Yesterday we got up to

+30 and I'm glad I got out of lifting that hide-a-bed out of here because I had a heat stroke in the morning that lasted pretty well much all afternoon. It was brought about by my sinus condition bit I feel a bit better although we could have used the AC unit on. I was in bed before midnight. 

Still working on my Warhammer 40K Space Wolf summer read and wondering if I should get the online or print version of What dwarf magazine. I'll probably get the online version because I own an iPad anyway.

Currently on my mind is a major decision city council is going to vote on Wednesday. It's to decide to borrow the money for a new downtown arena. People don't realize that Rexall place was built with public money. At the moment it wont be the end of the world or anything if city council votes "No." The Oiler's will still be at Rexall. It means the Oiler's will still have the oldest arena in the league and about 2-3 billion dollars worth of projects in the area that would not be developed if the arena does not go through. Plus if we don't build it now, it's going to cost a lot more a year or even 2 from now. Also, the tax benefits to city coffers is huge, like about $160 million/year. 

Anyway, it's a regular back to work day for me. I wish we could start at 8:30am and leave at 4:30pm but I'd lose an extra half hour. Anyway, it's a long day ahead for me. That's all for now.

We had a nice thunder storm

go through here over the last few hours. Lots of rain and boom, booms, good stuff.

I went into the evening shift and stopped into Tim’s for an iced coffee. I should have got one of those iced caps/slurppe kind of things instead. It was very warm this afternoon when I tweeted earlier it was +31 out there. Hence the storm:

 Wow, Mars rover Curiosity is going on a bit of a trip today. It’s going to move forward for a bit and then back. Very significant early steps.

I had a slow evening on the job but I was more or less on par with everything else but I’m glad I wasn’t there the whole day like a few other‘s were having a hard time all day. 
 
Once in awhile I get asked, “Jim, what are you watching on TV these days?” I watch, local/international news, Monday night Raw the odd CFL/NHL game, reruns of the original Batman TV show and The Rifleman and the occasional episode of “Reviews on the Run” or “Attack of the Show.” That‘s it. I don’t watch a lot of TV maybe 5 hours, week. If that. Anyway, that‘s about all for now. 

I'm a day late and a

buck short with this but it was yesterday August 16th 1977 when Elvis died. Now I was never a fan or anything although I did like a few songs. But I recall exactly where I was when that event occurred, at a pool side home in North Vancouver with a wargaming friend of mine. We heard the news on the radio. I don't think this registered on my young friend at the time but when I got home early that evening it was all over the news. Wow, that was 35 years ago yesterday. I was just 24 years old. The news of Elvis death probably held the same impact for me as when Kurt Cobane died in 1994. It didn't register, but Elvis was a legend in the business and like him and Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone and to some extent, Freddy Mercury. Lennon, Strummer, Joey were the 3 big names that made an impact on me. When Elvis died it felt like a bit of my childhood ended, musically speaking. Elvis was never an inspiration to me musically, not like Strummer, or Joey Ramone. Not even the deaths of Jim Morrison and or George Harrison phase me. I'm sure when Mick Jagger goes that will really make me cry. The musical artists that made me cry when they died the most were John Lennon, Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone and most recently David Jones from the Monkees. Elvis passing away was a year before I moved here to Edmonton on this week 1978 and my life changed for ever. 

I had a good day pulling in about $350 and a hundred on card for the afternoon. Our dialer's were shut down again and we had a 40 minute lunch break and then because of our dialer's shut off again we didn't get underway until about 6pm. It was like a 6 hour shift that we got paid for.

We also got to watch a bit of the Hamilton/Winnipeg CFL game. I had it to tie and it was up until about the 4 minute  mark, the the Bombers had to make a 7 point play spoiling my Proline ticket. Crazy.

