E.Jim Shannon

There. I
completed my writing goal for today, 1,o57 words and on pace for my 10k at 27,616 for the week. That doesn't mean I'll stop at 10k say 6pm Sat night. If I can do more, then I will. That's all for now.

Bath time for Bonzo.

e.Jim

I took the
travel pill around midnight and by 1:15am the pill began working on me. By 1:30am unconsciousness came. I had the best sleep in days. I got up at 6am to do the cbi thing. I did a bsl reading sitting at 10.3. High, but then considering the time of day and all I expect it to be that high in the morning. I went back to bed after that about 6:30am and sleep came slow, uneasy. I think I dozed off maybe 7:15am or so but I did manage to sleep after that, I think I got a total of 9-10hrs.

After I get this out of the way, I’ll blog this and make my blog rounds. Wow. Crosshairs has received 16 views. Less mine and Keith’s that’s 12 people that have read my story. Crosshairs has a lot of passive writing in it and I know the culprit. I use “was” to much. Passive and past tense. Two in one. Next story I send to Sciencefictional will have no more “was’s/wasn’t” in any of my writing if they want one of my stories that is.

e.Jim

I’ve had it
with X. Tonight we did the first hour BOB hockey game and I felt I did okay and then we did St. Michaels, and the majority of the calls I got were ‘99, ‘98 taps and very little ‘05 taps. Lot’s of ’06 ones which we have to reload. Maybe 30-30 people saying “take my name off the list.” So tomorrow I’m going into Convergy’s and apply. If they give me an interview right away, I’ll go in for Tuesday and Sat will be my last day at X.

I ended up doing 1,650 words today on NW and I need another 400 words to get to 2k.

Well, I managed to get the extra words in. Total word count today, 2078-26,546/100k. Also, I got 12 views out of Crosshairs. Thanks for reading. I’m going to be turning my writing up a notch as I went and learned a few tricks of the trade.

More latter.

e.Jim

More often
then I care to count overnight was my sleep disturbed. Anne kept on waking me up every ten minutes or so what with her bad hip and pain in other parts of her. I got up about 6am to do the cbi thing and I tried going back to bed, No luck on my part. So, 7:30am rolled around and I decided to stay up for an hour and do some writing.

Since I started today’s writing session about just after midnight, I’ve got 1650 words done. I’m going to shoot for 2000 for today. There’s more time for writing when I get home as well. I’d like to write 3k today if I can.

Anyhow I went back to bed around 8:30am and I slept a little better getting up at 11:30am to watch The Rifleman. Another excellent episode.

It looks like space shuttle Atlantis is back on the move to its launch platform now that hurricane Ernesto has been reduced down to a tropical storm and poses no threat to the shuttle launch. That’s good news.

Seems the price of oil is dropping. Yikes. Not good news for us here in Alberta, It’s just under $70. I don’t think it’ll drop below $60. Highest I’ve seen the price of oil has been $77/barrel. There are two theories about oil. One is the peak oil notion and that is oil is a depleting resource from fossil fuels. Once it’s gone it’s gone. The other theory suggests that oil is “grown” naturally. Or Abiogenic. Hubbert’s peak Oil theory still seems reasonable to me. So is the Abiogenic theory “junk science?” I don’t know but as long as the Abiogenic theory is just a theory then it works in favor for us here in Alberta.

We got a nice big thunder storm last night just befoe midnight. Rain was pelting down very hard but it lasted heavy for about ten-twenty minutes. It's currently raining off on and on but the weekend should be nice.

e.Jim

I managed to
get 3 hrs sleep and I got up at 5 to do the cbi thing and went back to bed. I slept alright until my wife starts flinging her ar and wakes me up shortly before 7am. So, I’m up for awhile, maybe get some writing done.

So after the above I got a bit of writing in and went to bed at around 8:30am. I slept decent after that until about 11:45am. Altogether, I think I got maybe 7hrs sleep, I did manage to get just over 500 words on NW today. I’m well on pace. My back is still bothering me and I’m wondering if I have arthritis in my lower back now, Just what I need.

Because Labor Day is on a Monday, we’ll probably work this Saturday and have Sun and Monday off. That works out good because Sat is only a four hour shift and early in the day where it still makes it look like we got a full 3 day weekend.

