I lasted just a little over 2 years

at Malatest. I have nothing but good things to say about my last employer. I would recommend R.A. Malatest to anyone that wants to get into market research work. The supervisors are great and are willing to assist at anytime. In no way did I find favoritism of any sort. I'm going to miss the people I worked with over the last 2 years. Now its time to move on to another chapter in my life. One thing is certain, I don't ever want to do market research again.

I was sad when I heard Leonard Nimoy passed away  yesterday. Almost everybody from my generation knows that Nimoy played Mr. Spock on Star Trek in the 1960's and later in the "In search of" series and in the Trek movies. I was 14 in 1966 when Star Trek first aired and too think, then I was barely aware of the show. I recall watching the odd Star Trek tos episode on our BW tv that autumn of 1966.Star Trek and television in general took a back seat when Beatlemania was in full swing and the landscape of the 1960's unfolded. With the exception of 1968 when television and radio had been my window to the world. Today Star Trek tos (the original series) is a cult phenomena spawning novels, comic books, games, clothing, toys and trinkets etc. I was barely aware of the show in its finale stages of cancellation in 1968, as I had other concerns I was going through at the time. From Star Trek tos came came Star trek the motion picture in 1979. Three other original Trek movies came out in the 1980's before Star Trek (live action) graced the small screen again with Star Trek the next generation in 1988. Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise were all later incarnations of Star Trek TV. In the 1980's the public had a strong appetite for Star Trek. Leonard Nimoy played in all 6 of the original movies. The term trekie didn't appear until years later after tos was cancelled. When Star Trek The motion picture came out in 1979, I actually took time off work (working at the Army and Navy warehouse across the street from the Icon towers) to see the movie being one of the first in line at the Paramount theatre opening day here in Edmonton. Out of all the trek TV shows after tos I liked Voyager the best. Nimoy played Spock in all 6 of the original motion picture movies and cameo's in the reboot movies. I liked Star Trek 2 and 3 out of the original movies. Sad to hear Nimoy's passing. He was 83. Live long and prosper Mr. Nimoy, somewhere.

The big news Friday in the social media world is the dress. The one that has Hollywood and everyone else talking about. Some people think its white and gold others think its blue and black. The dress is actually blue and black.it was causing a stir in Hollywood and all over Twitter trending at #1 for most of the day. 

What with losing my job I took the occasion to buy a 6/49 ticket. I've no expectations of winning anything more then a free ticket or $5 or $10. I think I'd have a heart attack if I actually won the jackpot. The draw Saturday is for $5M.

I've got a big week this week, what with a meeting at a employment agency Monday and meeting Anne at Northgate afterwards, looking for work, back to Northgate Thursday and Lodge later that night. I hope to find a job by the end of the week or something. Anyway, that's all for now.

Labour day long weekends are usually

pretty good with lots of football and decent weather. In my case I have 3 days off and I wont get vacation pay because of the following:

I lost my job at Direct Buy last night. I really enjoyed the work but if you don't get the public relation's/pr's (the people you try and get the visitors pass and the information brochure) the directors can't can't sell them memberships. The more pr's into the showroom the better chances the directors can turn them into members. It gets even harder if most of the pr's are 2-5 hours out of town. Then you got to sort out those that are old people because old people don't do reno's or projects. Then our source was called "club general." I'm lucky if I get 5-8 pr's in a 5.5 hour shift. I had 3 presentations but none of them converted into members. A basic membership is $6,000 but if your a homeowner spending $10-$15,000 and you can save anywhere from 50% or more off a store's sale price because your buying direct, it makes sense. I got the news my job at Direct buy was in jeopardy 2 weeks ago August 16th. The days leading up to that was great. On that Saturday, that's when the boom was lowered. I don't get a member between then and last night, I'm gone. I was sure with all the pr's I was getting, some of them had to come in. Only 3 in August. One of the directors last night said that all that was coming in for the night were what they call "bionics." These are people that book from the website. None of them were mine. It was sad leaving. My ride gave me her # so I can find out say around mid November check in and get a update. I paid her the fee for gas. I asked if she would be able to take me through to the Wendy's drive through. I bought a double baconator combo biggie fries. We said out good buys and take care's, keep in touch in the car. I felt like crying when I got upstairs. I really liked that job but I'm not going to miss the 2 hour commute there. Direct buy was a great experience. They paid me $11 hour but I got an extra $1 hour if I was there for all my shifts and I was. I enjoyed sitting under that tree on 107th reading my book and walking into work. They had free coffee and the Edmonton Journal paper was always there. The staff for the most part were friendly. They used to have it before me where you got 1 month for training, 1 month to get a member then you were on probation. The boss never came around and said something like "Pick it up Jim, you only have 3 pr's if you don't get another 2 by 5pm, we're sending you home." It was never like that. I felt I worked a hard ads possible. I just couldn't cut it in the end. I'm going to miss the job. I'm going to miss the ride home and getting home by 9:30pm. I'll never forget the big storm we had August 6th where the lights in the building went dim and out and we got sent home about 8:30pm. I'm going to miss getting that ride to work Saturday mornings and going into the McDonald's drive through. I miss Direct buy almost as much as I missed Xentel. Now I'm not sure whats going on. I've got 1 cheque coming my last 1 next week and a few days from my downtown job next Friday. I'm going to apply where my wife works just to get some pick up hours until my downtown begins. In the meantime I'm going to apply at a day advertising job next week at a place I don't care about. It's near the Shaw conference centre. It pays really well but I'd be under enormous pressure. I just need 3 days to help pay for my computer parts. Ok, that that was Direct  buy, July/ August 2014. Lets move forward.

