I picked up a webcam

on my way into work yesterday afternoon, leaving out of here a bit early. I got the logitech C270 at Best buy for $50. I proceeded to resume my commute at Clareview station and got my coffee at Starbucks at Central. I was at my destination within 15 minutes of catching my bus. If I have a shift Saturday, (more on that later) I'm catching a bus from Central. Seems to work out better.

I read from my "Descent of Angels" book, as I'm just about to wrap that one up. (took me long enough) With about 20 minutes on the clock before I needed to show up at the site I did something I haven't done in almost 20 years: Visit a near by pawn shop. They had some mixers but they were expensive, some cameras selling for like $40 but no iPads. Lots of iPods though. Something to file against for later.

I went to work and sat in on a briefing. We have some projects but we might have some time off at the clients discretion. Super doesn't know when we'll begin the next project but all of these are slated for November. I could walk in this afternoon for a briefing on the new project or it could start 2 weeks from now, we don't know. If I'm on the schedule for next week, then that's a good sign. I'll have a cheque for Anne on the 13th but I'm  not going to tell her about this, just yet. She'll explode. Most people I work with have other sources of income. One needs to, doing this kind of work. I'm going to hold out until Friday. I'm in for this evening and I could get a update tonight. If no update tonight I'm off tomorrow for lodge and in on Friday business as usual. If no update Friday, I'm in Saturday.

I got the full shift in yesterday. I don't know about today as we're cleaning up the file. I left the office with my blood sugar way down. I bought a regular bottle of Coke and a candy bar and the store owner had the last dying minutes of the hockey game on. RNH scored the 4-2 empty netter. After a brief wait consuming the Coke and candy bar, I felt better. I didn't feel all that great with the knowledge I could be off work for awhile . I was home at 10:30pm and after supper and the news I was shocked to learn Connor McDavid suffered a shoulder injury in last nights game. I unpacked the webcam and installed it on my Windows Xp system. The webcam worked until I installed the software from the Logitech site. Every time when I tried to use the software to make a recording my computer shut down on me. Then I realized that it was most likely due to system requirements on the box, over a half a gig of Ram and I have 1 Gb of Ram that wasn't seated properly when I bought it in 2007. Most likely its the wrong Ram. My laptop is bloated with adware rendering the laptop almost unusable. I could get a 2.5" drive and a copy of Windows 7 and start fresh or see if I can get the proper Ram and get 2 Gigs this time. I might go that approach. Anyway, that's all for now.

When I got to the Baker

Centre yesterday first thing I did was to see if Jack's barber shop was opened. It wasn't Jack but a new guy. He said half an hour? Fine.

That info session yesterday answered some basic questions I had. It's called the "Links information and resource centre." They offered coffee in a Tim's kind of take out cup. They were pretty busy. Lots of tiny offices. Links is located in the old Xentel location Baker Centre 2nd floor. There was about 25 others with me in a large room. They retained some of the original fixtures the old Xentel office like the carpeting and lighted panels. I almost felt a bit of a home coming. People were asking questions. I listened waiting for mine to be asked. Links helps those find steady part time work, within 4 months. That's what I'm looking for in tandem with my current job so when one shuts down for the Summer or is in between stuff the other one is still active. Even management has their own part time work outside of the office during slow times. I didn't qualify for Links because I have a job even though I have (at the moment) no work Links still considers it a job. That would have come out anyway because they ask what my current situation is (AISH,ei etc.). I find that these types of job finding schemes are all fine and well but like the Alberta job corps in the late 1990's I ended up finding my own job and most likely even with Links, I'd find my own job regardless. I'm emailing my resume out this afternoon when Anne leaves for work. I know what's going to happen though. Just like when I was at this other company (X) last September my main job called me back but X said I had to work a minimum of 4 days/week to get paid for training. My other job had a big project with the Federal Government that paid a bit more. I should have stuck with X. Its not that they didn't pay well, its just they didn't have the hours. I didn't even stay long enough to get paid for my training as their policy was I had to be there for those 4 days as well and the Government project orientation/training session was to start on the 3rd day of that X training period. I had no choice but to leave X a vm message. I felt bad about that. They were nice people. Out of the Government job though before I knew I wanted to get into producing live techno/house jams on YouTube, I bought a ebook reader that I seldom use and that would have been about the price of a Korg Volca and I bought a 32Gb iPod touch 5th Gen to replace my iPod Touch 3rd Gen because I thought the iPod Touch was being discontinued. Just the 5th Gen for the new 6th Gen 8 months later. Then 2 months later I end up losing my job. It didn't take me long to get this job but now I'm back to where I started. This time though, this company I'm with now doesn't care if I work 2 shifts a week, which will be great if I make it too full pension. However I don't want to go back to X because they shut down before Christmas for 4 months but that's prime time season for my current job. I'll get 3 months with X if they take me back this fall. I might consider going back to X after the new year 2016 but this economy wasn't as good as last years. X might have a full house next Spring. So after the info session I took my coffee and went to get my haircut. I felt good about that. Then I went to get a 6/49 lottery ticket at the pharmacy still in the Baker Centre on my way out and worked my way back to Corona station enjoying the weather. 

