Anne made us a nice left over roast beef

sandwich with fries n gravy for dinner and a homemade yogurt fruit medley, yum. 

This is cool: Stephan Hawking and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner are to work together with SETI to fund $100 million to search for not just radio waves but optical laser transmissions from other star systems. Its called Breakthrough Listen. They akin to a piano with just 88 keys now using billions of keys. Its a 10 year project and the first observations will begin early next year. Its the largest search for alien life ever. This will all be open to the public. Here's a link out of the Scientific American.

The Edmonton Oiler's finally announced today the last great act for Rexall place will be to hang Glen Sather's name up to the rafters alongside with that of Wayne Gretzky, announcer Rod Phillips, Mark Messier, Grant Fhur among others. That will be 10 banners now. Its about time for Slats. The Oiler's will be doing this in September. I hope to see Connor McDavid's name up there some day.

Since Anne is home,today is my best chance to go to the lab and get a couple of bank statements for our health benefits claim for the provincial government. Then home to check my messages to see if my place of employment called about the next upcoming project. If I don't hear from them by Wednesday, Thursday I'm activating my ei. Anyway, that's all for now.

Wednesday I left out of here at 3pm

thinking I'm pushing the clock here because I missed that 1st bus to Clareview station. Even after a wait for my bus to Clareview and a wait on the train (I forgot my iTouch player/clock) I had only a vague idea what my time was looking at. A wait for the bus on 129th there and it's 1 stop away but it's a long walk. I got into the office at 3:35pm. I don't really need to leave out of here until about 315pm.

This weekend the plan is Friday morning run over to the tm job and get my cheque and then do my banking, get my book go to the employment agency put my name in for that course in October. I'd like to work Friday night but there's apparently no crew working. So it's home to get ready for Saturday's BBQ our lodge is putting on for its members. It's been an annual tradition the JW does. I'm meeting my pick up ride across the street from  McKernan /Belgravia for 1:30pm. It's going to be a fun afternoon. Sunday the City is shutting the lrt from Clareview to Corona again. Sunday the tm shift starts 2-6. So I've got to take a ETS replacement LRT bus from Clareview to Belvedere and at 6pm take a replacement bus from Belvedere to Rexall and the #8 where I need to go for my 7pm meeting. That's my weekend.

I'm still riding on the Edmonton Oil Kings high of them winning the Memorial cup. There are 60 teams in the Canadian Hockey League who's ultimate goal is to win the Memorial cup. In the WHL there are 17 Canadian teams and 5 American teams. Kamloops Blazers won the Memorial cup 6 times since the WHL was founded in 1966. While I'm not a huge fan of minor hockey it's pretty decent hockey and I've been to a Oil Kings game. The Alberta Junior Hockey League has decent hockey as well and I always like to follow how the Sherwood park Crusaders are doing. Yesterday there was a parade for the Oil Kings and a celebration at Churchill square park. Now if only some of what the oil Kings did last Sunday rubs off on the Oiler's.

This is going to be an interesting BBQ to say the least but it's going to be very pricey. Not for the members because it's free for members Anyway, that's all for now.

My Doctors appointment went ok

although my weight is down by 4 pounds. I got an exact measurement on my height at 5.8." I'm waiting to get booked for some lab work and hopefully after that get a referral for the diabetic centre and maybe I can access the Doctor's network. I forget what it's called DPN something but there may be some funds in there to help me with my insulin.

After that we went over to Subway and I had a half of a chicken sub and a cookie, then we went down to Tim's for coffee and I bought Anne a large coffee and me a regular size and I won a free coffee from their roll up the rim contest. After that I went into the office.

I had a decent shift. I got my hours tweaked as I'm off Saturday but in Sunday from 12-8. It's a long shift, I realized that I'd be working from Sunday-Saturday without a break! So I got the super to make a note for me to have Monday night off. Then I work Tuesday-Saturday. If I don't hear from my 2nd job, by then I'll be looking for a new 2nd job and I have a few options in mind. The boss even asked me if my wife might want to consider some pick up hours which on the surface might be a good idea. If she can get a few shifts, then that might help us out.

When I left the building shortly before 9pm there was a light snow falling. It wasn't that cold as I had a wait for my train and got a front seat by myself. I had a headache on the way home most likely due to lack of food all day.

