Friday at last

and the weekend. There may be a new video upload to Jim Shannon on Sounds this weekend as well, idk yet.

This week I've been getting one too many robocalls. Call control is a way to screen for unwanted calls since we don't have voice mail. As I understand it when somebody calls something that sounds like an answering machine comes on. "This number has call control. Press # (random single-digit number) to get through." I can add a number onto a list like a Do not call (DNC). Most of these robocalls are sophisticated to use a different number each time. Anyone I know, whether they are struggling with me or not that has my home phone # can call between 10-3pm. If I know you, I'll pick up. I won't be rude. We're night Owls, so our bedtime is like 4am. 

I booked my Covid booster shot. I'll be at the Kennedale Shoppers Drugmart on the 21st at 1pm. If Mcdonald's is open I'll get a bite to eat.   

When tracking daily steps its

 called (unofficially) the 10k step challenge. I'll get to that shortly. Yesterday, I headed out of here about 1pm and walked up to Belmont dental. I hadn't eaten before I headed out and I was operating on 2 hours sleep over night but I could wait the hour I was expecting it would take to have 3 fillings done get a bite to eat nearby. I got there no problem. Did the Covid temp check thing: 35.2, and paper work. I was in the chair, had the needles in my mouth, easy peasy from here.  Then while waiting for the anesthesia to kick in, the lack of sleep, and food caught up with me. Also the Bp med I'm on has side effects that rushes to my head. Happens about 2 times a day. Just mild rushes. Plus my blood sugars we're dropping.

I wasn't feeling well, and I let the nurse know. They suggested we try this out again another day. I also needed my denture realigned. So I rebooked for the 19th. I didn't want the day to be a complete waste, and I was next door to Rexall drugs. I asked about the flu shot, and they could see me right away. Cool. I never did to something to eat. Next on my day was Eb games. I walked down to Eb games, and picked up Zelda "Links awakening"😀 Played.

Then I hobbled home. Anne was already on her shift. I explained everything to her. She wasn't all that happy. The delayed news is I ended up with 9,241 steps. Since I began this October 2019, I have yet to reach 10k. Reaching 10k was never a goal. My daily goal was 2k. Have a happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone, that's all for now. 

I'm off work tonight for a

scheduled shift off. I have a meeting later today at 7pm. Its personal but I'm back at the job tomorrow. I could have 2 weeks off with a shift here and there but we'll see.

I Isn't this interesting: I didn't know that its illegal to show emails and chats to a 3rd party without ones consent is against the Law. I kept on getting reminded in a recent chat about deception/betrayal of trust. But I never did betrayed a trust except once as the chat was happening to a 3rd party involved. Everyone has dirt on their hands here, including me. 

I can see dropping somebody because of medical issues, friends needing space, that sort of thing. Its not like anyone is committing fraud. 😎 I was always taught in marriage and life in general if you made a mistake you forgive, reconcile, don't let it happen again. Its part of the learning process. Its not life and death or risk losing a friendship over, or block anyone on Facebook. Society teaches us that 2 wrongs don't make a right. If the friendship/relationship is important enough then, its forgive, reconcile, don't let it happen again.

With the Oilers win last night, they are back in the hunt for that last playoff spot. There's lots of hockey left, except coming up there is a bye week and then there's the All Star break. It's been an interesting 5 weeks. Anyway, that's all for now. 

Not a whole lot

is happening at the moment. I'm just laying low. I'm just waiting for my finale roe but nothing came in the mail yesterday.

Since my music production has stalled due to some technical obstacles, any video's I make will be rather crude over the summer. I've been trying to work on a jam this week on my down time but this thing with lodge (Thursday) and getting my pensions together are kind of getting in the way. I might do a couple Ableton Live 9 lite tracks soon. I'd also like to do a few Korg Gadget tracks as well but I haven't been managing my down time that well over the last week or so. 

Ex Oilers Craig Simpson on the colour commentating last night was mentioning that the coach of the Nashville Predators Peter Laviolette was the same coach that took the Carolina Hurricanes to the 2006 Stanley Cup finale. That was the last time the Edmonton Oilers were in the cup finales. The last time a 8th place team was in the Stanley cup finales before Nashville was...you guessed it: The Edmonton Oilers. Interesting.

So about 1pm today I'm definitely going down to Service Canada. My roe might not be in the mail, but then again they might have it on file already. Anyway, that's all for now.

