Yeesh. That's about all I can say for now

I can't site any details but yesterday I lost  my job. I spent 12 years and 3 months at it. I was always on time for all my shifts. I did the best that I could. It's the end of an era. The worst part of all of this is I worked with some great people that I'm going to really miss. They were like my family. There's an empty feeling in my stomach right now. I'm not going to dwell upon it here as I can't say anything. Suffice to say I'm going to be ok, no need to panic or anything.

One thing is understood: I'm canceling my website until I can obtain something steady. My website saw me post 1723 blog posts. Many of those entries were excerpts out of my diary and or  copies from Blogger. Of course I'll keep my Blog open here. Maybe I'll come back to the website this time next year, we'll see. As for my 2Gb internet tablet at $37/month, I cancelled that yesterday afternoon. I'm back to the Flex plan at $5/month for 10Mb but I have wifi and my home internet. 

This morning I'm back in the office with some papers to sign and I'm picking up my last cheque on Friday. Next week, I'm applying for my CPP. I didn't want to do this so soon but it's necessary to get on it right away. I'll probably do this Thursday and next week I'm going to register for Alberta Works and get that thing going. 

I have 2 big bills to pay off, LM and my Lodge dues and also my current bill for my tablet. Not the $5 one.

One thing, I've got some time do get some reading done, that's for sure and maybe even go to Commercial next Saturday. I'm also learning the WM opening and closing charge, which is quite substantial but with all this on my mind it's going to be tough to sleep tonight. Anyway, that's about all for now.

My wife

comes barging in claiming a change of plans, great now what?

So she says she spent 40 minutes in a broken down humid bus and she's a bit stressed out. I was mad and upset but followed her to the Swiss Chalet just down over here and felt a little better when we finally got inside. I wasn't that hungry and all I had was a side of fries and a diet cola. We talked about the potential of my Scene movie card and how many points we could earn towards free movies when we use towards big ticket items like rent and stuff. We get 4 free movies (just for sighing up) which I haven't tried yet so Anne want's to use them today while I'm watching Monday night Raw tonight. On our way out of Swiss, I stopped in for a coffee at the Tim Horton's express and a couple of double chocolate donuts.

Anne had to take off again on another errand and I had a bit of a nap and got woken up around 8pm when she came in. My ipad was ringing and it was Anne's sister from Winnipeg wanting Anne to use Facetime, that comes with the ipad. She got a kick out of that and that was a first.

Now Anne and I had been trying to watch the 2nd episode of Season 7 of "Doctor Who" and it didn't disappoint. About an hour after the show and as I began to open my Blog I checked i09 one of my go to source for all things SF etc. Then I cam across this *fascinating story about how this weekends Saturday nights World Con broadcast got shut down just as SF author Neil Gaiman received an award for his Doctor Who script "The Doctor's Wife" got pulled for copyright *infringement. The broadcast got pulled essentially because the service gave priority over it's paid subscribers then it's non paid subscribers. Too funny. There's more to it then that of course and you can read about it here.

Just a note here but "Doctor Who" is probably the best thing going on in Science Fiction TV at the moment. The characters are great, the writing is top caliber and the FX is about the best anywhere. I don't know if in my lifetime, I'll ever see a new Star Trek TV series but in the meantime, Doctor Who suits me just fine.
 
About noon I'm off down to Canada Place to Service Canada to see if there I can fill out my CPP forms and at the same time, to see if I can get a new Sin card or at least get the paper work together for it. There's a little Chinese kitchen there as well and I'm either going there to get some lunch or to City Centre food court. Anyway, that's about all for now

I got up a little bit

early to do a few backing vocal takes. I did about 8 of them and I'll review them a bit more on my morning commute later. 

Not a lot going on for today. I'm not at all that concerned about HO leaning on me and my colleagues. HO must think that we're all in a recession or something, which here in Northern Alberta (for now) we're not. This is Edmonton, not 10% unemployment rate in some US city. Also, I think we have about 30% of our office empty during the day and about 60% empty at night. I'm hearing what management said (improver your diallers or add more diallers.) If I get a pink slip in my pay check, fine I'll deal with it when it happens. If I can get passed the end of July (and I'm taking it day by day) I'm taking 2 weeks off to get my CPP in order and I'll be looking to see what my options are. I'd like to check out a few operations maybe even go in for a few interviews and talk to some people, get some names and numbers etc. You know, I like my job and I like the management I'm working with, I'm there every day and if they want to kick out a solid employee like me because I'm not up to the national average sales wise, well they may as well fire everybody in the office and shut the whole company down. I think HO knows all of this and I met most of my higher ups and they're good people.

Anyhow, that's enough of that. Today it's in for my usual 8 hours. It was this week, 32 years ago I fled the Meyer's place. By 6pm on that Wednesday afternoon it was all over. I was in my new place breathing a sigh of relief. I didn't stay very long because the land lord that let me hadn't realized that the previous tenant before me had left temporarily and said they'd be back. I had a week to find something before said tenant returned. I did the same thing when I left uptown New Westminster for Calgary in late November 1976 living in the Anderson house. I returned back to New West in May back to my old room which was awaiting for me. I think I was paying $100/month at the time, which in 1976 dollars would have been like about $200 in purchasing power today.