Kind of sad to see Alis Hemsky being traded to the "Ottawa Senators yesterday." The Oiler's haven't been trade buyers in the last couple of years. The Oiler's yesterday, however found themselves short a backup goaltender for team practice before the game with Ottawa. As she was in town, MacT asked if Olympic gold medalist of the Canadian women's hockey team goaltender Shannon Szabados to put on Oiler's gear and play goaltender for the practice game. I think this has to be a first! Oiler players were saying she didn't do half bad. Anyway that's all for now.

I took my suit and apron along as I made a decision to go to Lodge

last night anyway. Anne caught me heading out the door in my suit, "oh your going out to Lodge anyway." Then she went back to bed. I felt good about making the decision, I'd "pay for it later." I called the WM elect at Corona, saying I'd be there. I mentioned to my boss about leaving at 7pm. We had training at 6pm doing a BC project, which means I'd be at Clareview station at station at 10pm as my options for catching a bus home would be less at that time. I'd get home about 11pm. 

There's been renewed interest in a high speed bullet train that would travel between Edmonton and Calgary. They ought to do it right with a Hyper-loop concept. 

The above would be better then high sped rail but it has it's share of problems. Just check out some the comments from YouTube.

Today before work I'm calling my 2nd job to see if I can get some extra hours. Hopefully I can work Thursday, Friday for 7 hours. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Sleeping in past the usual 8 hours my body needs is something I rarely do unless I have a seeling aid of some kind

so today I slept in past noon.

Last night at our practice, at least we had enough for a quorum. It was an installation practice. Four of my officers, couldn't make it. There was a weather advisory warning saying that if at all possible stay off the roads. We worked with the "tools" we had and still pulled off a good practice. A bunch of us went over to our DDGM elect's place as we had a bit of a "mini festive board" I was home by 9pm and Anne had the Christmas tree up and I just rounded out the rest of the evening.

If I get this other job I'll try it out part time. If it's too stressful then I can always say I gave it a good shot. I still have my current job and I won't give that up. Unless the new job pans out I'm a good fit for them and they 're a good fit for me. It was my wife that told me about the job Friday night. Apparently one of her colleagues mentioned it to her. It pays almost twice as much as what I'm getting now! I think she got the job because she's a visible minority from another country. My wife says her English isn't very good as it is. When I asked about the job, all the girl on the phone just gave me the email address I sent a email with a cover letter and a 1 page resume of my skills, work history and education.

Today I'm leaving out of here at my usual time for my 4 hour shift. I like this 3-pm shift. It gives me the opportunity to catch more Oiler losses on home ice. If I hustle I can get home by 7:45pm to catch whats left of the games. Next Oiler game is on Tuesday. Anyway, that's all for now.

I have a

unscheduled day off today, lucky me. Not. That's 3 days I missed this week off this pay period, not good. So, tonight I'm following the Washington/Oiler game on TV later on this evening and I'll catch bits of Impact wrestling in there as well. 

I was going to make a visit to Service Canada today but I don't know if they can do anything for me. Other then use the computers to access their job bank, which I think I can do at home anyway. I got about 3 and a half years left in the "rat race" before I can "fully retire" at 65 and work part time just to get out of the apartment a couple nights/week and go to Lodge the rest, "living the dream" oh well.

During the game tonight I'm taking the files off the flash drive I bought yesterday and putting them back onto the iPad. The iPad can't read the flash drive because it needs more power. So, I'll be doing that this evening while following the hockey game. The other thing I'm trying to do is after backing up my 3rd Gen iTouch is to jailbreak (jb) it. Apple doesn't seem to support this device anymore with any new updates. There's a lot of ways to do this online and I'm about to do that today. I'd like to get a program called iFile I've been seeing so much about. 

This has been all over the Internet recently but apparently Nasa is expected to make a huge announcement with earth shattering implications November 13th 2013. There's all kinds of speculation about this. Some are saying it's a asteroid, or even space aliens. Posters on Youtube are saying it's a hoax that if anyone clicks on the link they collect data from your computer.  

I was going to go to the District Lodge on Saturday but with my shift changed today, that definitely makes that decision for me. So much for that idea. I'll be making a call tonight to let my colleague know I won't be able to make it. With Friday and Saturday's hours in there I barely have enough hours to meet my obligations this pay period as it is. I need a full time day job, or something that can give me better hours. Anyway, that's about all for now. 

