I left out of here at 3pm

yesterday afternoon not yet letting Anne know about Wednesdays shift being cancelled. I went into the 7-11 on Jasper and got our May bus pass and to my Doctors office building. I had a brief wait time and got a coffee by one of the shops that was just about to close. There's a small food court on the main level and I had a coffee in the near vacant food court. A brief wait in the waiting area and my Doctor finally came in to see me. He wanted to draw to my attention is my blood sugar count. He wrote me up a strong recommendation to AW how I should be on Metformin and recommended to AW that that I get on a medical benefits plan that would cover everything, including dental. I'll be doing that Thursday after my 1:30pm Pharmacy appointment at Northgate. I'm just thinking maybe I should go in my suit tomorrow and bring my lodge gear with me. That way I can go right to the lodge from Northgate. After lodge downtown I can meet Anne coming out of work and ride with her on the way home.

After my appointment I worked my way to the office. It was very warm out there. Beautiful day. So I got in the office and the supervisor was saying to those that got the email/phone call, whatever got their shifts cancelled for today, it was mainly due because of low survey completion rates the night before. I wasn't the only one. I think 3 is the threshold because I had 3 completions many times before and still had my shifts the next day. On my break I made a couple lodge related calls to see who is all coming out for early opening/closing Thursday. Doesn't look like I'm going to have a big turnout tomorrow night. I still have some calls to make tonight though. I ended up changing my availability for next week to include Sunday. So I'm busy on the job from this Friday-to-Thursday,if they let me that is. I ended up with 3 completions and not feeling very good about my future with this company. Short or long term, it doesn't look good. Any more shift cancellations and I'm requesting a roe. Shortage of work. There doesn't seem to be any other projects on the immediate horizon either.

I'm up at 10am for noon out of here today to use the computers and to do a job search. This employment agency is supposed to be a place that specializes in getting persons with disabilities employment. I think they use the same job bank that everyone else uses but its easier to get to then AW. It's a block West of Corona station. I have my resume all ready to go and so I'm going to be doing that this afternoon. Ideally I'd like something that I can do 3 days/week and 3 days where I'm working now and do that until I retire. If diabetes lets me live that long. 

The other thing I'm considering after my job search today if there's time is heading over to Axe music and look around and head home from there. Anyway, that's all for now.

Today I'm out of here about 3pm for a 4pm

Doctors appointment because I have a appointment to see my pharmacist at Northgate Thursday and then a bite to eat as I need to be at Highlands Hall by 6pm. I have a busy couple of days ahead. Next week I have a Masonic funeral for a brother of my lodge. The idea was to go to this job search workshop at noon today for a couple of ours but i don't think there's going to be much time. Anyway, that's about all for now.

My commute on the way in yesterday

morning was ok but cold. I put $20 on my Tim’s card and bought breakfast.

It was tough sledding yesterday on the job. I had my first break about 1:30pm and my lunch about 2:30pm and I called Audrey’s and ordered the first 5 “Eagles” (western’s) books William A. Johnstone and two Warhammer 40k novels and talked to Anne. Barry (replacing Trevor?) my new book ordering guy said someone else ordered the same series. Hopefully I’ll get them in. I had my last break about 4:30pm and the last hour went by in a hurry. I ended up with 4 completions and my supervisor seemed happy with that. Since my total kept pace with Victoria’s office all by itself! It was a cold overcast day even though I’d rather be home, it was a good productive day.

I would have loved to have gone as this weekend is Calgary’s Expo. It’s sold out as 80,000 people are attending. One of the girls at work (reminds me of Ellen in a way but built like Ellen was in her prime.) is there this weekend. She’s excited to see Sigourney Weaver. The event will be hosted by Star Trek: Voyager’s Garrett Wang. There’s not a lot there that would appeal to me.
 
I got home about 6:30pm and glad to get inside. I had a great night answering some email. Did a bit of JFK stuff, watched some LA/SJ playoff hockey, had the burger and mexi fries Anne made me for my lunch which I never had. For the most part of the evening I was still trying to find a free program that will let me convert any audio to midi for free. Nothing so far. Anyway, that’s all for now.

I managed to get a few hours sleep

this morning but I'm still running on the 8  hours from yesterday so there's still some gas left in the tank for today.

I popped into the Rogers Place Arena webcam and they're hard at work at it now. They're lining up 2, two trailer trucks hauling dirt out of the site and piling machines are active. For the moment I can see the Grant MacEwan lrt station just west of the Mac building (top right) It was a Army & Navy warehouse in the 70's and 80's I still think a better place for the arena district should have been where Save on Foods is now on 109th street. It was a vacant lot for decades until the late 1990's when it first began to develop into what it is now. I'm looking forward to seeing this arena district develop.

It's a full 8 hours ahead of me today not including my commute. Anyway, that's all for now.

My wife seems to be feeling better

from what she believes to be a mild case of food poisoning. Its kept her in bed for 2 days and she had to cancel her shift last night but she seems to be on the mend

I was working on a track earlier but I kept on getting all kinds of cpu under runs. I need a new PC. I need another income to be able to afford one. 