I got my train home and I began to realize that 37 years ago this week my little brother met me at the Via rail train where it used to stop at the CN building downtown Edmonton. Mom was kind of hoping I'd move and settle here and I should have done so 5 years earlier. After spending a week here in Edmonton, I decided since I'm a young man I can start over. I began to like Edmonton. It would have been too costly to transfer what I had at my New Westminster residence and I was late on my rent there before the RM would release my stuff anyway. My parents had no place for my things in their 3 bedroom Westmount/Baycrest apartment at the time. I just left everything behind. I had a new colour tv and stereo, a lot of world war 2 books (probably would have been sold to a used book store anyway in the 80's.) a lot of wargames. I learned just a few years ago that my last residence in New Westminster where I had all mys stuff met with the wrecking ball and the building was demolished in 1980 to make way for the Douglas College location. The only memories I have out of that place was the large ei back pay I received during their waiting period. I look back too see myself then as a young man of 25 losing my youth. I had all my teeth, I was thin, and wearing glasses. 37 years does a lot to a person.  

Other wise, not a lot is going on today. As of tomorrow, I'll be 2 years away from pension. last night I won a free 6/49 ticket from the lottery. I'm not doing anything tomorrow for obvious reasons :) I'm waiting until after labour day weekend or that Friday to see if work is starting up again. I've got ei until the end of September. After this weekend I'm following up on the resume I'm sending out today. I've got some other irons in the fire but nothing work related and nothing I can talk about right now. Friday is the Esks/Hamilton cfl game and I'll be looking out for that Anyway, that's all for now. 

If I didn't know any better

I'd say at this point in time, the company I'm working with is playing me. For now I'm just going to site tight and see what happens. The boss said they will be back with more regular steady shifts in September. The super said pretty much the same thing. In the meantime they are running a skeleton crew doing something and with new hires. That's why I get the impression they are playing me. This company never fires people. If they don't like certain people, they just won't give them shifts and hope that they'll move on and find something else. As for the new hires since my 1 day on the 24th of July, they might be giving new hires a shift here and there type thing just to keep them hoping they wont bail. When I was there on Friday people were asking me where I've been, "Did you quit the job for something else?" The Super said that was his 2nd shift since the 24th of last month (that was the last time I worked) as of last Thursday and Friday. Out of 18 days the Super has worked 2 days? We have 2 supervisors. Where I work they have 2 pages of employees names on the sign for your cheque sheet as there are lots of people that show up periodically. I should have taken a photo of this weeks schedule when I was there Friday. Some people work a few days and I don't see them for a month. There's always that. I have enough ei to last me until that first week in September. Apparently there is another project coming up this week or next week. I'm calling in to find out Wednesday and I hope I don't get hung up on. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Until then I'm not to worried, at the moment.

Some good news on the tech front, in my search for getting rid of unwanted audio on my video, there has been success. Thanks to YouTube. In Windows movie maker I can use the edit panel, go to the volume sound icon. Click on that and a sound meter appears. Scroll the volume knob to mute, go to save video and save as computer (low resolution.) It renders the file into a Mp4 file and I can add my own voice over music from there. The upload options like Youtube don't work very well with Windows music maker. All I do when I'm at my You Tube page is upload the video from there. Slick. I uploaded the new video last night with crappy music. It was just a test anyway. Very happy. The new video is in landscape mode and you can watch the new video here.
When I get some hardware after the computer, I'll be doing more music video's. These music video's will be of my hands adjusting knobs playing with various types of hardware. Once hours at work are more or less steady, I can take out an account at LM for the new Electribe Sampler.

Later this afternoon, Anne is taking Skippy in for her needles. I'm home until further notice. So tonight I'm watching Monday night Raw trying to beet the heat suffering through this cold. The long range weather this week is calling for 29's-30's up until Friday. Uggh, too hot for me but this might be our last heat have of the year (thank God) I'm not going to worry about my job situation just yet. If they can't give me a schedule by the 21st then I'll be looking for something part time to complement this job, 3 days/week until this job has more steady hours. I can see 3 here and 3 days there type thing. What I'd like is something part time steady so when this job has slow times I can work more hours at the job that's steady. At least until pension, then as long as we have our health, I'll work a 1 week a month where I am now. If I get steady hours this fall, I'll build up enough hours for another ei claim for the future and put it on hold (pending another part time job of course.) The idea is when this job has another slow time and I have 2 months before my pension clicks in, I'll activate the ei until pension. They won't let me collect pension and ei at the same time because they are both Federal Government programs. Anyway, that's all for now.