There are several

options open to me here. I can upgrade from the two pc cases I have mATX and ATX and build a pc from within those two chassis or buy a pre-built system. A pre-built system is a lot more expensive then a custom built i7 quad core,1-2 TB 32 bit Ram system. Or I can buy a laptop and put in a ssd drive but that limits my Ram to 16 Gb. A custom built mATX system means I can add 32 Ram. There are a few places in town that will do it for about the cost of a 25 inch iMac, that's my budget. Then iMac fans will say buy a Mac. Well that's fine and well but the local Apple store can't do upgrades you either have to buy it configured and it gets shipped to the customer not an option and too much of a headache.

Some people think I live in a shell that I don't have a life outside of going to work and come home watch TV. First of all, I watch very little TV maybe 13 hours a week. I read a lot of books, about 6 per year and these are not comic books or graphic novels. Other then July and August, I'm in volved in my Mason Lodge and out visiting other Lodges. When I'm not doing that I'm working on my music production and take my wife out to dinner once every other week. This weekend we're going to K-days after she gets off work Saturday night plus I have my job and those hours always change some weeks I'm working 9-5 while others I'm working from 1-9

Coast last night was pretty good (from what little I listened of it) and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK is just around the corner. Whether you believe in the Warren Commission's report of a lone gunman or there was a cover up its a case that still echos even today 50 years since the incident. The FBI has thousands of pages of unclassified information they wont release until 2017 or even 2029. What are they afraid of?

Late yesterday afternoon I was watching a bit of the Hamilton/Riders game. I had Hamilton to win on my Proline, the finale score was 0/37 Riders! What was I thinking! Anyway, that's all for now.

Here I am still not ready for

bed after maybe 5 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. I had a good morning and had a completion at about 70% done when the responder backed out. I'm scheduled to do some training later this afternoon after I log off. Hopefully it's going to give me additional work, beyond July I don't know.

Earlier I figured out to put one of my YouTube video's up on my face book page. I think I looked a lot better with glasses on then without. It's a short video behind a parked ETS bus at Londonderry Mall as we're waiting for our #182. What I'd like to do is to have a YouTube video in a permanent spot on my Facebook page but this is a start.

The flooding in Calgary is increasing. Probably the worst they've had in a long time. it was brought up by a weather system from Colorado.

Early this morning when checking my iPad my wife got a iM from her sister. My sister in law had to put her beloved dog Brody down after 19 years. He suffered a stroke and received another one last night. Brody was blind and didn't move around that much. I feel bad for my sister in law. It's always tough to lose a member of the family. My cat Silky is 16 years old and. I lost Pledges and I hope I go before Silky. 

So tonight after my bit of training I'm heading off to get a bite to eat. I might just get a Subway and take that home with me and catch what's left of game #4 of the Hawks/Bruins game. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Yesterday can be summed up in one word:

obstacle! 

My wife likes to put a couple of greetings cards in the door as a security measure, which helps her to feel a bit more at  ease. So that got stuck in the door. Then as I was going out someone almost had their keys in the door on the other side. Then while trying to catch the elevator some kids were playing running around in my way and just standing there in my way expecting the elevator to move by itself. on top of all that, I had a slow day, yeesh.

"Happy Day's" was one of my favorite shows in the mid 70'sand reading marvel comic books was still a passion. I had to smile when i09 had this article by George Dvorsky "That time The Fonz partied with Marvel superheroes." Gotta admit, this would have been one hell of a bash. The January 1978 cover of Pizazz is a winner on so many levels. Click through to see the whole thing, including other 1970s television icons. I lost interest in Happy Days when "Mork from Ork" or whatever joined the crew and Joanie loves  Chachi  nonsense. The first several years were the best. Anyway, here's the article.

After work I went over to Audrey's to get a Warhammer 40K book, then I thought about trying the "Commodore cafe" open until 7pm but closed today. I went down the block to get a order of fries and took  them to go eating them on the train on the way home. 

I think this evening is the Boston/Pens game and Smackdown broadcast from Edmonton. I want to watch this. The last time they were here was when Triple H had this thing going on with Kevin Nash. 

Other then my meeting Sunday night, I don't have a lot going on this weekend. Anyway, that's about all for now.
.