Wuu who! I got 8 views on my "Crosshairs" story over there at sciencefictional so far. Let's see my view and Keith's view don't really count, so that makes 6 views so far. That doesn't mean folks actually sat down to read the story. Some might have skimmed it, some might have read the first 1000 words and thought, "yuck crapola," some might have even copied and pasted it for latter reading. Sciencefictional is down right now, but I'm sure Keith will have it up and running soon. If you like the story or think it sucks, please tell me either way by leaving a comment Or don't that's okay too. Thanks.

e.Jim

That was quite
the writing rush. I ended up with 1,532 words today and I’m at a total of 23,108 words towards the weekly goal. By Saturday night, I want to be at 30,000 words+ I have 7k left.

Good news, not only did I make my word count goal and then some, but Keith fixed up the formatting for Crosshairs for me and accepted the story. Also, Anne got her black sheep money today and some extra so I have enough for my lodge dues next week.

I went through my Blog rounds but most of my Blog people are at World Con so there aren’t many entries left to read. I’m surprised Holly Lisle didn’t make it this year. I’m sure lots of other big names didn’t as well. Next year it’s in Denver. World Con sounds like a lot of fun.

e.Jim

I got to bed
at 1am right after Bonanza leaving Anne out I the living room. She was watching her shows and combing Pledges. I listened to a bit of Coast, Art had Whitley Strieber on talking about aliens and stuff. Good show. But I was ready to pass out. I slept from 1:30am-5am and I got up to do the cbi thing. I got 3.5hrs. Then I went to bed and passed out waking up on an almost hourly bases to use the bathroom. I don’t know what’s going on. Thyroid problem, bloating, prostrate cancer. God knows. So, other then the bathroom breaks which were plentiful I got maybe an extra “4.5hrs sleep,” If you call that sleeping but I feel refreshed enough. Just as I woke up in bed I felt something give in my mouth. Oh no. A piece of tooth broke off. Sigh, it’s not my year. With Anne, she gets up maybe once or twice when she’s sleeping. Me, it’s almost on an hourly basis. Anyway, I’m going to Blog this and make my blog rounds. Hopefully I can get my 1000 words in today. I have my doubts.

And finally, thanks to Keith over there at sciencefictional for tidying up the formating from me for Crosshairs.

e.Jim

Anne made us a
nice brunch. I went and posted a story on sfl called “Crosshairs.” 5,220 words. It’s not bad but I’m not comfortable with the formatting and Geeklog’s “word processor”, so there could be some formatting issues in the early go of the story. I like the story myself but that’s not what counts. I hope Keith can use it. If he can't and the link doesn't work means he pulled the story. I’ll post a brief comment at the story blog after I Blog this and attach a link to the story. All for now.

e.Jim

I got into
work alright yesterday. JT showed up for a rare Saturday shift. Made the shift go by faster. Will was talking about how we’re getting these monitors stationed in the room so we can tell how our office counterparts are doing in other X offices. So I’ll be able to for example see what a sales agent in say Winnipeg is doing against a sales agent in Vancouver, doing the same campaign/source. See how our night shift office is doing against Brandon’s nigh shift etc. I don’t know if were able to see other offices in the states. I recall one time Mark was listening to an American X employee, just talking to a customer before he got the sale. I do that too to some extent as well when I can but mostly it’s just in and out. Also, there are rumors going around that we are going to start a Sunday shift. Sounds like a good idea. Call from Noon-5pm. I had a second donut at break and around 1pm I think I took a bsl reading and I was only at 10 something. It goes up for a bit then drops. I’ve never seen my bsl readings just stay in one spot.

Anyway I got home very tired. Anne was still at work and I decided to have a nap. It took me an hour before I could doze off but I was able to get maybe an hour/half bit of a snooze. I ended up doing 2000 words yesterday and I completed my 10k goal for the week. Today, I’m going to try and go for another 2k or more but lately my lower back has been in a lot of pain.

I watched an hour of Okanogan people and places last night which took me up until 9pm. Very enjoyable talking about the BC Dragoons during the early days of the opening of WW2 in Vernon BC. As much as I love Edmonton, if I had a chance to retire it would be either Vernon or Penticton. I think my father as a teenager lived in the Okanogan. I’ve been there a few times but not in recent memory and not since after my 20’s.

We gave Pledges his medicine and I ended up trying to format Crosshairs for sfl. WordPad and the Geeklog editor don’t work very well together. I went and copied and pasted the story in an email and sent it to myself so at least it’s formatted property. Getting it as a submission is the next tricky part. It’s actually a pretty good story after I read it again and made a few minor changes. I like it.

