Despite Edmonton and its

cyclic economy, I'd rather live here then anywhere else. Ok so we have bad hockey, we have a decent climate  though. Thanks to a 2015 El-nino year our climate has been sub arctic-moderate. The average High temperature for October for example has been 16.7, and November we've had about a week of -0/-6 for the whole month. That's what a El-nino year can do for us. At the same time we don't experience any flooding. Did I mention the hockey is bad? 

On the Connect to Edmonton movie thread I mentioned since JJ Abrams is involved with Star Wars, what does this do for the Star Trek film franchise? Does the success of Star Wars breath new life into the floundering Star Trek movie series? What happens to Trek now?

Ok this is my last post for 2015 (I promise) My wife is working tonight so I get to hold down the fort and ring in New Year alone. Anne's going to order me a pizza meal from her discount for my dinner tonight and I'm settling in to watch the Oilers host the Anaheim Ducks. Its free LRT service in the city tonight and tomorrow but we got our bus pass for January. Happy New Year everyone, anyway that's all for now.

At first I thought I had a stroke

At first I thought I had a stroke overnight or something, when I heard what sounded like a vacuum cleaner that started for a few minutes and then idled down. This woke me up about 9:30am. Anne has yet to hear it because when she's in bed, she's oblivious to anything around her with those ear plugs of hers. Then within the brief minute or so since above the sound was coming right above me. The people upstairs are doing something. The noise would start and then peter off and then ramp down. That can't be a vacuum because that was over 3 hours ago. Is there a contractor in the building that management never informed us about? I'll let it go for now but if this keeps going on after 5pm, I'll be paying a visit to management.

Even though I haven't played Advanced Squad Leader (asl) in years, I've been following the development of the hobby. Asl has always been one of my favorite board games. If your thinking this is like another Risk or a party game, your sadly mistaken. The learning curve is quite high. The time and money that goes along with it is substantial. There is a element of luck involved as it uses dice and colorful cardboard counters. I've seen asl go from Avlon Hill (ah) to Multi man Publications (mmp) over the years. Since mmp they've been adding new modules on a consistent basis. Asl focuses on World War 2. Since the 2nd reboot of asl in 1985, I've always wondered if the games would ever step out of ww2. 

  

So many possibilities, like Vietnam, middle east and even Korea. So, to my surprise in my email yesterday mmp announced "The Forgotten war." Mmp is taking pre orders. Out of all the 26 asl modules I have12. Some are out of print. I'm sure in some of my many moving house over the years I've lost some pieces. Since mmp took over ah I have yet to buy one of their products. There's not a lot of places that sell wargames anymore in town. Warp one might. I've never seen any wargames at Happy Harbor. Mission fun and games might sell them. The official release of The Forgotten War wont be until 2016. There is a computer version of ASL and one of my YouTube subs has had a whole series on the topic. It looks interesting but as usual my computer is slow. I could see mmp making a iPad asl app. The hobby is almost screaming for an app. Most likely I'll try the software version of asl when I get my iMac in the near future. Anne has all my games boxed up on the closet. If your interested playing asl at the bottom of the wiki page link there is a Google maps directory location of players world wide. Asl is mostly a male orientated hobby. I've never seen any females play the game. You can learn more about ASL here.  

In wrapping up, I'm just wondering if this is some kind of un supervised children's toy going on upstairs? Can't kids get a quite hobby like Leggo or asl? What ever the drone like noise is, it just started today. Did they get one of those aerial drones for Christmas and are trying it out inside? I'll get to the bottom of this eventually. Anyway, that's all for now.

Even though its a overcast typical winter

day out there the temperatures are getting better. We're at about -13 now. Its supposed to warm up this week to around -5. If we can get January to remain steady at about -5 to -10, I can live with that.

The other day I stumbled upon a curious device from Moog. Is it another add on for their portable "Minitaur." Upon closer inspection, this thing even though it looked like a Minitaur it had a patch bay. I checked out a review of the recently released "Moog Mother 32," or 32 for our purposes. This thing has a built in step sequencer and a button style keyboard. Ok, nice. I can add this to the file folder for later. Then I came across another You Tube video on the 32 only this time the 32 was cradled into a double stand of some kind and the demonstrator of the 32 was showing how the 32 can be used with modular modules from 3rd party developers. That really caught my attention. The modules and the 32 worked well together and makes the 32 very expandable. I immediately filed the 32 out from the file folder to wish list. I'd like to get into modular synthesis and this lets me get into it without breaking the bank. 

Later this afternoon Anne wants to check out Best buy to see what we can get for a boxing day tv special. I want to go with a smart tv. Then Marks next door to see if they have any mens winter jackets. I'd rather have a winter jacket as mine is still good for another year but showing its wear and tear. I'd rather not use the Visa at all unless its for my lodge dues. Anyway, that's all for now.

About the highlight of my

Saturday was watching the Oilers/Canucks game. That game should have been won in a shoot-out but it was a Oiler 2-1 loss in OT. I thought our goal tender played decent enough but that last shot ordinarily he should have stopped.

Anne wants to head out of here about 2pm for Londonderry Mall. There's a coat there she wants me to try on and she needs some stuff. Then its to Capital Pizza for our Christmas Pizza tradition. After that its home to watch the Oilers/Flames on TV. Anyway, that's all for now.