It was on this day

Friday April 25th 1980, was a huge turning point in my life. It was when I discovered "the Occult." (Insert Twilight Zone theme music here) Now I wasn't your typical practitioner of the mystic arts. I didn't do drugs, or had aspirations of being a Aleister Crowley wannabe as many of my peers. Yes, I went through the 4  OTO initiations and had been to many events but after our local Lodge imploded in 1995 my interest went with it. I initially got involved in the occult because I was trying to help a friend of mine from getting involved. She had got out of it early and I stayed in it for 15 years. I had some good times a few laughs and I don't regret my experiences. It took me a long time to realize that Thelema was/is a cult. I think I outgrew it but there were  some good people that are still around that I don't see anymore and many of them like me might still be in it if our local Lodge hadn't gone the way it did because of all the in fighting. Eighteen days after that first encounter with Thelema, it was suggested I began a "magical diary"of sorts.This diary became my daily diary and then my blog. I still write in my daily diary and open with Thelemic greetings and closings. There are some parts of Thelema that I miss like the Gnostic Mass. I never made any friends with these people as I made sure to keep this at arms reach. These people were colleagues,nothing more. So this is why April 25th (this Friday) means so much to me. 

I'm glad it's Friday because its the weekend. I've got some hockey to watch,music Smackdown. I'm hoping for a quiet weekend. Anyway, that's all for now.

I had a decent day off yesterday

I was able to configure my usb set up as before I figured this arrangement out my Cubase dongle wouldn't function on my usb hub

Now I've got the hoarse voice to go along with this cold. Lovely. Hopefully it wont be as bad as the one I had last year. That took me out of action for about 2 weeks before I got any strength back to my voice.

At work I write down the date of every time I make a notation. So, when I began writing the dates down Friday I thought, WTF? It's 3/1/13. Here in North America we write the date out month/day/year. In Europe they write it out day/month/year. When the slash is removed Friday's date was 3113!

Next month in Calgary they are having their annual comic and entertainment expo. We had ours last October.I wanted to meet John de Lancie but I didn't know about the show until the last minute.artist Michael Mateyko created this poster, featuring minimalist portraits of the myriad Avengers members throughout the years. He created the poster for April's Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, but it's already available at Komboh's Society6 store. Some of this was from the i09 site. It's s nifty poster to celebrate 50 yers of the Avengers. 

 

On tap for this week, Sunday Oiler hockey game, Monday night Raw, Tuesday Oilers/Wild, Wednesday is open, which means I can bus over to City Centre mall get that Warhammer Omnibus book and a bite to eat. Thursday it‘s book off work at 4pm head home clean up, get ready, head out to Lodge to get there by 6pm and then we go to Freemason‘s Hall for a Lodge to Lodge visit. With any luck, I‘ll be done by about 9:40pm and will meet Anne after she gets off work. Friday after work I do my banking and pick up Machine. Can‘t wait. So the above is my week next week.

We're supposed to get about 15cm of snow overnight just to remind us that winter hasn't left. Even though Spring is only 2 weeks away and daylight savings time is next weekend. 

If possible when I get my copy of Machine Friday night I'll try and get one of the guys to take a video of me un-boxing it. I'm also going to get some of the Reaktor ensembles from Twisted tools.I like "Rollodeck" and "S-layer". Anyway, that's all from me for now.

My day on the job yesterday began slow

and I did ok getting 2 survey's before lunch. After lunch I had 7 and I would have had my 10th but my contact had ducked out on me. I felt good leaving the office knowing that I'm doing reasonably well on the job. Not only that but this weekend is the Valentines/Family day long weekend. My favorite stat holiday only behind Easter. I felt good leaving the office and I caught my train back to Clareview. I had a laid back evening just on the computer all night. Anne called at 8pm. Other then that it was a quiet night

Seems asteroid 2012 DA14 which flies by Earth on today, will not be in danger of hitting us as its making a record-setting close approach, for an object of its large size (about half a football field). It will pass inside the ring of Earth's satellites, coming within just 17,200 miles of the planet's surface. More at CNET and Space.com  <. This is a record breaking asteroid because there's been no other asteroid in modern times that's been this close. All we need is a gravity wave to nudge it towards Earth or maybe the asteroid to collide with some space junk and kaboom! .