This week, I’m going to go like this: Mon 4hrs, Tues 7hrs, Wed 7hrs, Thur7hrs, Fri 3hrs, Sat 4hrs. That should get me 32.5 hrs and enough cash for my lodge dues so I can go in and pay my dues at our first meeting in Sept. I’ve tried to pay my lodge twice, once at the Feb emergent meeting and just before we got ill there in June. I think June 9th that Friday but Frank was a no show. So it wasn’t like I hadn’t made the effort.

I also need to pick up Bickham which has been on hold for me for over a month now. I want to order a few non fiction books as well as my regular monthly books but not many from Audrey’s Most of my books, I’m going to buy from Chapters except special order books, they’ll be from Audrey’s since their sf selection is rather lame.

Anyhow, Anne went over to Giant Tiger to get some potatoes etc. and I’m going to Blog this and make my Blog rounds. By that time brunch should be ready. After brunch, I want to take a walk for a bit just to get some exercise and some air. More later.

e.Jim

The job was
a joke last night. Will had us do a campaign we hadn’t touched in awhile. Deaf Ice hockey. The deal was Will wanted $220 line hour or he was going to start moving people. I was getting the dead beats and by 6pm he shut my dialer off and had about 3 of us move over to the other front 20 doing the source level below Taps. The dreaded semi list. So at that point, with just 3 hours left in the shift, I didn’t care. But I was getting sales. I ended up with $210 for the night. Top total in the room. On that side. I felt a little better but I hope Will doesn’t do that to us again today. If I got to go back on semies, then, I’ll be looking for another job, for sure.

So I got out of there at our 8:30pm shift and on the train. I had to stand because it was a full train load today what with no extra trains despite the Fringe and “Tool” at Rexall place. So I got in and began watching this old James Stewart “Mr. Smith goes to Washington.” 1939. I ate some peanut butter and crackers, and watched the end of that and Smackdown.

Anne came home as I was just getting into my show and made me a little frozen thing with a bun. We decided because she took a travel pill that we’d give Pledges his medicine when she comes home because she’d going into work today as well. After Smackdown Anne did her Hamster stuff and went to bed. I watched the rest of ECW and went into bed by 1am. I turned Coast on for awhile. Open lines with his insomnia hot line. Ugh. So I shut it off and went to bed.

I wasn’t going to listen to that for half an hour. I got up a few times to make bathroom breaks and I got up the 2nd last time there and fed the cats. I thought I’d go back to bed and get a few more hours sleep but I didn’t have the alrm on. Anne needed it to go in and I thought, well, I may as well get up now for a few hours and do some Blogging and make my Blog rounds and perhaps get a bit of writing done as well. I’m going to make another pass at Crosshairs and submit the story to sfl this weekend.

Oh..and Gizmodo asks what do we use to tell time with? A watch or a cell phone? I agree with the author of the post a watch works for me.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Blogger was
off line this morning.

Alright, I opened up anaccount for sciencefictional last night and I went and looked my proposed story submission "Crosshairs" over. Seems okay. If they can use it great. I might be able to submit it tonight. If it's accepted I'll post the link here.

More later.

e.Jim

Keith from Sciencefictional
wants me to send him a story. I don’t have word but I have Works and I’m looking at sending him CH after I give the story the once over. Check it for flow and clarity.

Anne went ahead of me because she wanted to stop off at Time Horton’s to get a donut and brought her own bag down in case she missed me. I got there a head of her waiting for here at Clairview. We went in and I was feeling alright. I was a bit early but after I secured my dialer I got my cheque. My bank bonus wasn’t on my cheque this time so Mike is looking into it for me. It was only $21 bucks but $21 bucks is $21 bucks. I had a fun time at work there just flying. I ended up with $347 on the night and I was happy with that. I took 4 bsl readings and at about 6pm my 1st reading was 8.6, then I did it again around 6;45pm and it went down to 7.3 something. I had a Mars chocolate bar and my bsl dropped to 6.7 I believe. Then I took the reading again at 8pm and back up to 8.6! Doug Lay and I having a chuckle there wondering what the heck is going on. It was a crazy night. I want to go in for tomorrow afternoon and of course Saturday. By Saturday, I will be wiped out.

Anyway, back to work on CH. I’d like to get the story out to Sciencefictional (sfl) if I can Saturday night. If he publishes it fine but I don’t think it’s my best work. I think I can do a lot better but short stories isn’t where I want to go right now. Well, Lost worlds published "Earth Tones" why not sfl publish CH? I mean I really worked hard on this story. I must have wrote 7 different drafts of CH.