Other then the job thing, I slept ok over night, except around 6am I find it hard to fall back to sleep. I got another 8 hour shift ahead of me my 3rd one for the week then tomorrow and 6 hours Saturday (I hope) Saturday I'm going out with the guys and splitting a jug of beer with Warren. A jug is $13 and I'll give him $7. There's about 3 pints of beer in it, which I only drink 1, watch some of the Argo/Edmonton game and at half time head for home to watch the 2nd half. Anyway, that's enough silliness for now, it's a beautiful summer say out there and I'm going to enjoy my commute. This time I'm bringing my headphones. Anyway, that's about all I have for now.

.

Summer, day 1. June

is one of my favorite months of the year. The mix of rain Sun and cloud and the colors are amazing. The Sun setting about 10pm is a bonus as well.

I’ve been following the sequel to Star Trek 2 the next movie by JJ Abrams but it’s probably way to early for a Summer release date. If anything I’d say May 2013 but I have no conformation about this, it’s just a guess on my part. 

I was visiting various places around Google earth earlier around the Swedish Island of Gotland. It’s a big place with only a few small communities and it kind of reminds me of Alberta without the hills and mountains. It’s more of a farming area. It’s largest community is Visby a community of some 22,000. If I ever get the money I’d love to visit there maybe during the fall. A flight would leave out of here from Edmonton International>Seattle>Frankfort>Stockholm on a return trip first class about $1,500. It’d be about 12-14 hours not including stopovers. I’d love to go by myself spend a week there explore and return (with a lot of photos of course.) But if I didn’t have Anne with me, I’d save up the money and go for 10 days. That’s if I ever win the lottery.

Speaking of which Friday’s Max draw is for $50M, tomorrow’s draw is for $17M. I’m getting 1 for each today.

I had a decent day yesterday pulling in a $500 sale (but not on card) I had a couple of $50’s and a $110 sale on card. That’s almost $800! I love days like those. We had a different campaign as well which helped a lot.

About 4:30 this morning I was feeling my stomach tighten as I was breaking out into a sweat. I ran to the toilet moaning and groaning. My head was spinning. Vomit erupted from my mouth, it was a disaster. I must have sat there on the toilet in the dark. Anne was just going to bed about this time helping me out. I was gasping for air when I break out into another sweat. She helped clean me up as I was in a mess. I had a shower and went back to bed. Twenty minutes or so latter, here we go again with more of the above. I hurled about 4 times into a bucket this time Anne had given me. At this time she called into the office for me saying I won’t be in for the morning shift. I felt a little better and went back to bed. We both agreed it was a case of food poisoning. Something I ate yesterday played havoc with my system.

This evening I’m heading out of here shortly before 4pm so I can head on over to the Backer Centre and get a 6/49 and a Max and a $20 Visa card. Loopmasters has a product I want called “Essential dubstep.” I’ve never ordered from this company before and their ordering set up doesn’t seem to work properly for some reason. I hope to place an order for tonight when I get home

I feel a lot better now. I got up about 10am had a owl of cereal and that was kept down and my insulin and fed the cats and went back to bed. So I’m in for 4 hours this evening and I’m going to ask the boss if I can come in for Thursday morning for 3.5 and the rest of the day for a total of 11 hours to make up for missing today. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, that’s all I have for today.

I woke up from a

dream about half an hour ago and checked to see if Anne had left her iTouch player on my night stand but nothing. I’m reasonably refreshed anyway, so it’s not like I’m going to die because I lost an hour sleep here.

Sunday night, I’m telling Anne, I’m working Monday because next Saturday Commercial will be having “their last meeting” for the season before they go dark. Actually their last meeting before dark was last Saturday. This next Saturday I plan on being in Red Deer for the day, hopefully with Neil for part of the Grand Lodge of Alberta Communication. If Neil’s wife says no, then I’m in. I’ll dress up in my suit and meet Neil out here in the morning in the car and hopefully be back before Anne calls me. If we’re home by 7:45am then I’ll be fine. Neil said call him by Wednesday. Reg says there is a van leaving out of Edmonton for the day and that’s my other option. I’ll be calling Reg this afternoon and or trying to reach him through out the day. So that’s plan B. With Neil, I’ll have a better chance of making Anne’s 8pm-ish phone call.

The Montreal Grand pre is about to get underway but student protests are heckling the fans, organizers and drivers. I don’t know why Police stop codling these student protesters and give them all criminal records when they arrest them. Maybe they do, I hope so. More importantly shut school down over the summer for the September semester. 


I gave Anne an extra $20 from my pay yesterday and she’s got that as I was going to take her out for lunch at Earl’s just over here and I was prepared to do this but she came back from shopping while I was watching Smackdown and brought back a rack of baby back ribs she bought from Superstore instead saying we just went out last week. Good. I can put some money away in the bank.