It was 34 years ago today that I discovered the works of Aleister Crowley and learned this strange cult called Thelema. I recall how my then girlfriend at the time was seeing this man that my SCA colleagues thought was a Satanist/black magician. I knew she was drifting away from me falling for his good charming appeal and good looks. It was on a Friday night and it was at a time I was infatuated with this girl. She was my first girlfriend (gf) and I was trying to get ahold of my emotional state at the time, failing miserably. I was working at the Army & Navy warehouse beside where the Blue Plate restaurant is today and I remember I was living in a small bedroom suite about the same size of our bedroom sharing the bathroom and kitchen. The house is still there today behind Peoples church. A Google maps search will show the house and two poplar trees in the front. There's a white side door underneath a faucet and my room is the small window at ground level. I was trying to reach my gf by the pay phone at the Sandy Lane shopping centre. It's burned down now but still there from the last Google maps update. The pay phone booth would have right by where the news paper boxes adjacent to the access road are today. It was in that pay phone I'd be trying to call my gf about once every 15 minutes. As the night wore on I became more and more worried. We all heard the stories about this guy and they crept into my mind with each moment I failed to reach my gf. I had a hunch I knew she was with him. My gf mother was working that night or I suspected as much. Finally about 9:30pm her mother picked up the phone. It was just mother and daughter living together. I expressed my concerned to her mother where she might be and said with all confidence I could get her out of this situation. It began to rain slightly on that night Friday April 25th 1980. Her mom picked me up and we drove down to where I knew this guy lived because my gf was with him one night as we were coming back from a SCA meeting and I think she resented me tagging along that night. When we got to his place (it was called 5 Oaks, now Fairview place) and seeing his name on the intercom buzzer I think it was #405. I said something "like I'm mad as hell and her mom and I have come for my gf to take her home." Her mom had the car idling by the curb. So he said "Come up". I remembered the door number and flew up the stairs  fearing the worse when I got there but not knowing what to expect. He greeted me at the door all smiles inviting me in. "Would you like a glass of wine?" "Where's gf?" "Over here, she's in a meditative state. Its best not to wake her out of it when she's in this situation," I recall screaming, "What have you done to her?" By this time I was losing it. "Calm down, she's under no harm. I'll wake her out and ask her if she wants to go home." He woke her out of a so called trance, I think she was just putting on a show for his benefit. Keep in mind this was my first gf and I was 27 years old. When my gf came out of this "trance," she hissed at me and it kind of startled me. He got her to her feet and took her into his bedroom handing me a glass of wine saying something like, "I'll calm her down just relax." So as whatever was going on in his bedroom I noticed this chrome skeleton pyramid structure. It looked hand made. I sipped my wine and began to read something on his wall; "Liber Oz." It was very well written and shook me to the core of my being. He came back with my gf and I asked about this. He explained a bit of it to me. My gf said something like in a sweet voice and a warm smile, "Jim I'd like to stay, please?" I said, "Alright ok but I'd like to learn more about this and finish this wine if that's ok and I'll send her mom back home saying I'll take her home from here." He mom seemed relieved and agreed. Since that time I embarked on a 20 year magical career into Thelema. My gf went on to marry my best friend to live in Calgary. I discovered more about Crowley and even got the first 4 degrees and attached my self to various groups here in Edmonton. The local "Order Templi Orientis"  OTO lodge folded in 1996 at the time my father passed away. The guy that my gf was seeing moved to Vancouver about 1993 and that was the last time I heard from him. The people in our local OTO lodge and chapters and Oasis's were great people. By this time I had outgrown the OTO and resigned.However every time when it's a Friday night April 25th I always go back to that time, to the good old days.

The idea was to go to the lab about 2pm and then the Doctors appointment and then into work but that's a bit too much with having to get up early for Saturday morning. I'll do that next week. Anyway, that's about all for now.

Last night on the job was

pretty good. I got 4 survey's, so I can't complain. it was a good night.

It was still raining lightly when I left shortly before 9pm last night. We're supposed to get more of the same today. 

The only Canadian team in the playoffs and the Habs are still alive! They get to move on to the 2nd round.

My intent was to do the lab thing today and then go into work but since I've got my Doctors visit Friday, I may as well go into the lab (in the same building) and take care of that, then go into work. Saturday, I've got a full day and Sunday is 12-5 and then off to a lodge business meeting from 7-9. Anyway, that's all for now.

I could have stuck around for the

job search workshop yesterday but at least I've got my resume done up and that was some progress. I'm back next Tuesday for the job search workshop. The fellow that helped me with the resume actually knows my current employer. My resume was emailed out to me.

I was out of there about 1pm and I could have gone to the lab but I was feeling a bit burned out. There was a bar/restaurant in the building at street level and I looked around in there wondering if they had any Innis-Gunn but the guy didn't know what I was talking about. After that I went to Corona station as it was very windy and I ended up catching the train home.

I got to Clareview station working my way to the #182 Northgate bus as it was ready to pull out. I made eye contact with the driver hoping he'd stop but he just ignored me and almost drove me over. I was pissed off because it made me wait about half an hour. When I got home I didn't have much time because of that but Anne made me some lunch and I went into work. I wondered what the unknown phone # was on our call history. It was from my Doctors office as he wanted to see me. I mentioned I still had to do the pee test and the glucose blood test. I'm in there at 3:45pm Friday before I go to work.

I had a decent shift on the job as well pulling in 4 survey's but I left my good sunglasses at home, which again pissed me off. The best part about all of this running around is I got to read more from Warhammer 40K and that made everything worthwhile.

When I got home I was able to get my resume as a pdf file from Word and uploaded it via iTunes onto my iTouch player. Now all I need to do is to convert a power point document to a pdf file. I have a hard copy of Kelly's finle Lodge report. I want to scan that later today and upload it as a PDF. Or just print from the power point file but the desktop document is in colour but my hard copy is b&w 

Despite the gusting wind it was a clear day out there. When I got Anne was ordering pizza from Maxim's pizza. Good stuff. I had that watching the news and worked out the rest of my evening.

Today I'm relaxing until I leave out of here for my 5-9  but then it's Thursday I'm doing the lab thing and the my Doctors. Anyway that's about all for now