More tomorrow.

e.Jim

I slept reasonably
alright from 5:30am-noon. My wife’s alarm went off at 11am so she could do a bottle run. Otherwise, I’m doing alright. I was going to go into work for this afternoon but because of Anne’s bottle run, couldn’t manage but I will go in for tomorrow afternoon and Saturday. Isn’t this interesting, Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Mainly because of it’s wobbly orbit and astronomers found several other “planetoids” earlier like Xena. Now, we have 8 planets instead of 9. I wonder what the astrological implications of downgrading Pluto’s status is?

In just a few days Atlantis is heading up into space. Seems Nasa is going to provide a new truss the size of 1.7 times the size of a city bus. I wish Nasa would wake up and smell the coffee and utilize Bigelow aerospace habitats as their space station source. But getting back to the space shuttle, the next Gen “shuttle” system looks like the old Apollo vehicle. I think what Nasa is concerned about is something like a paint chip object hurtling through orbit colliding with one of these inflatable habitats. So far though, nothing has (as far as I know) has damaged the ISS.

God those people upstairs are horrible neighbors. Their walking all over the place and their almost giving me a head ache. Especially their little daughter. She runs around up there like its a playground and we hear every footfall like it’s a heard of cattle over our heads. The place below us was vacant just before the quiet old couple moved out in June, management should have moved the people above us down there saying this place is spoken for. That’s why management has ground floor apartments, for kids.

In a related story, vacancy rates are down like 1.5% here in Alberta. We haven’t seen anything like this since the mid 1970’s during the first oil boom. I don’t know what Alberta’s unemployment rate currently is at but it’s probably around 3%. So long as the price of a barrel of crude oil remains over $50 a barrel the economy will continue to grow and I doubt that oil will drop to those levels. So far this year alone, 90,000 people have migrated into Alberta but because of the low Vacancy rate people are forced to sleep outside in the summer. Add high rents and we have a problem here. But when the boom goes bust many of these people like they did in the 1970’s will migrate back where they came from. It’s not a question of if the boom goes bust but when. But at least when the bust happens it won’t be as bad as it was in 1982. When the unemployment rate adjusts back to something like 6% housing vacancies will be more plentiful. When will the current Alberta economy bust again? I’d say by the end of this decade. Unemployment might not be 6% but about 5% and the economy will cool off significantly. It goes in cycles.

Anyway, time to make my Blog rounds.


e.Jim

I've been up for
about 2 hours now. I cranked out another 1200 words on NW. I really like what I wrote as well. Some good stuff. Currently, I'm sitting at 18,009 words and I'm going to try for 2k for today.

I received an offer from Sciencefictional to submit a story. I'm considering sending them "Crosshairs." I think I'll have the story, more or less ready by Sunday. I have their guidelines on my desk top, very kind of them to suggest. Maybe the story is up to their standards. I don't know, so we'll see if it get's published.

I did the cbi thing and I think I managed an hours sleep before getting up but I'm heading back to bed. Sufficiently tired.

More latter.

e.Jim

Anyway, I was
in bed last night by 1:30am and I listened to Coast until 2am and slept until 5am when I got up to do the cbi thing. I took a bsl reading at 9.4. I went back to bed and tried to sleep. Couldn’t sleep. Five am went to 6amm that led to 7am and then 7:45am. I got up and fired up the computer and did a bit of writing. I got about 200 words done. I went back to bed and I got some more sleep. I think maybe about 4hrs but I kept on waking up every hour. Not to go to the bathroom or anything like that.

I got up just before noon, watched some news and fired up the computer and made some coffee. I completed +1047 words today and 16,804 on the novel. I got another 3,196 words for my goal and its only Wednesday. Not bad. I’m going to do some more writing tonight when I come home from work and I’m well on pace for my goal for the week.

That’s about all for now.

e.Jim

I got into
work alright. Will didn’t say much because I came in. We did CCSD. Taps. I did okay but nothing stellar. $325 and a $20 credit card. Will took his ten minute kick off and my dialer wasn’t responding like I wanted but the 3 hrs went fast. Then, lunch break and the 5pm shift. We did BB and that went even worse. I ended up with $243. I’ll probably go in for Thur shift and Fri afternoon shifts and Sat. I was glad to get out of there.

Anne met me on the train at the bay and we had a nice ride home. She went to the grocery to get me some canned pasta for my lunch.

I’ve been doing bsl readings all day. 11.8,10.2,9.7 and finally 5.9. I’m going to take readings like that over the next couple of days to see how things work.