It seems when it rains it pours around here

for example, last night Anne just turned the oven on for our dinner. Suddenly inside the oven it began to sparkle, and short out causing a small contained fire. We controlled that in half a minute. No smoke to set off the fire detectors. The oven isn't that old. Without warning it just shorted out. The digital display is gone off the front panel. Anne's working this out with management now. So because of this I've had to nuke my coffee. Microwave coffee isn't the best to drink first time around as it is. First time nuked coffee gets cold faster. Management said all the oven needs is a new oven element. Needs far more then that deary, the electronics on the front panel, the digital display is shorted out. We need a replacement oven. After a bit the front panel works. I turned on the stove element and that works. I'm drinking fresh coffee, at last. Management wrote up a notice saying they will be here to inspect oven on Thursday. In the meantime we have a hot plate in storage we broke out last night. I had bought this just before we got married and we have a bbq outside. Anything can be cooked on the barbie. We're ok for a couple of days.

Anne came back from her outing yesterday, and had papers she got from Capital Region Housing Corporation (crhc) and Taco Time for my lunch. Someone there at crhc reception told her based upon what Anne had said we would qualify for a rental subsidy. I have a CPP form I need to take to Service Canada, they need to fill it out. Since I could be off the whole week, its just a matter of standing in line there. Someone there needs to fill it out for me. I'll leave out of here at 1pm tomorrow. We went down this road with crhc a few years ago, when I was working full time hours at Xentel. It took crhc at that time 2 years to get back to us saying because of our income, we wouldn't qualify. Based on last years income, we would. I'm thinking this round once we have all our i and T's sorted out we'll be able to get a subsidy but I feel based on how slow the crhc is, I'll be on full pension by the time we actually get around to receiving anything from these guys. The crhc is very slow because of all the request's it gets for subsidy. Especially in this economy. In other words we're at t he top of the pile. "Now serving 5,922/1," type thing. Anne wants to try and have the paperwork in their office by the end of this week and most likely crhc will sight the Fort MacMurray fire 2 months ago as the main cause of the slowdown. 

So Anne says its good that I'm home. Well in one way but I'd rather be at the office. I still think there's time for that this month and some shifts will be days. I'll be checking up on that on Thursday for next week. Anyway, that's enough out of me.

At the moment its partly cloudy

and a bit on the hazy side out there, so it looks like I won't need a jacket going into work later today. I might get a ride home if Joyce is there tonight. She wasn't last night. I was still home in time to catch wrestling and spend some time with Anne out on the balcony enjoying some nice Spring/Summer air. 

I'm not a fitness aficionado but Anne went over here to the Clareview rec centre with our notice of assessment (noa) yesterday. She's had the application for a low income adult pass for awhile now. It gives us unlimited use of the facility like the pool, hot tub and sauna and maybe some of the work out facilities as well but I'm not entirely sure. The Goodlife fitness people opened up a 24 hour fitness centre in the old Clareview movies location 20 feet from Best Buy recently but Goodlife appeals to a different demographic then the Clareview leisure centre, which has  more then just fitness. From my understanding of this low income leisure pass is, its 75% off not free to use the pool hot tub etc but I could be wrong. They prepare 2 separate passes including photo id if we are approved. When Anne had the car up until about 2002 we would go to the East Glen pool near Rexall for their Saturday evening adult swim. We liked using the hot tub and sauna. Its good that the City offers these passes to low income, other wise these annual passes are about $500-$600/year and out of reach. If I had time, I'd go pretty much every day. At the moment, I'm more concerned about work over the next couple of months. If I have a ei claim and a couple months off, this summer, (which I'm hoping for) I'd be going pretty much every day and have my evenings off. Anne applied for our pass, which apparently takes 6-8 weeks to process. We should get notification of this by about the middle of June.
  
There's a good chance I'll be back to my 3 and 3 days again between the 2 jobs. My other job is back (apparently) next Thursday or Friday. I'll have enough for a ei claim if I can work to the end of June. Anyway, that's all for now.

With all the mistakes I'm making at the

other job, I'm very surprised if I'm still there by the end of the week. I won't go into any details but suffice to say, I've got to have a meeting (initiated on my part) when I get in today. I've got 18 and a half months until I'm on pension, uggh. Can it come soon enough?