Sparky must have been

given a notice by the rm because we have yet to hear from him all night. Keep fingers crossed. Or else he's just resting up for round two coming later this morning. 

I've had 1 shift worth of work since July 15th. If I don't hear any update today, my next opportunity will be this Friday when I pick up my cheque. If I still get no update I'll be doing a soft job search. What concerns me is they are not taking deductions from my cheque as its been a month after their mandatory 3 month new hire probation policy. This tells me a couple of things. They are going to call me into the office and fire me on Friday. Or they don't have any work for the balance of the summer. "We'll call you if we have anything." And they will. Or I could be told the super will call me Saturday for something coming up next Monday. If I'm looking at the 3rd option, then fine I can live with that and ride ei out for another 2 weeks after this one. I can ride this out until about my birthday August 21st. (I'll be 63) After that I'll be in full job search mode. I don't want to give up on this job. I just need 3 days at something else and 3 days at this job until I get full pension.

If I have this week off, I'm going to book some studio time at the sound booth. I'm thinking of booking for a 2 hour morning slot. This way I can shoot the video there in a clean environment. Its a good time because I have the bus pass. Anyway, that's all for now.

I don't see the project at work barely getting underway

to be put on pause until September. I got 16 completes Tuesday night as it is. About 50 % of my colleagues are 65 or older and probably wouldn't mind the summer off. Having my ei on hold sure I'd be ok for the summer but some of  my colleagues wouldn't. I'll be calling at 1:15pm to see if there is a shift or my boss could be calling me again. Fortunately I have a full cheque on Friday and my cpp so I could be okay for July.

The downtown arena has about a quarter of its roof built. There is so much going on at the moment. There is construction across the street with the extension of the original strip mall, the Clareview bus barn land is being excavated, Edgewater towers by Stadium is going up, the arena, Royal Alberta museum, City of Edmonton tower, Stantec tower, Delta tower, Charles Ramsey tower, Ultima, Fox 1 and now 2, Mayfair, NorQuest, proposed for this spring, Jasper house 38 stories, Healy ford lands those are out of some 31 projects going on around the city. Also, Blatchford, is in full gear and Metro lrt should be coming online soon and if that's not enough right around the corner is the $1.8B valley line.

Even though I could use another week off, I need my hours. I've got gear I'd like to get, like the Korg Electribe sampler and the Roland jd-x1. I want those 2 pieces of gear before the end of the year. So its imperative I get working today.
Anyway, that's all for now.

Lets see now I must have placed

about 3 calls at home to the job lead and all I got was vm. The only thing I could do at this point was leave a message. 

So I headed out to catch my #11 Northgate bus. Much better weather out there today. At pcn I had about a half hour wait, so I read and met my 3pm. I had a chat with my pharmacist about my current woes how it was 1 week ago today I was let go from my job with still know roe. I got my blood pressure checked and a couple of boxes of insulin. I didn't meet up with the aw lady for the medical benefit forms. My appointment said he'd try to raise her but she was tied up. Hopefully I'll get the forms at our April meeting. I called one more time to my job lead and left a message. On my way out of the mall I stopped into Coles and they have 5 Warhammer 40K Omnibus books I could easily spend $100 bucks on. If I had it. I had a 5 minute wait for my #11 home at the Northgate bus loop and home just after 4pm. There were no calls for the day from my job lead. 

I got ready for lodge and arrived there about 6:50pm. Lodge was short with a nice presentation on the psychology of Freemasonry. Good education. Lodge was done 9:15pm and I had a half hour wait at Bay station for Anne. We had a nice ride to Clareview station and walked home. Anne made me a burrito platter, we watched the news until midnight.

Update: I just called my former employer and after a weeks worth of waiting he said my roe gets filed immediately with Service Canada (sc) access code and here I am waiting for my roe in the mail or email. I received a sc access code a few days ago. I opened up a My sc account and called sc and got a real person (probably because its my first time) I was told that the reason for termination was shortage of work but I needed at least 920 hours and I had 200 less then that and even with adding Direct Buy, Pizza wasn't quite enough. They don't have 2 others but when I mentioned Xentel for 15 years, there's more then enough. The sc person said I should bring those hard copies of my roe Monday and the last 22 weeks worked. I'll be doing that over the weekend and in Monday Morning. It takes 4 weeks to make a decision and its already been 1 week. Based on what they have I don't have enough hours for a claim but by submitting my Xentel claim, I should. I'll have a decision by the end of the month, otherwise not much I can do now. I'm on hold to sc to ask how many minimum hours I need to open a claim here in Alberta at this time. I'm on wait time 25 minutes. Ok its (at this time ) 910 hours and I have enough to qualify for ei here in Alberta. They also want what's called labour force attachment. I could get up to 45 weeks, which could be about 11 months. 

I still need to contact my job lead this afternoon. So far all I'm getting is vm. The thing with ei is (or used to) they pay out the weeks waiting in one lump sum. Anyway that's all for now.