We had a real nice lightning storm from about 11pm-midnight. It’s over now but the rain came down hard and fast for awhile. It was nice.

That's all for now.

e.Jim

I would have
slept until 11am but Anne woke me up when she got out of bed to use the bath room. I figured why not get up anyway, as I planned on getting up 10-11am so I can get ready to go to work. I’m getting Anne up at 11 to make me a lunch and sandwiches for latter. I’ll take my insulin at noon, or shortly before I leave out the door. I want to be on that platform by 12:45pm and into work by 1pm. That’s the theory anyway. I’m going in for this afternoon and Friday. A couple of afternoons each week. Or until I can get out of X and start someplace fresh.

I seem to recall something interesting Don Fun saying to, I think Will if he would ask Rob for a reference. This is another way of her saying, “Pay me more money or I’m quitting,” type thing. It puts some extra heat on her. I heard later that Rob wasn’t too happy to hear about that. Let’s see how they would react from me when I ask for a job reference. “It’s to be used at anytime.”

Anyway, I was in bed by 2:30am and I slept until 4am and got up to use the bathroom and I went back to bed. I was up at 6am doing the cbi thing. I got 3.5hrs there. It was hard to get back to sleep after that but I managed to doze off, here and there. I think I got 6 hrs in but I can’t be sure.

I’m up early mainly so I can get some writing done until I wake Anne up at 11, maybe 11:30am now.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I might not
get anytime to do any Bloging today. I’m up at my usual time but in the office for 1:30pm and I’ll work for the afternoon and evening shift. That will get me 25.5hrs for next week and my lodge dues.

I had a nice day although I didn’t know until about 1pm, I’d be having the night off, which is why I’ll be heading into work for this afternoon. That’s also why I went over my 1k goal today to 3k. I might get 1k later tonight. Maybe.

That's all for now.

e.Jim

Yikes,
Another great writing day today. I ended up with 1000 words before bed "last night" and another 2,063 this afternoon. That put's me at 3,063 words today. I wrote 11 pages and since Saturday 14,676 words and I like what I got. A good day today. I'm also on pace to complete my 10K goal for this week too.

e.Jim

A break for
me last night and a bit of wine before bed. I was in bed by 2;30am listening to the last bit of Coast. Topic: Crop Circles. It was actually pretty good and then I past out. I slept until 5:50am. That’s almost 3 hrs. I did the cbi thing. I went back to bed about 6:20am and slept until about 10am. Anne had left, so I figured she went to take the pension forms in. I slept for another hour and got up shortly after 11am. I figured I got at least 8 hrs sleep.

Today, I turn 55. I’m a senior when I turn 60 but I don’t feel like a senior. Still, turning 55 I guess is some sort of milestone.

Having my first coffee here and it looks like a nice day. Suns out about +21C out there Perfect. I watched the last bit of HGWT and The Rifleman. Love that show.

After midnight and up until I went to bed I did just over 1000 words. I’m going to try for 1000 words of fiction/day. That’s 365,000 words/year. Or about 3 novels at 100k each.

Tonight, I’m heading into work and putting in my 4 hour shift and home to watch wrestling. Not much going on for today. I would have liked to have gone out book shopping at the South side Chapters but what with the Fringe in the way and all, I’ll go next week after Daniel Boone and brunch.

Anyhow, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

We were in
bed by3am listening to a bit of Coast. Kind of a lame show, which is uncharacteristic for Art. But the glass of wine I had earlier was really nice and I slept like a log from just after 3am until 6am. I got up to do the cbi thing and I took a bsl reading, 1t 12.9! Yikes. I went back to bed but by 8am Pledges was roaming all over the place. I think I got 2hrs there before Sparky jumped on my exposed feet waling Anne up and pissing her off. Well, excuse,,,me! I was pissed off to, so I decided to go sleep on the couch shortly before 11am. I had the weather channel on for awhile, turned it off and stretched out on the couch and passed out. I woke up an hour later. I got 6.5 hrs of sleep. I think.

I’m good. For some reason, Compaq keeps flashing this add across my screen. I my cursor over it and it disappears. This is the 2nd time now. It’s not a big deal but I hope it’s not a reoccurring thing.