I'm involved in a interesting Connect 2 Edmonton discussion about city homelessness, post #52. Its my position that there will always be some element of homelessness, either transitional or otherwise in Edmonton. There is a small percentage of people that like being on the street. Its a "way of life" for these people. One good thing about the sour economy is there are a lot more housing options for people then there were a few years ago when the city's vacancy rate was very high. Now with the economic downturn the vacancy rate has opened up but at the same time the unemployment rate is high. Even with minimum wage at $11.50/hour a single person in a 80 hour pay period is barely existing. Half of that annual income is going towards rent. There's no room for extras and Lord forbid should somebody have a vice like smoking etc. I don't know a lot of people on minimum wage that drive a car. Here's what I added in my last post as Envaneo: "Consider a single person on min wage ($11.50) hr. pulling in a 80 hour pay period add vacation pay of 4% (min) is about $960 or $1,840/month. That's about $22,080 annually. A 1 bedroom (prices may vary) is about $1,200 month in the city. That's $14,500/year on rent (not taking into affect any rent increase without a lease) Bus passes are about $1092/year (although there can be some money returned from a tax break) Add about $600 for food/month, that's $7,200. That's a total of $22,792 and I haven't factored in utilities. Internet would be a luxury. The above person might have mom and dad nearby. But just going by that alone the above sample wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything. So, the above sample would need to take on a part time job just to have the head above water. The above single person even working full time at min wage couldn't cut it. Maybe there might be some social housing subsidies for our sample but none that I know of. Our sample above is called the working poor, which makes up of 39% of the countries GDP.". Then again there are homelessness stereotypes. One such is that homeless people have mental health issues. Not necessarily. Maybe somebody lost their job and significant other, we don't know. The conversation continues.

 
Yesterday morning I was able to email my pharmacist at my pcn and he said he would have a couple of boxes of set aside for me. Just mention to reception they are in the fridge. Good. Anne said she'd be able to pick them up fo me because she's going to pick up her birthday cake today. That means I'll be calling reception to let them know Anne is coming buy to pick up my insulin. So that's going to help me a lot. Anyway, that's all for now.

My favorite time of year

as overnight its almost daylight savings time. We move the clock ahead by an hour. Longer hours, weather is nicer.

Its the end of an era. It was in the mid 1970's from 1974-75 I was working at the Army & Navy department store (A&N) in New Westminster BC. I was 21-22, just a young man. I didn't take very good care of my appearance or my general health. I'm sure I looked a mess. That's when I took up that CokeCa Cola habit. That was a good job and I could walk to work. I lived in what is now called the Bench & Gavel building, where the Law courts building is now. It was a nice studio apartment. Then when I moved to Edmonton in 1978 I worked for A&N again at the Great West Saddlery building. A&N had 2 stores at the time here in Edmonton; Whyte Ave (still thriving there) and the North side across from the law courts building. Its that big old structure on 97th street and 103rd Ave in 1955. Army & Navy opened that building I was living with mom and dad in the Bay side apartment block (West end) as they moved here in 1973. My parents moved back to BC to retire in 1979. I worked for A&N off and on during the later 1970's early 1980's. I worked there again just before the 1980 recession hit Edmonton in October of 1982. I was living on the South side 80th Ave. I worked at the Cobogo warehouse from 1982-1989, first at the Great West location as they were moving to Cobogo (now Cobogo lofts) I was living in a small basement suite in a house on 155th street and 97th Ave in the West end and then a few years later to 9710 156th street. (I had a great little studio apartment) I was transferred to the department store in 1989 and lost my job but that's another story. Army & Navy moved out of their original store in 2001 and then to Londonderry Mall. Army and Navy stayed there until January of this year. Londonderry Mall decided it needed to attract the 18-34 female high income demographic and would not renew A&N's lease because A&N wouldn't look good next to a high end Simon's store. Londonderry Mall also kicked out Winners or will soon, Buds and Albert's. Speculation as too where A&N would be moving to would surface in the Connect to Edmonton forum. So after months of speculation I found the Army & Navy Facebook page. I sent them a text message inquiry about where and when they would be moving to a new location. I did this just shortly before I left for work yesterday. On my way back at Corona station I checked my email and there was a reply from A&N. They told me they have no plans for opening any new locations but rather they are going to focus on repurposing their Whyte Ave location instead. So much history with me and A&N North side Edmonton. The OTO/Ellen, SCA, the injury to my middle finger (off for 3 months) my studio apartment in the West end. All those Oiler Stanley cups, the 1987 Tornado. Working with ACT and my first computer. Wow. Yes its the end o f an era. I'll put some links to the above later tonight when I get back from work.

So today, I'm out of here in about an hour. I'm about ready to have my bath clean up and some breakfast Anne made me to heat up in the mic, then off to a 7.5 hour day. uggh, more dial tones, no answers, nis, quota fills. It's 7.5 hours, so I shouldn't complain. Anyway, that's all for now.