot of research. My studio mic is going to be the Audi Technica 2020. I'm going to attach it to a Rode desk stand and a Universal shock mount. For the overhead video shots, I'm getting what's called an iKilp expand mount for smartphones/iPod touch. That gets clipped onto a floor mounted mic adjustable stand boom arm. I think that's going to be a good set up. Anyway, that's about all from me today.

We had our Xbox 360 collecting dust

in our living room since about 2009. After discovering how many games are still available for the 360 and that its still being played, suits my needs fine. About a month ago, we took our 360 out of hibernation and I set it up here in my office. At first it wouldn't respond to my monitor. So I left it alone for awhile. Then earlier today I got to thinking, since I have 2 hdmi slots on this monitor, one is occupied by my pc stick, lets remove the stick and then try it. Nope. Oh wait, the controller needs new batteries. I found some put them in and fired up the unit and boom, works good. I can still play the Fable games, Elder scrolls, Assassins creed and a lot of others. I've got a few Lego games here to play as well. So that was a bit of good new today. So this is going to be good for doing some live streaming. I wonder how streaming ASL is?




Since I'm moved in with Anne here back in 2000, Burger King across the street has been a kind of landmark. I could count on one hand how many times I've been in there in 18 years. So lately I've been wondering why the lights are off at 8pm? So, I called the number from the Internet and I got redirected to the Millwood's location. And its confirmed that Burger king closed down. What a shocker. Burger King here in that location across the street has been there since the mall was opened about 1988. I've stumbled across various reviews now and then and that location didn't receive that many positive reviews over the years. I don't know why it closed, maybe management couldn't staff the store or maybe it was the economy or competing businesses. We have a Red Robin a block or two away and a Bo Didly's across the street. Sad

It doesn't make sense to start a new project on the Thursday before Easter weekend. I hope they don't start it until Tuesday after Easter Monday. Anne and I agree that it would be good if after October I just do 3 days a week. Sounds like a plan. Anyway, that's all for now.

If all goes well this aftenoon

I could end up getting a Red Robbin's Angus burger for my lunch. Its going to be a late lunch, but that's ok. After some shopping Anne is getting that for me shortly. 

With an all day session yesterday at City Hall, it was finally decided to leave out the West LRT 149th street interchange proposal. That interchange would have taken out nearby businesses and slow down traffic even more then it already could. Once the tender process has been selected, the City of Edmonton what's to have shovels in the ground for the WLRT project by 2019. The WLRT will run down (low floor) right by my old apartment building I used to live at in the '80's and most of the '90's right above the sign in the yard behind that tree. That was my old suite. What could have been a option would be to have a trench system like the proposed St. Albert line, run the train down a trench system after it leaves the Jasper Place transit station and emerge on 87th after the 156th street intersection. I was on board of having the WLRT run from the University of Alberta cross the river and tunnel out onto after the 87th Ave traffic circle. As envaneo, I made my voice heard on that concept.

Switching gears here with 8 games remaining in the Oilers NHL schedule, the only things to be decided for the Oilers is can Connor McDavid win the Art Ross trophy again and can the Oilers finish playing 500 hockey?  McDavid is currently one point behind TB's Kucherov. McDavid can close in and maybe move ahead of Kucherov but both teams have 8 games remaining and Kucherov isn't just going to be standing still. Its going to be a real horse race here. This list gets refreshed at the end of the day. If McDavid wins the Art Ross then that's something the Oilers can really behind for next season and makes this bitter pill of a season easier to follow. Anyway, that's al for now. 

What with all the talk over

Facebook (fb) lately, I'm still not deleting my account. People need to realize that anything online can be hacked. I don't blame fb in any of this. Its just the way things are. Fb users can protect their privacy, within the app. A google search will show how to do this. I'm not worried if any of my data is being compromised because there are no ads on this blog. My blog is not monetized, never will be. 
                    
In one of my Connect to Edmonton forum posts a hot topic is autonomous vehicles. In wake of last weekends pedestrian accident with a Uber autonomous car, prompted a lot of traffic on that thread. I was thinking that if investigators did a reenactment as I'm sure they already have, they might find what the cause was. If the Uber car had all the tools at their disposal, including gps, wifi, street view, all that information would be available to the cars software. This information, crosswalks, stop signs, ROW's everything would or should have been programmed into the vehicle. Is the accident victim at fault here? The victim was walking outside a marked crosswalk. For all we know the victim has done this a dozen times until then. Lots of factors at work here.

So now in Ottawa's attempt to gender neutral everything, the Feds are no longer addressing personal correspondence as Mr., Mrs., Ms. anymore. Its just a name. What's next we're all going to have to change first names to numbers or objects? How about Flowers Shannon, or Stone Shannon? Is that what's coming next? These social warriors are a piece of work. They got nothing better to do. Maybe we'll all be symbols like Prince was. Or maybe we'll all be just QR codes. I'll be long gone before that happens, thank God. That's going to be in there too because God (at least in the Holy Bible) is a male figure. Wait for that one.