I'm strongly thinking instead of the iMac, which is way out of reach for me price wise, is to upgrade my Current pc:

Its a 2005 HP media pc in a mATX case. It's running Win Xp and has usb 2. It's almost 10 years old and when I bought it it came with 256 Ram and a 68Gb hard drive. I upgraded it to 1 gb of Ram about 5 years ago. All I need is a decent motherboard the cpu 2.5 Ghz +, 16 Gb of Ram, a 4Tb hard drive, the power supply and Windows 8. I can get a system similar to the above for about $800 but I'm not going to be able to save that kind of money. I'd rather just get the parts and let where I'm buying them from do it for me. I'm just researching right now. I know I want AMD over Intel. I'm not using it for gaming. It's just being used for music production and every day needs. I've got enough time to do this. Anyway, that's all for now.

Sigh that was my summer

break. I wish it was my 5 day summer break. I hope I keep this job and let go of market research for awhile.

Today I’m up around 10:30am. I’ve got to rebook an appointment I scheduled for Friday with my pharmacist. I need to book that for next Monday, my day off. I’m catching the 2:45pm #137. It’s a long ride. My commute into work is a long ride on the 137 and as I’m in from 4-9. It’s a short 4 day week but Saturday is more or less mandatory. It’s enough for my bottom line and a bit of bonus money. I’m trying to save enough for a 21” iMac, hopefully as a birthday present for myself. Saturday is a 4 hour shift but I’m in the West Edmonton Mall area and it’s a short bus ride to the mall and I can go from there. It’s especially going to be good because I can get a bite to eat at the WEM food court get my Warhammer 40K book, and a beer on my way out on payday weekends.

In my email today I received news of the new Star Wars website. Why is this note worthy? In the climate of the Lucas/Disney era the new website reflects this relationship. It means Star Wars fans (that includes me) will be in on important developments of upcoming related events. I had to update the link to reflect this.

It‘s going to be an I interesting week starting with a new job and all. If I get a call from my other job, I’ll ask if I can work just Monday nights but I doubt that‘s going to fly. Anyway, that‘s all for now.

A lot going on yesterday and today so lets get

started:

Canadian author Alice Munro won the Nobel prize for literature. Apparently she retired from writing but after winning the Nobel she said she's reconsidering one more shot. To be honest I've never heard of her but this is great news for Canada I'm happy she won.

The other thing I wanted to talk about today is a Facebook conversation I'm having, in Groups. I recall something that happened in the Summer of 1967 before I went in for my back operation. It was the birthday of a old friend of mine. We were both teens and into Star Trek. The closest hobby shop to us (at the time I knew  of) was in the Caribou shopping centre just South of Lougheed Mall. My buddy wanted the AMT Star Trek Enterprise Model. How heard about it even being there I don't know. So I went with him. it was a beautiful summer day as it usually is in the lower mainland that time of year. After he bought the model he bought us Pizza. We ate it in the bushes behind the mall. Back to the Facebook conversation, which was about Hobby shops as I'm trying to see if anyone in this group that go back that far remembers the name of the hobby shop. One  poster said he remembered my friend, even identified his wife by name. They lived in the same apartment building together before my friend moved into a house. My friend worked at the Vancouver golf club all his life and the poster said he probably retired from there. I'm trying to accomplish several things with this post. First to find the name of that hobby shop and to see if anyone recalls another hobby shop I used to go to called Raceway hobbies in Vancouver. For all I know both of these hobby shops might have survived late into the 1990's. Also to see if anyone knew my friend and sure enough to my surprise somebody did. I'd go to hobby shops all the time to get my wargaming fix and Napoleonic models, which I used to build and paint. Most of that stuff didn't make my migration to Edmonton in 1978. The poster replied back saying he hadn't seen my friend in over 20 years. My friend's wife was drinking a lot, but that's all the poster said about her.