This weekend if all goes well, I'm going to have some fun. I could get the big check, the small check or no check. If I get the big check, then I'm going to have fun, if I get the small one, then its home Saturday to watch the Oiler game and out to Freemason's hall Sunday morning for that officers training, then home to take my wife out for a Valentines day dinner if she's up to it. If that asteroid doesn't hit us. Anyway, that's about all for now.
 

Lots going on this week.

Monday night Raw, Tuesday Oiler game, Wednesday Lodge, Thursday valentines day, Friday the beginning of a long weekend.

I’ve been having a bit of a problem with my right heal. It seems to dry up with crackling skin. We think it’s diabetes so I’m putting some Vaseline on it and covering it up with a sock. Hopefully that will help out.

My favorite board game Advance Squad leader seems to have a active presence on YouTube. Multi Man Publications most recent ASL offering has been one of their Historical modules called “Festung Budapest.” There is an un-boxing of this game and it’s a huge game. The only thing I don’t like about it is that MMP went and changed the SS counters from their traditional white on black to like every other counter in the German OOB. I don’t know why they did this and some of the comments about the SS counters not being their traditional colors put some players off. Even 3rd party ASL treatments keep their SS counters in their traditional color. The other thing about the game it’s like a $130 price tag. I’m thinking about buying this because it might have a limited print one.

Finally the Oiler’s won on the road. They are still in 9th place but I think this is where they will be all season. Roughly between 10 and 9th. Dubnyk was in net and he stole the show. Hall was called for goal tender interface and with his speed propelled him up onto the net and over. Made me laugh. 

I’ve got a full day ahead today as I’m up at 7am and out the door at 8am. I should be home about 5:45pm. Next week I’ll be able to pencil in my own hours. 34 hours is full time. I’m used to 37.5 at my last job but that was including Saturdays. I’m glad I don’t have to do them anymore. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

This post is basically a recap from yesterday and what's

going on for the weekend. 

Thursday was great. I did some banking, got my Warhammer 40K book. At home a bite to eat a hour and a half power nap get ready for Lodge. Part of being a Mason is visiting other Lodges. Especially in Cities it's easier as here in Edmonton we have about 30 Lodges between 3 buildings. A couple of weeks ago I paid another trip to a Saturday Lodge, where I made an announcement we were going to confer a degree. I met some great people at that Lodge and befriended an older Scottish fellow  and invited him out to our degree. I learned a few weeks latter ours was cancelled. I screwed up my lines and made an embarasment of myself near the end, which nobody seemed to mind. This is the good part, the fellow I befriended was one of a district brethren and at the festive board he introduced himself and mentioned how I invited him to Lodge (even though we were suposed to confer a degree which didn't happen) so that felt good now that the guys in my Lodge know I'm out visiting. I had a beer some sandwiches. I was home by 10pm. 

This weekend I'm going to take it easy. There's an Oiler game on at noon Saturday but I'll be sleeping until about 1pm 

Anyway I have a full day today. Lots of stuff going on. I'll elaborate later, anyway that's all for now.   
  

It's all quiet

as there's not a lot going on at the moment. 

The other day I cashed in on my big $5 win and got a bingo scratch n' win for $3. Anne played it and won another ticket. She cashed her's in for yet another Bingo scratch n' win and won on that for another $3 for $6. She was1 square away or something from winning $50,000! That would probably give give me what my last job paid me, for over about 3 years. Yeah, I'd take 3 years off with pay.         

I read in today's i09 that the DNA match of Richard the 3rd might not be an open and shut case. The article firstly goes on to say that the story has yet to have been peer reviewed and that the DNA found might have (with over 500 years of history) been contaminated. Some are suggesting that the location matches the historical evidence of where Richard was buried. The cause of death was consistent with how Richard died etc. You can read more about this update here. 

I'm considering Lodge tomorrow night and of course my own Lodge Thursday night. I have yet to visit the Wednesday night Lodge before ours before but 2 Lodge's in the same week might be a bit much, I don't yet

Ok this is not earth shattering or anything but on Saturday I'm about to make an announcement. This announcement has nothing to do with my blog or anything like that. Anyway, that's about all for now.

I got out of going out for

anything today,which means I can get some reading time in. I have a nice relaxing weekend with nowhere to go,which suits me fine.

I had a hunch the Oiler's would lose in OT but they took SJ right to a shoot-out. At least we got 1 point and 3 points on the road and we go to Denver for a Saturday afternoon game. We're still in 5th place but lets see where we'll be in the middle of March!  

