I'm getting a lot further ahead with ei

then I thought. Apparently my roe was sent to Service Canada last Wednesday. I have enough hours for a claim for how long I don't know yet. Monday I've got to go back to sc and bring my additional roes from previous places of employment. They call it labour force attachment. They want to see how long I've been in the work force without drawing ei. 

Then I got a return call from pcn and I explained my situation and based upon what we earned last year, this year we qualify for medical benefits. My case worker is going to leave the forms at the front desk and I can pick those up at any time next week. We need a few other things like bank statements, medical forms and prices etc.this may be tricky because I've been getting my insulin free from my pharmacist and test strips from Alberta Monitoring. Anne needs to sign the forms with me and hopefully we wont need to resend the paperwork again like we had to last time.

Anne made me a bit of supper and apparently went to pay on most of the rent, balance to follow.

I sent the job lead another email with my resume and this time I got a call back from somebody with accent. From what he told me over the phone it sounded like I got the job and all he was going to do was email me telling me what to bring on Monday as I said that's when I could start. I got the job! Then an hour later he said in a email, that he forwarded my resume to HR and the area manager for further screening. I don't know if I got the job yet.

Even with all of the above, nothing fruitful, so far. As of now, there's no t much I can really do. There's some pressure and stress in our household. Monday I'm at sc and applying at a temp agency and another job lead. That's all I can do for now. Anyway, that's about all for this weekend.

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. 

Not much good news lately

other then yesterday the guy that Anne knows that's been doing our taxes for the last 3 years from her job that isn't there anymore, returned my message left on his voice mail. He said everything is the same, same price, when we're ready. So Anne is going to set that up.

The upside of having all this time off is that I'm making some good reading progress on the book I'm currently reading. I'm about halfway through it. This series "Horus Heresy" keeps getting better and better.

I decided that my job lead has had two days to go over my  resume. I'm going to call before I head out this afternoon. I need to know one way or another. If I get the green light, great. If not I'll try my next job lead Friday. I've got my pcn appointment at Northgate at 3pm and then home to get a bite to eat clean up and out to Freemason Hall. Hopefully I'll have good news and I'll celebrate and have a cold one. Anyway, that's all for now.

Now that I have more or less

caught my breath and caught up on my sleep, I'm planning what to do next. Moving forward from what happened last week.

At the moment I can't do much until I get that roe and apparently they have 10 days to get it to me. The job lead Monday said give him a couple of days either for him to call me and or for me to follow up. If I get a call today, I'll go in today and start tonight or even Friday, since I have my pcn appointment to get my insulin tomorrow at 3pm and lodge tomorrow night. Or if he calls me tomorrow when I come home I can go in Friday. Hopefully I can work Friday/Saturday.

Weather wise we're holding -10/-16. We're getting warmer. The number after the / is always the wind chill. Sunday we turn the clocks ahead for daylight savings time. Spring is a few weeks away but we're getting there. 

As for today, I'm home doing a job search, seeing what's out there and getting some more leads. I also need to get my last 22 weeks on paper and for ei so when I get my roe I can present both to them and a job search. Anyway, that's all for now.

Strap in and buckle up this could be a long and bumpy ride so here

we go. This could be a long one.

The computers at the ea were off line yesterday. They wanted me to go to aw and apply. I had a long wait for the #16 express bus between the Matrix hotel and Corona station. It was a cold, howling bitter wind that morning my friends in the midst's of a expected cold snap. Now, I could have applied at the aw on 105th and about 103rd street but the Northgate location was closer to my area. The #16 express bus goes right to Northgate and I was downtown anyway. Aw admittedly were slower then usual so I was able to see someone right away but apparently we did not qualify for income support. We have no children. I tried calling ea back but all I got was vm. I left a message of course. I went to pcn in hopes that maybe if my pharmacist had a cancellation while I was there he could take me in because I'll be back in 2 days but no such luck. I was however able to get wifi in the mall (new feature?) and I Googled a phone # of a job lead and went to pcn and used the phone. Reception at the job lead said they had a change in management (Surprised) The lead said yes they were still hiring and I could email my resume`. I worked with them a few times before over the years. The lead said I could follow up in a couple of days or they'd call me back. I asked somebody at pcn where there was a Tim's and they said right above them in the food court (opened in November). I went upstairs and got my first coffee of the day, and tried calling the ea again but just got vm. When I got home I explained to Anne what had happened. There were some tensed moments but she took the expected news as well as she could. Its not like I get "fired" everyday and between the both of us we'll have at least 70% of our rent on Friday. We're caught up in bills and have enough food in the house, so we're more or less ok. I was able to get my resume` out to the job lead so I hope they have for review it today and either I'll get a call Wednesday/Thursday one way or another.