Since NW began last week, and I worked on it last Saturday, a whopping 4k+, I might take a break today.
I want to go up to Walmart and see what they have for SF books. I think I could be wasting my time though. They probably have a worse selection then Audrey’s. The best for SF is Chapters, And as soon as I get my next $100 bucks together I’m going to go by half a doz books. I’d like to leave on a Saturday afternoon after work but instead of going to the Chapters in West Edmonton Mall go down to Carona station and instead of heading back to Clairview, head out to the University and board anything heading down Whyte Ave. It’s easier going to the South side from downtown then it is going to the West End.

This summer sure has come and nearly gone in a hurry. When my birthday arrives, summers almost over. From April-September is summer.

Hard to believe I’ll be 55 tomorrow. I’m approaching out of my middle age to my senior age. Kind of like reminds me leaving my twenty’s and my youth at 29, The 30’s I think were the best because, your not old and your not young anymore. Just in between. When your 40 you’re in middle age, which goes from 40-55. After 55 your approaching your senior age. I’m not making that much of a deal of this as I did when I was in my twenty’s, heading into my thirty’s leaving my youth. Now that I’m heading out of middle age, I don’t feel so bad as I did leaving my youth for my 30’s.

I picked my writing up again in 2002 and I said I’d have a novel published when I turn 55. At 55 nothing, Now my new goal is before I turn 60. Lot’s of novelists begin writing late in life. Thank God for the small press.

My goal is still 10k/week and since it’s my birthday tomorrow, I should take tomorrow off, writing wise but I can still squeeze 1k before I leave for work. I’ve got about 500 words in the bank so I can apply those and anything I do today for today and tomorrow. Tomorrow, I should have off, but I should work today so I feel a sense that I’ve earned taking tomorrow/writing off. We’ll see.

More later.....

e.Jim

That was some session.
I had a bit of a nap earlier and I think I slept for about 1.5hrs. Maybe. I got up and went strait to work. I ended up with +4,030 words on the day and +10,517 words on the week. I made my goal and then some.

It was a good day today, for sure.

e.Jim

Work went well.
Going in and the rest of the shift. I had $530 by break and another $624 and 2 credit cards when totals were called. I was holding up okay but relieved to get out of there and I laid my back on the pedestal “seats” and felt my back give nicely.

I was relieved to get home. I was just about ready to put my feet up on the couch but Anne came in and foiled that idea. So I’m going to go have a nap until she gets back and pass out. She’s going to the West end to the Olive Garden and Jasper Place to on her way back for Chinese for me.

If I can get a bit of shut eye then great, hopefully I can complete my 10k goal today.


e.Jim

I got up
at about 4:45am to feed the cats and do the cbi thing. I tried going back to bed. Five am rolled around, 5:30am, and then 6am. I couldn’t sleep. I thought about getting up at 6:30am but tried to sleep. No luck. Of course cats were all over me to. I got up for good 20 min ago as Anne was up going to the bathroom and met me here asking if I’d be coming back to bed. What for an hour and a half that I might get 10 min sleep? At least on the compute, I can get something accomplished. Besides, I got to go in for work in about 2 hrs anyway. It’s only a 4 hour shift, so I’m not complaining. Really.

I’m onto my first coffee. Sun is coming up and it looks like it’s going to be a nice day.

It was this day, 29 years ago that Mike and Doris got married. I hadn’t made the decision to remain here in Edmonton at the time. I mean I had just bought a new 14” color TV and a new stereo among other things from a nice UIC “back pay” cheque. I was living high off that and just beginning my UIC. Of course, I had no plans beyond that and I had just moved into this apartment. It was a rather run down building but quiet and on the main floor 8th and Carnovan right in that area. A block South of the Douglas College. The building has since long been demolished, no doubt to make way for the College. Anyway, my 26th Birthday was coming up and it made sense to stay here and leave after my birthday. My birthday was on the Monday. I realized that there was nothing really keeping me in New Westminster. I began to hear from mom and dad what a great economy we had here and I could be put up here if I wanted for awhile at the Bellaire apartments with Jeff, mom and dad. So I decided I’d stay. I called UIC and I asked if I could have my UIC claim transferred here like I said, and the rest is history, 29 years ago. I’ve got an hour here but I don’t know if I want to get into an hour long writing episode. I may as well and Blog this later.

e.Jim

I had another
break last night and I decided to put another dent into my word count goal by 1,068 words before bed. Anne and I were in bed by 3am listening to Coast and George’s top stories, They should do open lines after the guest so callers can react to the program not before it. Anyway, Anne kept me up until 4am talking about the Ramsey case. I didn’t know many details of course. It’s nothing that has captured my interest. Like the Terry Shiavo thing last year, it was debated out the yin yang at AGF. And I’m sure much the same is going on now. Personally I think the guy they caught now didn’t do it because of the inconsistency in the case. Anyway,
I ended up passing out about 4am and I think I got an hour and got up shortly after 5am to do the cbi thing and I went back to bed. I slept erratically getting up to use the bath room but I slept more or less without interruptions, and somewhat refreshed getting up just around noon.