The project at work ended at 8:30pm. It went by so fast because there were no age quotas. I got 14.5 hours on that project. Our next project could be Wednesday/Thursday of next week, so I got about 6 days off, maybe 2 days of work and then a 4 day long weekend😥  But its not going to throw our household out of whack too much. Anyway, that's all for now.

Personally I think social media at least to some

extent has enriched my life. Its allowed me to connect with my family, the location where I grew up and colleagues all over the world. In some ways I wished that I never got onto the Internet back in 1997. Some of my friends don't even have email. They don't go online for any reason. They are basically ghosts. They know all about social media from the news that sort of thing. So, imagine the scandal over Face Book and the data mining company. I've known this for years that every thing I do online is being monitored. Even this blog. These data mining companies are looking for anything they can to change behavior. That's why when I look at the amount of "views" I get are most likely data miners, trolls and would be scammers. I can make reference right now, to any country, thing etc and my view rate will go up. Want proof? Lets look at my "view rate" now. Right now my view's under "stats and stuff" is at 57, 538. Most of these are bots, not real people. So far today 16 bots have "visited my blog." What country should I talk about today? Oh I know Australia. Lets talk about what a great country Australia is, the climate etc. Lets see how many bots I get from this country by the end of the day today. I'll tweet about it by the end of the day.

Well, its back to work this afternoon. I'm happy to get back. I had 10 days off and I'm looking forward to summer. Anyway, that's all for now.   

Its almost as if

we can predict every time, this time of year that its going to snow. Usually does on St. Patrick's in Edmonton, and  on my wife's birthday proper. If we get less then a centimeter out of this, I'd be surprised.                                 
Looks like NDP leader Mr. Singh is in damage control mode over the Atwal situation during Trudeau's recent trip to India. The fact that Atwal wasn't on Canada's no fly list is also alarming. The better question is this: how in heaven's name was that man allowed to set foot on a passenger aircraft, in an age of no-fly lists so strict that babies with names similar to violent extremists are denied boarding? This story won't go away. 

After a bit of research, I'm warming up to the Gondola/cable car system. My only concerns here are security for passengers, frequency of stops. Otherwise the savings to build such a system, would be huge. One of our city councilors last week suggested the proposed Centre LRT could benefit from a Gondola system at a fraction of a cost. $50 million/Kilometer as opposed to $138 million/Kilometer for LRT. So, City council has decided that with a underpass at 87th Ave/156th street, a huge park n ride at Lewis Farms, would cost an extra $440 million for the West LRT, making the entire project to come in at ~ $2.2 Billion.

I can't believe that I've had 9 days off. My Spring break a bit early. Spring officially arrives here on Tuesday. During those 9 days Anne and I went on a dinner celebration for her birthday at the Olive Garden. Plus I had a lab and a Doctors appointment but I got to watch a couple of Oilers games. With 11 games left in the regular season, McDavid could be in the running for the Art Ross trophy for a back-to-back win. That'd be awesome. So, I have another Oilers/TB game tomorrow at 3pm, and it looks like I could be back at work Tuesday/Wednesday. That's why I like this job, it has a nice balance. Its fairly easy to do. Anyway, I have a night off by myself. I'm "working"  on a track in Cubasis 2 and I hope to put the finishing touches on it tonight. Anyway, that's all for now.    

Yesterday

Anne and I left out of here about 4pm to Olive Garden on the South side on Gateway Blvd. This was her birthday dinner. My present to her. I liked the complementary wine sample. I had this potato/Italian sausage/Kao endless soup appetizer (included in the price) but I just had one serving. Our portions were generous. Anne was enjoying her dinner. By our standards it was a pricey outing. We couldn't finish the whole thing so we asked for a take out container to take what we had left over for home for later. We had a bit of a wait for the #304 on the way back, but even though the weather was a bit on the chilly side of a nice sunny day, in the shade of our bus shelter it was a bit cold. It was a good outing. I waited for Anne for a good 20 minutes at Southgate while she went to Safeway to get her birthday cake. This cake looked like it was 18 X 24 inches, huge. We got our Clareview train at Southgate and at Clareview station by 7pm.

Anne and I parted ways at our stop home because I wanted to get to Shoppers Drug Mart and get a iTunes card for a couple of Apps. I bought Maxima, Kosmonaut, Rozeta Suite (contains 5 apps) and Poison 202 plus a few Groovebox sound packs. I had a good haul.

As soon as I got inside there was my Oilers/Flames game underway. Perfect. Wrestling Monday night, Oilers last night and tonight, I got a medical lab visit tomorrow morning. PVR Smackdown Thursday, Doctors visit Friday morning, and hopefully Lodge Saturday afternoon, and then my own lodge for a degree team practice Sunday. I miss a couple of afternoon weekend Oilers games, but that's ok. Looks like I'm going to be in for a nice couple of days and weekend on my time off. Anyway, that's all for now. 

