Friday morning I made my way over to see Rob

so I could get my cheque. I had a coffee said my "see you later," type thing and home. I thought Anne had left hearing the door close but she was still in bed. 

I was able to get a hold of my Doctor's reception to rebook an appointment I had yesterday. Also, I was able to call this program OSP about some job search called "The Futures project," to get one on one support. When the voice on the phone gave the address, I had to get a second look. She said "The Baker Centre," I said '2nd floor just above the security desk?' She said, "it sounds like the old place you used to work at." Yes indeed the old office is reoccupied. So I'm going in Tuesday before work to register. Anne mentioned something and she said maybe there is a program for disabled semi retired seniors not quite 65 to get maybe cpp early. Maybe I might be able to get partial assistance and able to work part time or something like that until I can get full OAS in 3 years based on my income and not our combined income, we'll see.

I caught my 4pm train to Corona and picked up my  Warhammer 40K "Vulkan lives." I was happy to get that.

This morning I'm out of here about 9am, get my breakfast at Corona and off for a full 8 hour day, ugggh. Sunday 12-8pm but I get Monday off Anyway that's all for now.

I headed out to

PCN Northgate yesterday afternoon. While waiting for my bus I took this picture of this unusual tree. Probably bent like that from the recent wind we've been having recently:

My bus took me to Northgate and I was half an hour early. I needed a coffee and took a look around in Coles. They had 3 Warhammer 40k Omnibus books I'd love to pick up. I went upstairs to the food court and got that coffee, then over to look around at Future Shop to waste a bit of time. 

There wasn't much the pharmacist could do for me as we're ok for insulin for now and I needed to see the AW worker. She was detained with another client. So I went back over to Future shop again but they pharmacist worked with me and said I might be checking up about every 15 minutes or so until she's free. They had some nice desktop pc's and even a few laptops but there wasn't anyone around to get help how fast the cpu was for the laptops I noticed in the $600-$800 price range. Not that I'm shopping around or anything.

I brought the papers for the AW worker and Anne missed the major piece of paper she didn't fill out, so I was under a bit of pressure just there with Anne on the phone trying to get my health number her s.i.n. etc, it was stressful to say the least. I had to arrange for Anne to get there that evening to put her signature on the paper. The worker gave me a pamphlet how it deals with getting jobs for disabled individuals better then employabilities. Looks like it's a federal program. 

It was a longer ride home and Anne made me a bit to eat and headed out to Northgate to do her stuff. I caught a 5pm bus to Clareview and to the Lodge. For the most part that part turned out ok but I'm glad I'm done for the summer, such as it is. Anyway, that's about all for now.  

Over the last couple of days

Anne and I had some family as Pat & Bary were on a camping trip pulling a trailer. They said best time to go camping anywhere in this country and in the states is in June before the kids get out of school. Now they are in Lethbridge and heading towards Yellowstone and then to Devils Tower, then to see Mount Rushmore then heading back to Sydney NS.

I can't believe that I'm pinching pennies just to pay the balance of rent. We don't have much left on it but I'm getting a bit here and a bit there and I have next Friday to get it all. Fortunately I have some resources and at some time this month, I might have to do some temporary physical paid daily labour but I work a week and there's half my rent I haven't done stuff like that since the early 1990's!

In the next half hour or so, I'm heading out of here to go to the Northgate PC and drop some papers off. I'm applying for medical benefits to cover diabetic supplies and maybe to even get my teeth done this summer.

Then after that I'm off to lodge but its casual dress tonight. The festive board is starting early but most likely we're starting at the usual time, then it's the last lodge meeting for the summer. Hopefully I can find a successor. Anyway, that's all for now.

That was great to see

Pat & Barry yesterday and they are coming back for a couple of hours later today before they head out to Southern Alberta. This leads me into Thursday in which case I have to visit Northgate PCN to drop those papers off. I also need to apply for that 6 month course for October and I'll be doing that tomorrow as well before lodge. 

When I read this from my friend Bill's Facebook page, I thought this deserves a place here. Spread this around if you agree:




I've got a crowded studio but I moved my laptop off the ledge there by the clock and put the laptop and Maschine side-by-side and my midi keyboard on top making enough room for Silky to get by. That's his usual path to get on top of the book case behind me.

Once I get my employment picture on steady solid ground I'd like to get this little baby: It's the Roland FA 06 music workstation. Roland sounds in my opinion are the best in the business but Google/YouTube is finicky this afternoon and wont let me post a video. I'm looking at the 61 key version.