It's Friday at last and it's a 7.5 hour shift for me and off to my bank and then home. Because Anne's been coming home so late because she gets off at 10pm and gets the 10:20pm bus and a pit stop to Superstore she doesn't get home until about 11:20pm and she didn't get home this last night until about 11:30pm, yeesh. I'm thinking about seeing if she could make a pre-made pasta dish so I can just heat and serve. Anyway's that's about all for now. 
 

I composed this yesterday but here it is today

So I am waiting by the curb of the Kiss n’ ride by Ron’s big clown feet (Sunday). It’s 9am and very warm. Some cars are dropping folks off and picking up others. I’m checking the time expecting Dan to pick me up at any time. I checked and it was 9:35am. No Dan. I went to find the pay phones in Southgate mall and they were Bell pay phones. Ok. One pay phone is as good as the other right? I wasn’t even thinking along those lines. I was sweating in the heat even inside. I had his phone # in my address book in my iPad and some spare change. The Bell phone wouldn’t let me connect. 50 cents for call right? I tried Fort Edmonton Park’s office but I couldn’t get through. Looks like I’m going to have to run the show myself. I knew there was a shuttle bus to FEP from Campus station. I managed to call Dan from there and I asked him if he was ok. He had forgotten our FEP gig was Sunday. I told him I was at South Campus LRT and he had to park away from where I was and he found me and we were on our way, half an hour late.

We got the key and opened up and put the signs out and opened up the museum upstairs and began to play a couple rounds of crib. We played about 5 games during the afternoon as people came in and asked questions. I called Anne and had a brief talk and she was making me some ribs for supper last night. We must have had about 25 visitors and we left at 5pm when they were closing up the café  below us. I took a few photos of my day and some video. It was a good time.

This evening while I‘m watching Monday night Raw, I‘m going to be calling up all the brothers and (all 90 of them) and asking if they can make it out to the bbq (2pm) and what they want and to bring their own plates and cutlery. That way the only thing to clean up is the grill. Neil said there‘s going to be another bbq that the “Masters, Wardens and Deacons Association of Edmonton” are putting on at Freemason Hall Monday August 27th (this month) I saw that in the email Dan sent me last night. I don’t think I can go to that one. I could go to that one as all I need do is to let Anne know I’m going into work for 4 hours. I’ll get my 37.5 hours in and I’ll leave at 9pm catch the bus at Bay station and (next Monday) and I’ll still get my 37.5 hours in. I won’t need to dress in business dress for this one.

I called up a couple of guys already and I’m going to be calling some more this week. I think I’m going to  put some more minutes on my cell phone because I’ll need to be calling some guys at work.

The guys I'm going to call, are to remind them to bring their own cutlery. I'll call some more of them this week. I should have asked Neil to include "bring your own cutlery"in the last message but most of the people that have been out no this. Makes my job easier. 

Today, it's a full 8 hours and we're in for a heat wave this week but next week, we should be cooling down to a balmy +22. Warm but ok.

Nasa's Mars rover "Curiosity" had landed, apparently ok. That'd be cool if they had one of those drones aboard so they can fly it by remote control. Anyway, that's about it 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.

.  

it's been a lazy afternoon

for the most part I've been working on my music all afternoon and I discovered a cool program called Music Maker 17 by Magix and the price is phenomenal at $115 for their premium edition. Almost makes me want to cancel out on Sib 6 and get a disposable credit card for this reason only. I don't like waiting 8 days to use Pay pal.

I'm just getting into my new Star Wars book Dark Tide 1. It's very exciting. I'll have this read by the end of the month.

Summer is in full swing around here. (The photo above is the walk way I take every morning to our bus shelter. The building here is a mirror image of ours. I know they look old because they are but its nice inside.) Local weather is +26 but not anywhere near it is in the US, some places +40! I'm glad I don't live in the US. I like it right here in Northern Alberta thank you.

This photo is looking West on the walkway above taken less then half an hour ago. I recall back in New West, we had some nice days in the Summer but for the most part one day anytime of the year was pretty much the same as the next. It either rained or it didn't. At least here, there's jobs, lots to do and the weather always changes. Anyway, that's about all for now.