Its a beautiful Spring day

out there but I'm spending time with the family as its my wife's birthday week. I could have gone to the event this afternoon. Our host is really good as well. But its my wife's birthday this week and I'm going out this Saturday to another event. Hopefully.  

So the City of Edmonton has launched a proposal called "The Edmonton project, (ep)." The ep is an attempt at making our river valley more accessible to the public. Since the announcement of ep in 2017 there have been a lot of submissions/proposals and the finale selection is a Gondola across the Northern Saskatchewan river. I imagine this will be similar to the one that's in Stowe Vermont. They call it the Over Easy. In some ways I can see this as an alternative even down Jasper Ave all the way out to the West end. The Gondola would be connected to a pole with cables above traffic and elevators to platforms. I'd be concerned about passenger security though.

I really enjoyed Fastlane, the wrestling show this evening. Other then missing the meeting this afternoon I had a good weekend. The game last night didn't mean anything for the Oilers except to get the team better. It was a fun game to watch. And wrestling was fun to watch earlier. Plus I have the rest of the week off. Maybe. Anyway, that's all for now. 

This is day one of

a 10 day lay over in between projects. Its good for me, not for the bills. The basics are more or less covered. I may have time off work but I'm kept busy. I have Saturday off but I have some lodge business to take care of, lab on Monday. I'm going to push the Doctors appointment from Tuesday to Friday. Hopefully I won't need to worry about going back to work until the 19th. 

The good part is I'll have tomorrow night off and I can watch the Oilers game. The not so good is I'll be missing WWE's Fastlane Sunday night. Thank God for the pvr.

Apparently Canada is momentarily spared from Trump's steel and tariff's. Its most likely a Nafta bargaining chip for down the road. It's a good thing that Canada and others took steps to strengthen the Trans Pacific Partnership earlier this week. Watch out for that one.

The caveat to having my 10 days off (allegedly) is the boss could call me back at anytime. Its kind of like Trump's mood swings. One hour we're exempt from these tariff's next we're not. Anyway, at least I'm employed. If Trump imposes a global trade war, despite the Three Stooges in the White House, we can take solace that there is safety in numbers. Last time I checked Canada is still a member of the Commonwealth. Anyway, that's all for now.

As we move closer to

daylight savings time its getting lighter later around here. Now comes the overnight freeze thaw. Its a trade off.

I'm in for my 4-9 shift this afternoon. We're near the end of the project, so this project could end by 8pm tonight but I think tomorrow could be the official last day. It was great running into one of my contacts from another job I had from last Spring at Corona station last night. The "competition," from down the block. I lost a phone # so it was great to get that again for my files.

The CRA scam is running around again. The scammer makes it sound with a authoritative voice how unless the victim hands over X amount of dollars to a designated pin number or something, they could get a knock on the door. The other scam last year was the scammer said the victim needed to buy iTunes gift cards and send those numbers to such and such location. Folks: The CRA does not call their clients about payment of debt owing. The CRA does not call anyone at tax time or whatever. They have a inbound call centre but that's it.

Its a nice sunny day out there about -4* so my commute to the office will be pleasant, at least. I'm hoping that this project ends tonight and I have a long weekend. Anyway, that's all for now.

Despite having some issues with

my wife's blow ups, I had a decent weekend. On a snowy Saturday afternoon, Anne called into Red Robin for an order for us to get some burgers that come with fries from across the street. Very nice. I got a call from my supervisor for hours for next week. The Oilers let in the first goal (as usual) but they played pretty good. And then having today off was a blessing.

So it looks like Trump fired the first volley on what looks like a global trade war. Other nations besides Canada will retaliate. I mean do we really need the Keystone pipeline? How about we send our natural gas to say North Korea? Or better yet lets send our Potash (farming) to other countries. Not only this but Canada has other trading partners. I'm not sure the status of the Trans Pacific Partnership is, but we should work on that more. Europe is concerned about steel exports to the US as well. There is safety in numbers and besides Trump wont have his administration forever. Oh, the last time the US imposed steel & aluminum tariff's like this onto Canada (2002) it cost the US economy about 200,000 jobs. This will increase even more now that these tariffs are world wide. And if this trade war escalate, watch out for more meddling in the next US election as America's allies begin to diminish. 

This week I have a full week 4-9. I've got to go to the lab for my Doctors visit next week. So basically that's about it for me. I'm working on a Garage band/You Tube track for release mid this month, so look out for that. Anyway, that's all for now.

I'm still around

except things have been slow lately. I was at lodge Thursday night. For the most part I'm just going to work, coming home. As for now, I have a weekend off, as we're going to be getting busier after mid month at work. I'm just waiting for my ei T4 and then we can file our taxes. On tap for this weekend is the "Oilers losing show" This evening. 

At the moment its -10 and snowing. We're supposed to get about 10-25 cm of snow. Or about 4-8 inches over night. At least though its getting lighter later as our Sun sets at 6:15 and daylight savings is just around the corner. Anyway, that's all for now.