We're both relieved in a way that I'm out of Malatest. Last month my scheduled hours were removed because projects were winding down. I probably could have opened up a ei claim based upon that alone, shortage of work. Right now before Anne and I can move forward we need that roe. They should have had it ready for me when they terminated my employment on the spot but they have up to 10 days to get out in the hands of the ex employee (me) It's not like I was late everyday or called in sick or kept ducking in and out of shifts or dressed bad or smelled bad or poor work ethic or anything like that. For the most part I met my expectations. They sited I was disruptive (asking supervisor questions because I was pulled from the project the first time I did it 2 years ago because I was new to market research at the time. Its a once every two year project) I caused a bit of a scene when my hours were being significantly reduced (I was under a lot of stress. My supervisors know I'm diabetic and my blood sugars were dropping) that one time last month and poor performance (on the new project they did not seem to take into account my work ethic during the last 2 years). The first day of Victoria's flagship project we were told to push the online version of the the survey, they were not expecting many completions. I had a scheduled day off this time last week and returned Wednesday. I screwed up on 1 survey but (It was coming back to me) caught on and I think I did a better job from there on the rest. I didn't code a few things properly later in the day. The following morning is when they fired me parting ways as "willful dismissal." I think that was a bit extreme. They could have pulled me off the project or suspend me. My boss wasn't there to defend me (he hired me originally). I probably could have put up a more of a fight but I suspect the results would have been the same anyway.

Anne made me a great burger and fires for supper while watching wrestling and she noticed a "Great clips" ad up there by Walmart had a 50% off sale ending today. A hair cut for $10. (those were the days) So we braved the icy side walks, howling wind to "Great clips." I needed a haircut anyway and I'm glad despite the bitter cold, we went. I could catch up on wrestling during the encore 10pm show. At 11pm Anne made me a light supper I watched what was left of wrestling, which led me to 1am. Anne said, don't do anything today (Tuesday) give the job lead a chance to review my resume` and go from there. I got my last pay stub in my email. I'll wait until Friday for that roe, if not there I'll call the office and ask the manager where my roe is. Are they going to email it to me or is it out in the mail or what?

Monday was a kind of a good news bad news thing. I learned that as long as I don't list any employer as a reference they wont call that employer. Also I got another job lead from the ea if this one doesn't work out. I got a feeling it will though. If I can open a ei claim and get this job (its only for a few months (they become active again in September) I hope to take this customer service course that goes from June-September as ei will allow me to continue onto my claim and I can get back to work in September. That's the plan moving forward. If I can open a claim. Anne gave me a sleeping pill because I've been having a rough couple of days under a lot of stress lately. We might have to cut our cable down to basic cable and keep Internet. I don't watch a lot of TV anyway. I'm calling ea later today to see if the computers are back online. If so I'll be in tomorrow. I hope the ride wasn't too bumpy. Anyway, that's all for now.

This morning I've got to go to the

employment agency (ea) to get my resume tweaked and see what they can do for me, check my web mail do a job search, head over to my pc by way of the #16 bus and see the front desk and ask for the medical forms again, then upstairs to AW get in line and see what I can get accomplished with all my t4's and a job search. I'll ask if I can see somebody today or this week. I can't do anything further with ei until I get my roe anyway. After that I'm calling a place I used to work at to se if they have started yet and if they need anyone. I've got another place like that and an ad job.

I think we got a lot of things accomplished at the lodge last night. I don't need to worry too much at the moment as I'm not 2 years in arrears. One of the guys there is in the same boat as I am but at least he has a job.

The Hyperloop guy is back. Elon Musk’s radical plan to let people travel in 760 mph tubes will be tested in California next year. The man behind Tesla Motors, SpaceX and Paypal joint-founder. Is this another pipe dream or can Musk pull this off. LA to San Fransisco in 30 minutes is almost as fast as a Concorde but faster then a Boeing 737. Its about 613 Km between LA and San Fransisco. Or about the distance from Calgary to Fort MacMurray. Here's a link to the story. Anyway that's all for now. 

I'm taking Dougs advice and I'm having a great

weekend. Monday the employment agency (ea) is going to help me get started and I'm going to tweak my resume and get a job search going. Then check my email to see if I have a pdf of my upcoming pay and roe. After that its to go to Alberta Works to meet Anne and get that going have lunch and do a follow up on a job lead. When I get my roe, I'll be getting that printed off at ei. Ei also needs my last 22 weeks and I'll be doing that later today. 

Did you see this one? A doctor in Turin Italy, Sergio  Canavero has drawn up plans to graft a living persons head onto a donor body and claims that this procedure is only two years away. If this actually works, I imagine the first patient will be the Doctor himself. For the rest of us, the asking fee will be quite high. Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic to say the least. Sorry I don't have a working link but you can Google it.  
   
Even though its cold out there, we're about to warm up. Its supposed to get up to +5 and +6 Thursday and the next 4 days after that. Also, next Sunday will be daylight savings. I might be (for now) out of a job but at least its warming up out there. Anyway, that's all for now.