I did a bsl reading while I fired up the computer. 9.5. Still relatively high, because I’m not getting enough exercise. Just enough to walk out of Carona station and across the lot of First Edmonton Place to where I work at the Baker Center. That’s all, twice a day. I’m going to start walking back from Clairview station home after work. That’s a nice little walk.

At the moment, I’m 7,563 words into NW and well on my pace for 10k for the week. Another 2,437 to go and I can do those when I come home tonight or even Saturday after work. Next week I’ll put the two afternoon hours in. I don’t know how this will affect my 10k NW goal next week but that’s why I have Sun.

Also, we got the notice from the building that the water will be shut off this afternoon probably for pipe inspection so we loaded up with water; the bath tub and sink and kettle. We got a big Superstore water container here to work with anyway for drinking and cooking water, so we're alright. This is just an afternoon thing anyway.

This is cool. Stat counter has added a "recent visitor map" activity so I can where everybody is from. I like this stat counter. It's a nifty program. If you don't have it, just click on my link below.

Time to Blog this and make my Blog rounds.

e.Jim

Anne and I
went into work without incident. As soon as I got off the elevator the pay cheque line up began forming. I found a place and got my cheque. Everything right as always. Only 18 hrs this week but the bonus kind of made up for it. Day 2 BOB and I had a pretty good start to the night. I ended up with just under $600 by break and did $819 and a $25 credit cars. I had a pretty good night. I got out of there 5min early and got the 9:11pm train to Clairview and home to an empty house, leading me to believe that Anne is still at work. Tomorrow I’m out the door a bit earlier as I want to go in for the 1:30pm shift. Kind of makes up for missing Monday by an hour. Also, third week in a row, I made bank bonus. It's not much, but $20 bucks i #20 bucks.

I had an awesome writing shift before lunch/shower earlier. I did 1,500+ words and I had a pretty good time. Stuff was just flowing. I’m going to do a bit more, maybe close out with 2000 words for the day. Also, I’m going to work by scenes, not Chapters. The Chapters come later, when I organize the pacing. Right now, it’s just scene by scene. More later.

e.Jim

I had myself
a br break last night and I listened to Coast for a bit. And I was asleep by 2:30am this time. I slept until 5:15am and got up to do the cbi thing and then back to bed. I think in the first segment I got 2.5hrs sleep. The 2nd segment, I slept better then before, I got the cat jumping on me and no other disruptions, other then waking up about 10am. So I think I got a total of 8.5hrs. It wasn’t great sleep but I got what I needed.

Wow, hard to believe that this is the 25th Silver anniversary of The Fringe festival. I remember the first Fringe, living at Theresa’s at the time just behind Whyte Ave on 81st Ave and I think 111th St, Something like that. I was on UIC and Theresa was working at a flower shop up over there on the top of 109th st near Gino’s Pizza I believe it’s called. Ellen was about to get married to Charles and I had a journal paper route in the area on the side. This was when the Journal delivered their paper in the afternoon. I have my 1981 diary around here someplace. I’d like to eventually scan it all , online if I can. But when I had the Journal route, it was just up and down 80th Ave between 104th and 109th. I had mostly apartments and a few apartments on 81st Ave as well I recall. The whole route would take me from 3-4pm and I’d come home in time to watch Dark Shadows. I don’t ordinarily participate in the Fringe, it’s just that the Fringe when it first came out, brought back some memories for me, I was 29 about to head into my 30’s and being aware for the first time I was getting older.

So, today, there is no wrestling on TV because WWE decided to change keep everyone on the same page and have Friday night Smackdown, on Friday nights. About time they got it right because it was always on Thursday nights instead.