I’ve been wanting to save up for a pair of Monster Beats by Dr Dre Studio Headphones. The main “problem” with these headphones is they require batteries and the price. As a aspiring music production “engineer” I need some good quality studio headphones. Anne will rack me over the coals for these but “I bought them from Tim for $100 as he got them from an endorsement deal bla, bla, bla.”

I was thinking about leaving out of here in about an hour and get some breakfast but more then likely I’ll grab a bite at Tim’s and head into the office for my 6 hours and get ready for the hockey game tonight. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

The only

Difficulty with composing a blog post on my I pad is Blogger won't let me change the font in this version. They have a mobile version for tabs and phones.

After the late news last night about Midnight, Anne and I rented Mission Impossible 4 "Ghost Protocol." This isn't a movie review or anything but on a scale from 1-10 I'd rate the movie a solid 10. The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the primer scenes at the beginning but other then that minor annoyance, yeah a solid 10/10. I got the feeling though I was watching a James Bond movie more then a MI movie. I saw some great movies last year. Ghost protocol was out December 16th and costs $145M to make but its return at the box office was $693M! That doesn't include DVD or video on demand sales. In watching the movie I was fascinated by the Burj Duba tower where one of the major scenes in the movie took place. The building is the tallest man made structure ever built built in 2004 and opened 2009 at a cost of $1.5 billion. The movie itself did nearly half of that in sales. Crazy.


If the space elevator ever gets built then that will obviously be the tallest man made structure in the world. Yet that won't happen in my lifetime. Or if it does, I'll probably be on my death bed when they announce plans to build it. 


Anne talked me into another day. I go from Tuesday through Saturday anyway and Monday is my natural day off and I said to J I'd try and be in for Monday but don't expect me in until Tuesday. I hinted at Monday because I have lodge night Thursday but I'm half a day on Thursday. Next week I'll have my Monday-Friday and a couple of Saturdays off.


I got a bug of some kind in my desktop causing my browser to lockup on me. It's nothing Telus is doing and its not a big deal so I'm going to have to go in and have it serviced get Vinny to take a look at it. 


This evening Anne is going to be making the chili for the festive board and I'm calling Dan to see if we got enough beer. Anne is getting the chili ingredients later this afternoon after a bottle run. She suggested getting some taco shells and sour creme and cheese to sprinkle on top. She's also going to look at getting another crock pot as they're selling them at Exes Cargo for under $20 and they have disposable soup bowls across the street for a buck at the Dollarrama (15per package.) I've also got to call Neil and see if he can pick me up for Thursday all I need is buns possibly donuts for desert. So the last thing we're going to need is the donuts for on the way back. I can get 3 boxes of assorted for $10 bucks. The good news for me is the JW fund will  reimburse me for what I spend out of pocket. I gave Anne $25 for the chili fixings and the bowls are a buck buns are about $3. If Dan says I have to get extra beer, then I'm SOL because I won't have that amount of cash on me. .    


The good news in this chair is I have only 5 more months to go (the Lodge shuts down in July & August) but there's our participation at Fort Edmonton park, which I've been attending over the last couple of years and the Lodge BBQ in  August. I'll be glad when it's over but the real test is who's going to do this in next year and my year and my IPM year? There's a lot of un answered questions. 


Tonight though I'm home, watching hockey and wrestling and making a few phone calls. It's a good thing I didn't go in for this evening. Anyway, that's all for today.

Not a lot going on.

I woke up about 5am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Last night I wanted to talk to my boss about having Friday off to go to Strathcona Lodge for their MM degree this Friday but throughout the night I began thinking that, I already went to 3 Lodge events this month: My mother Lodge, practice, March 15th MM degree. If we didn't have the MM degree this month I would have made it out but I need the hours and because of the above I can't justify going. 

I don't know about heading out to RJS April 11th as well either. I mean, I'll get the book and all but i might miss this reading. He'll be back next year.

Last night I discovered this page called "Desperation moral." All things Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). It's a huge resource of third party ASL products and 1 I like is Critical Hit. So much so I made a link to their site on my list of links in my Blog sidebar. They've got a lot of good things, most of it all ASL. Speaking about I checked and made a list of all the ASL official products that had come out over the last 12 years and there's been quite a few. Multi Man Publishing's most recent offering "Festung Budapest" is a historical ASL modual. I'd like to get this product but at a $130 for something I might not ever play is a huge waste of money. 

I want to go to Ye old craft lodge and if I work the 2nd Monday and the rest of the week, I'll have 37.5 hours and off on that Saturday. Then same with the 3rd Saturday, work that Monday and I can take that 3rd Saturday off. I'm allowed 2 Saturday's off/month. I've been working every Saturday so far this year and I've missed a lot. I can go any night I wish as long as I put the Monday night in. Anyway, it's back to bed, that's all for now.