So, Blackberry released it's new Z10 smartphone. I don't own a smartphone and if I did, I'd seriously take a look at this. I'd get the white 720P HD version. I've seen pricing around $799 street. It's an expensive phone without a contract but so is the iPhone and Galaxy note in this price point. I think I'd rather get a new laptop though instead of a phone. Anyway that's all for now.

 

Wow, what a game last night!

The defending Stanley Cup champions, the LA Kings come to entertain the Edmonton Oiler's and wow,what a game. The Kings take advantage of a sloppy turnover at the offensive zone blue line and get a break-a-away. 1-0. We get a goal and a second or 2 later the on ice officiating says no goal. Rexall Place didn't like that decision. Then with 1:05 on the clock in the 3rd the Oiler's score again to tie but that was disallowed and the place went nuts. They fans were so angry I couldn't hear the Rexall Place announcer, they were throwing stuff on the ice in the ice in the time keepers box,everywhere. It's almost as if the refs were trying to do anything they could to give the winless LA Kings a Win at our expense. But in the dying seconds Yakapov scores to tie the game at 1 sending it into overtime. Unbelievable. In OT the Oiler's scored to win a very exciting hockey game that could have gone either way. Now if I was working the 1-9 shift I would have missed this exciting game. I wonder how many other games like this, I would have missed over the many years.

Just when Anne and I thought we did a good thing yesterday by finding the cat named "Markus" a home, Anne goes out to take out the trash in the wee hours as she does the last thing before bed type thing. "Markus is back." What? Are you sure? "Same features on the cat outside as the one we gave to the University student this morning." I don't think it is Markus because he would have gone right up to Anne but he backed away Anne said apparently. If that was Markus, he would have came up to Anne and would have been all over her. But if it is then the prospective owner probably didn't like the cat and drove around back and release him and took off like a hit and run driver. We were so desperate to find him a home. We can't keep him because we would have 3 groups of cats separated: Sporty & Sparky as one group and Boots as another and Markus. There's a lot of stray cats around here and Boots probably "knows" most of them. 

I was going to go to my bank this afternoon but Anne said that she would go for me. Ok. So it means I have no place to go today,which suits me fine. I can read and work on my music etc. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Ordinarily apartment living

 is ok if the building is managed well. In all our 12 years of living here, it’s been pretty good but last night the people below us have been not good neighbors. They’ve been slamming that door with their stereo blaring. Good news is, they won’t last long. If they are still when the snow melts, I‘ll be surprised.

I‘m up at about 9:00am this morning to get a shower clean up dress in my suit and tie. Then it’s leave out of here by 10am get my bus to Clareview and the train to Corona station across the street to Audrey’s get my Warhammer 40k book cross the street to Tim’s and get my breakfast hang around for a bit until noon and work my way to Freemason’s Hall to get there by noon as they start at 1:00pm. That way I can meet with the guys, enjoy my beer I should be out of there by 5pm. It’ll be good.

Speaking of Warhammer 40K in my Black Library Newsletter the library released a new hardcover novella. It’s part of the Imperial Guard series. There are 2 Omnibus books in this series I still need to get and hopefully this Spring a subscription to Hammer and Bolter. Here’s a cool video as a tribute to the Imperial Guard:

Last night about 8pm I get a call from our Internet service provider. We tried to arrange for a service call earlier in the week about the trouble we we’re having with our television’s aspect ration. We cancelled the request and I guess they wanted to do a friendly customer service follow up call and offered us 2 free video on demand movies. Great, with Anne out Sunday and no Oiler TV hockey, why not? They have “Looper” on VOD Anne mentioned something about Pizza. Sounds like a good time.

This Monday is called Blue Monday and not because Oprah is coming to Edmonton at Rexall place. Especially hot on the heels of her revealing interview with Lance Armstrong. Somebody is making money. Otherwise, not a lot is going on this weekend. Anyway, that‘s all for now.

I slept ok from just

 after 2am until about 9:40 waking up before my alarm, shaved and showered.