Today I'm taking it easy enjoying my

time off. After the weekend I'm going to be looking for a more steady part time job. Something that doesn't rely on projects or is seasonal. I need a job steady that's open year round from 9am-3pm, somewhere in there. Security guard work is out because its too regulated and I have to fork out $100 to take a test and pass with 80% or greater. Then there's a fingerprint service fee and a Police records check fee etc. It's not like the old days where you can just apply and they suit you up and your ready to go. I'm also looking at house keeping or janitorial. It doesn't have to be long term. Once I get on pension my current casual job will be good enough. I've been looking around lately on Kijiji. I got a job in the summer of 2014 through Kijiji and this job. I'll find something.

This week I need to go to the Southgate Apple store, and I'll probably do that Monday. We want to have our i0S devices separated so I can get Airdrop on our iPad. There's probably a online solution but I might screw up. Better let them know and get expert advice. I have a back up email and I'll need that to open a Apple id for the iPad and work from there. I also want to get Apple TV because it has Airplay. Airplay (as I understand it) will let me mirror our iOS screens on our TV. There's a 3rd party app that with Airplay lets an iOS user record the iOS screen. If this works, then I can just record the iOS system audio using a 3.5mm male to male jack plug that into my laptop using Audacity to record the audio export as a wav file, then once the video is recorded load that into iMovie and sync the two together. In theory. It's a long process but its the easiest way to screen record an iOS device that I know of that doesn't jailbreak (hack) our iOS devices. This process if it works like I think, will enable me to record my iOS screen and upload to YouTube. iOS music production has really taken off since the birth of the iPad in 2010. There's Audio bus and a ton of music apps and sequencers out there. Most music software studios like Cubase and Fl. Studio have their own versions for the iPad and Android devices. Even Native Instruments has iMachine 2 and a "stripped down" version of Apples garage band is available like for $5 from the app store. What I like about iOS music production is that in the world of music production an iOS device is more hardware, then software. Producing music on a computer can be labour intensive and costs a lot of money to keep up to date with computers and the software libraries are so huge. Anyone starting up with this hobby today here in Edmonton, doesn't need any money to get started to produce music. The library downtown has their maker space, complete with green screen, sound booth occupied with Mac/PC complete with Ableton Live 9 etc. The maker space is free and open to the public. They have mixers, speakers, video camera's the works. We got our iPad in 2012. Apple TV starts off at about $100. The 3.5mm cables are pricey but I want them now not 3 months from now from eBay etc. So I don't mind paying $20 at London Drugs. Best Buy has them cheaper but these are only sold online and a long wait to get them. Apple TV is similar to Googles Chromecast. Anne bought into the Apple TV idea last night when she heard that she can watch YouTube, and have our Flikr photos displayed on flat screen TV. By separating our iOS devices on 2 different accounts I can free up iPad storage space by Airdropping then onto my iPod touch as I still have about 11Gb of space. All I need is to free up about 4Gb off of the iPad. Airdrop isn't on the iPad. I need both devices to have Airdrop. Airdrop and Airplay are different concepts. 

Our Christmas yesterday was good. Anne started early on her Christmas turkey. I got Anne her annual Shriner's Calendar and a fantasy novel trilogy Mercedes Lackey. She got me some t-shirts, each with a front breast pocket and a Tim Horton's cup. We got lots of cat toys. We watched some Doctor Who. She got face time calls from her family that she missed because they were in Florida. We just let the rest of the night sort it self out and went from there. Anne's off to work for her usual shift today and I'm watching the Oilers/Canucks game later tonight. Anyway, that's all for now

This is going to be great having over ten days

off during the holidays. I'm going to work on my lodge stuff and finish that beat I've been working on this last fall. Also, I'm going to finish reading "Agent to the Stars," before the end of the year. I'll be staying up late and sleep in late.

  
I've always been fascinated by Leggo since the original Star Wars movie. They keep coming out with bigger and better concepts. Their latest is something I'd like to tinker around with. The Doctor Who Leggo should have came out a long time ago but time is relative. Some people are making stop motion sequences to tell stories with Leggo figures. I kind of like this idea but the Leggo kits cost a lot of money.

Anne is working from 2-8pm today so I get some time off by myself. Next week, I'm going to be separating our shared iOS devices. I need Air Drop on her iPad so I can transfer a lot of her video onto my iPod where I have more memory. That's another project. Anyway that's all for now.

Tonight is my last day of work for

2015. I lost my 1st market research job and applied for ei in February. Then I had another "job" that lasted for 3 days in March. Then I got the other market research job in early April and I'm still with that, for now. Then I'm working at something else trying to recruit volunteers for a non profit agency for their door-to-door campaign. I'm going to that after I do business with my market research job. I'm looking at another job opportunity, and if they call me in for a interview and I get hired I might leave the recruiting job but only if its long term. 

 Anne was there last night and Army & Navy staff don't seem to know where they are going or if they will be out of a job at the end of January 2016.

Army & Navy department store at Londonderry Mall is closing at the end of January 2016. The mall feels its going to compete with the high end clothing Simon's. Army & Navy has been at Londonderry mall since 9/11.

I'm out of here at 3:00pm today. I want to pick up my cheque at the other place and hopefully do my business and make it in time for my shift or be a bit late. After that its to my bank. Anyway, that's all for now.