The other item more closer to home yesterday just by chance I checked my RBC bank and my first cpp cheque came in. It's another chapter in my life. It's kind of bitter sweet for me because it just means I'm getting a little closer to full retirement. My sister in law in Sydney NS took out her early retirement as well. She's a breast cancer survivor and I'm diabetic. She was a teacher for most of her life and me, just a living from pay cheque to pay cheque. Yet she got twice as much then I did for all she did the difference between the two "careers" as far as cpp goes is like night and day. It also serves as a reminder to me that being a full pensioner is only a full years away.   

Today (I hope) I'm in for a easy 4 hours and out by 7:00pm. With any luck at all I might be able to catch whats left of the BC/Calgary football game. Saturday is a full day.

I was hoping to get some cpp back pay for months delayed while my claim was being finalized. I was going to use that towards a new computer. That's not going to happen. My next plan is to breath some new life into my old Acer laptop clone and install a 1 Tb SSHD drive. If the drive doesn't work at least the target drive would still work and I can use the SSHD drive in a near future desktop. Anyway, that's all for now.

I had a pretty good evening doing

 computer research last night and following the CFL game. I more or less narrowed it down but I probably wont be able to buy until my hours are more or less stable. Maybe around the end of September.

I arrived in Edmonton August 16th 1978 to come up for my brothers wedding. If it was for that wedding invitation, most likely I’d still be in New Westminster. I had learned that my brother Mike and his wife had split up closing in on 35 years of marriage. This was a real shock to the system.

Not just the above but as I mentioned in my last post today marks the official day Tuesday August 9th 1988 when as I was brining in my cheese burger platter in from Joes a café in the basement of the boardwalk next door. I walked in as Bob had the receiving doors opened. “They just traded Gretzky.” Huh what? Bob turned up the radio. I heard the bad news and couldn’t believe it . I lost my appetite after that but I ate my lunch feeling ill. I cried that whole month. I don’t mean tears of grief crying but it really affected me. 25 years latter the ripple affects are still felt around the NHL. If we kept Gretzky no doubt we would have won another 3-4 Cups. I honestly believe though that better days for the Oiler’s are ahead as soon as they get out of Rexall place. Will they win another Stanley Cup? I hope they will in my life time.

So when I heard about Mike’s marriage  ending before it saw their 35th sours the whole day. Mike’s marriage the 25th anniversary of #99 has a foreboding sense of marking of one era and sealing the fate of another so close to home.

I’m going into work for a easy 4 hours and then a bite to eat and off to Londonderry mall shop around at Army & Navy and then grab a cold one and then home to watch the Riders/Stamps CFL game.

Other then that not much going on for the weekend. Sunday Anne and I are going out to Royal Pizza. I like to visit Chapters and see what they have there. Other then that not much is going on. Anyway that’s all for now.

J answered the phone

and I said I'd be there within the hour. I got the forms together got ready, locked up and I headed out the door. My bus was just crossing Manning and 50th. There was actually a train waiting and I got aboard and was downtown in like 10 minutes at Corona station. The escalator was working this time. I hurried to Jasper and 106th and to the office and the elevator upstairs. Uh-oh. All the doors were locked. I tried the exit door and it wouldn't open. I thought to try the main door but J stuck his head around the corner and got my attention. All forms a signed and submitted and all I have to do is pick up my cheque on Friday. J was removing the "pucks" from the stations and the other guy was there from human resources in James office. J and I had a brief chat about where some of the other staff might be and he said I should check it out probably but in the New Year.

Today its 12/12/12 and how ominous that the date of the "end of the world" should be the day after I lost my job that I had for 12 years. Almost as if it's been preordained. So for those reading this (assuming if there's anyone actually reading this) 80 years from now it'll be 2092.

Well, when I got home I tried to have a nap but I was too wrapped up in all of this. At least I know  I'll be okay cash wise over the course of the next while. I don't need to begin looking right away, probably in the New Year. I'm okay.  

I don't have a lot going on over the next couple of days. I imagine, Warren, James N, and others are setting things up for going to the other place but it's all the way out in the West end. I've got a few options left over yet.

I wrote a brief goodbye letter to my audience at my website and to invite them all to my Blogger site. I just have Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and email.

As for today and the next couple of days, I'm going to try and finish my book and work on a song and relax watch some TV that sort of thing. Anyway, that's about all for now.