I got a LRT notification from my “Connect 2 Edmonton” forum site and the LRT has service interrupted today as they are down to 1 track. Apparently the City is having a kind of breaking through the Nait line tunnel ceremony this  morning at 11am. I’ll see the highlights of this tonight. It’s going to be interesting to see how the timing between 2 tracks and 3 trains going in 2 different directions off the same track. Currently it’s just track 1 & 2. For the most part my train comes on track 2 heading either to Corona station or Clareview. Now there’s a train heading to Clareview and to Nait and the other way. In other words, 3 trains sharing 2 tracks. The only thing I can think of is if the Nait line doesn’t go all the way from Nait to Century park but stops at Churchill. Will passengers need to get off at Churchill to go South or East or go straight through? This is going to need some computer gymnastics to pull off the switching details. But it won’t be ready for another 15 months yet.

I’m having my coffee relaxing as I hope I’m in for a good full day. I don’t like the new script for CPC because it’s like were talking down to the public by saying that if they don’t support the party with a donation then like the NDP defending Iran, they become no better. Essentially we’re talking down to these people. I like the conversational selling aspects here and all, good stuff.

Looks like we’re going to be in for a decent day today weather wise. We’ve been under a bit of a mild winter so far. The past couple of winters haven’t been like what we used to have in the 70’s & 80’s. All these things go in cycles.

Monday I’m in early to make a bank deposit and get a haircut before work. But today it’s 7.5 hours and do the bank thing and home for a couple of hours and back to bed. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

Finally everything since the beginning

of the week has come to a head. Yesterday, I got the dinner figured out and my parts in the lodge figured out. Too  make matters worse Anne calls me just before break and makes a change of plans for me. I hope she said she wanted me to put my check (what I give her) in my account. Otherwise I would have brought cash. Up until they began handing out checks to everybody at 8:15pm, I was wondering if I had a check at all. And if so how much was it going to be? I’ve seen them dicker me out before and others. Ok, I got my check and opened the envelope, $325 Whew, almost a full check. Instant relief. I headed up to the bank cashed my check and left the $265 like I hope Anne wanted me to do. All of it the festive board, my part in the Lodge, my check all came out ok. Thank God. I even have $100 to play with as well which means I can get my RJS book and a bite to eat after work tomorrow. The only downside to all of this today was I had only $25 on sales but it was all on card. All I can say was, what a week! I even got my iTunes card fixed up. All in all, this week turned out great. It could have been a disaster.

Music over the years has changed so much not only in genres but how music has been produced. It used to be from the beginning a collection of musicians or one person with a flute or plcucked instrument of some kind. In the "modern era" the phonograph was introduced in the late 1800's. Music was then recorded in a control room on a 4 track device and then evolved to 100 banks console to digital music on the computer making the art of producing music open to anyone. So along comes the iPad, which is becoming a serious music production tool. It's going to be a long way off before the iPad will replace a 4 piece band or anything or even someone with an iPad on stage. But with Digital Audio Workstations (DAW's) so accessible for hobby musicians IPad's/Apple's Garageband Gb isn't quiet there yet. I'm a hobby musician. The only instrument I can play (barely) is the DAW, which is an instrument in itself. Gb isn't even like the same thing of it's Mac big brother. For example, I paid $500 for Cubase 6 2 months ago. Gb comes free with every Mac computer but for the iPad it's a $5 app on a $700 device. I haven't produced any music yet but I'm about to as soon as I get over this bout of laryngitis or what ever it is. Here's what the interface of Garageband looks like: 

I gave Anne another $50 to help cover the rent last night. We we're only $50 short of rent and I did want to get that RJS book. Looks like I'm going to have to wait another week

This weekend is a short weekend. I'm paying for it now because next Saturday I want off to go to Ye Old Craft. We start Monday at 2pm, which is ok. It will still give me 37.5 hours on my check next week and more importantly give me an opportunity to visit other Lodges. Me being one of the 3 principle officers of our Lodge I should be visiting m ore and that's what I'm about to do this month. 

Today however, I've got 6 hours ahead of me and I hope J will put me onto "Harper" and not OPC. At  least I can make money on "Harper." After work I'm considering going over to Audrey's to pick up something. It wont be an RJS book but something within my price range. 

The next project for my music is going to be Melodyne editor for my voice as I'm going to need an affect on my voice. I'm  not a singer but I want to "sing" or create noise with my mouth. I want to save up $450 but the product itself is about $350. I don't want to leave myself short. So $75 over the next 6 weeks will do it. So I hope by mid June I'll have it. Anyway, that's about all for now.