Fortunately lodge is come in my work cloths so this could be an interesting night for the last lodge before we break for Summer. Then I can have a break and focus on other things for a change. I've got 4 months to go after August and I hope I can get someone to take over in December for the next year and reduce my membership to affiliate and join RA. Well, that's the plan.

I'm not big on stats but I thought this graphic was interesting:

 


As for today not much is going on. I'm waiting for my mr boss to call me to see if I have work over the next few days. I made my availability Sunday-Friday but this is not a stable work environment. I'm only as good as my last shift basically. All I'm doing now is trading space for time. Pretty pathetic just to keep the status quo engine running until I retire isn't it? This is what it's going to be like for me for over the next 3 years. It's basically month-by-month. Anyway, that's all for now.

I felt better heading out of here yesterday afternoon

shortly before 3pm. It was warm almost muggy. Also, the mosquitoes were out in full force. Early this time of year but they were not biting.

I took this off the Rogers Place Arena live cam from about noon. Trucks are moving between the loader and the crane as soon as they are filled with dirt. 

 My boss wasn't all that happy with the $75 I had from Sunday's total and even less with today's $25 total. I was even calling from the phone book of all things. I said I'd be off Tuesday but back Wednesday as I'm going to have to make a decision: Miss lodge or miss 2 days of work when we need rent the most. That decision might be made for me later this morning as the boss want's me to call him to learn my fate. If this is the case, I'm going to ask my mr boss if I can work this Friday/Saturday. The problem with my tm job is in the source I was calling. Most of it was Winnipeg, BC and Medicine Hat. I was kicking it up old school actually calling from the phone book of all things of all things and that's where I got my first and only sale. If the tm boss says, he's going to suspend me until after the weekend when we do the "new campaign," no problem. I hope I can go in for Wednesday and Anne gives me the green light for lodge, then great. Oh, I took this photo shortly after 9pm waiting for my bus to Belvedere:

^ I'm smack dab in the middle of 129th Ave looking East. That's 50th street where that white building is in the background. Anyway, that's about all for now.

After all that running around after work

last night just 2 of the guys showed up. I tried this new kind of a grapefruit flavor type beer at the bar at the meeting. Very nice. That was the only positive outcome of Sunday. Pretty much the whole day was counter productive.

Not only am I being squeezed on the job front, I'm being squeezed on the lodge front as well and if that's not enough I'm under pressure as well here at home, my back is aching from the 2 metal rods in my spine and my diabetes is slapping me around. 

So on top of all this the wife has me in the doghouse again complaining that the lodge is controlling my life because I've been with them twice over the weekend. She has a point because last month, I've been to my regular lodge meeting, a celebration of life service, an emergency meeting, the lodge BBQ and a meeting last night that never happened. I have one more lodge meeting Thursday and it's the last for the summer but the lodge wanted me to go to Calgary for the afternoon because of the annual communication. One of our lodge members is up for DGM. I've got no way of going down the for the day. I'll be glad when my term is over and I can just sit on the sidelines and help out to fill in at various chairs if need be. Sigh, it's a great life if you don't crack under pressure. Anyway, that's all for now.

Saturday I was up about 10am

ready to head out of here to meet my pick up ride to the Shrine club. Dan met me across the street from my stop at McKernan /Belgravia station about 1:15pm 

Dan picked me up right on time and we took the long way around and got there to the Shrine club about 2pm. People began to. Show up shortly after we arrived. My JW arrived and so did the caterer. We had about 30 people there. it was pretty good but expensive. We even had jobe's daughters and the D'Molay out to perform a murder mystery dinner theater. It was very nice, although I got home a bit later then I wanted.

I think from when we left the Shrine Centre to Southgate shown above we must have ran into 3 rain cells. Love this time of year. 

Today I'm leaving out of  here in about an hour for work. It's a short 4 hour shift but with the lrt off line and replacement buses taking over to fill in the gaps it's going to make things a bit awkward for me to get around today. I've got to catch the replacement bus from Clareview to Belvedere to get to work, then the bus to get from Belvedere to Rexall and the #8 from Rexall to my Lodge "Executive Committee" meeting. The last one before the summer. Then I can come home enjoy the rest of the hockey game and get ready for the week.

Speaking of which, on my plate for this week is continue with employment agency doing a job search, even though I have 2 part time jobs, I'm looking for a full time steady job. Then I have my last lodge meeting before our Summer break. I long for the "dog days of Summer." Anyway, that's about all for today.