Beginning next week, I’m going to go Mon-4hrs, Tues-4hrs, Wed-7hrs, Thur-7hrs, Fri-6.5hrs =28.5hrs and I’m going to try and do that next week. This Friday though, I’m going to go in Friday afternoon and Saturday but I want to make it clear that I have Sat off. I don’t want to be called into the office and get a big lecture. Anyhow, I’m going to make my Blog rounds and work on my writing.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

We went to
work alright and only a few of us tap shooters got to do “Battle of the Badges.” More hockey. Yuck. I actually did very well, as I ended up with $932 and $52 in credit cards. Too bad none of the money I raise is mine to keep. I got the 9:30pm train and met Anne and a co worker she was traveling with. I’ve seen her once before. With Anne. She got off at Coliseum station and we went home. I watched a bit of TV on “Okanogan People and places” and the other show I like with Bill Barlee “Gold trails and Ghost towns.” Good shows.

Anyway today is payday and there is no wrestling Wednesday. It’s Fridays and I’m not into End Time’s, just to clear that up for the record.

Oh and on another note, I should mention it was yesterday Aug 16th 1977 Elvis died. I recall that vividly how I was over at a wargamer friends place in the British properties. He was a lot younger then me but had a great collection of games. I was 25 and he was something like maybe 18 but war gaming partners were rare and hard to find. I recall how hot it was at their place and we were at his parents pool as his mom was serving us some bbq. I was living in New Westminster and I don’t think I was even working at the time. I recall it was May 1977 came back from working in Calgary and I was applying for UIC and on welfare at the time. Middle of August I was staying at the Andersons I recall. It was a long time ago.

e.Jim

I wanted to sleep
late this morning after the cbi thing. I climbed back into bed about 6:30am and I was able to sleep until about 9:30am when Anne’s arm slid over and hit me. I tried to fall back to sleep again but shortly after that she’s pulling the big quilt off us to wake me again. That’s a double whammy. It was hard to sleep after that. I might have got an hour maybe but then her alarm sounded as she wanted to go up to Walmart to cash in her reward points from work but she went back to bed. I decided that after all that and it was 11am, I’d get up and watch HGWT and The Rifleman. I didn’t watch to much of either and just dozed off on the couch and watched some news, that was about it.

I blame missing any excess sleep on myself from earlier because Coast was so good. I stayed up until 3am listening to Glenn Kimball, ancient text, the Middle East and pyramids. Excellent stuff. And, tonight is no different, what with Smackdown on at 10pm and Coast having Tom Horn will discuss psychotronic and spiritual warfare as foretold in the Bible including multidimensional beings and the opening of end times portals. < From the Coast website. Not that I believe in End Times theories but the rest of the show was great listening.

I’m still on track for my 10k weekly goal for NW. I’m at 4,301 words and I might forgo watching Smackdown tonight to get some much needed writing done today. If all goes well, I should have 10K completed by midnight Sat. At 10K/week, I should be done the rough draft by the end of Oct 20th. Of course I have labor day and maybe beginning this week, the weekends off, This should give me more then enough time to finish NW. Maybe even the week before by Thanksgiving. Then I can work on the “scene sheets” for S-O and hopefully begin that by Nov. 1st. Maybe finish the rough draft of S-O by the end of the year. So much for “My Big Plan “ for 2006. Of course, I’ll be ready to draft up another “My Big Plan” for 2007. I want 3 books back up and 1 of those ready to bring to the market place in case editors like what I have but want to see something else. Well, that’s the idea anyway.

Okay, time to Blog this and make my Blog rounds.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

the night
started out okay and about 45min into the shift Will switches me over to the tap dialers and I did lousy after that. Now if I had started on taps, no doubt much to Will’s disappointment I would have done a lot better. Then I went to catch a bus to Shoppers Drug Mart for test strips. I should have ordered them in advance so I can just stop in and pick up. I had a 15min wait and I read my book. Then as soon as I got out of Shoppers there was a bus at the crosswalk lights and I figured if I run for it maybe the bus driver will let me on but as soon as I got out of his way, the bus crossed the sidewalk and moved on. Shit. Another 15min wait. I caught the next bus to Carona and another long wait and a long ride to Clairview. When I got there was no Northgate bus waiting so I ended up walking through the Superstore lot and home. I got in shortly after 10pm. I’m glad I don’t have to do that again.


e.Jim

I went to
bed by 1am but I couldn’t sleep. I listened to a bit of Coast as they had Jonathan Zap on air. Very interesting stuff. This Zap guy is a great speaker and seems to know what he’s talking about but I got up just as Anne was ready to turn in and asked me if I wanted to watch some TV. Sure. So I watched Adam-12 and was in bed by 2:30am and listened to a bit more of Coast. I past out by 3am and woke up around 6:20am to do the cbi thing. I was in bed by 7am and asleep by same to be woken up by the alarm clock ser at 8:30am. Groan. I woke up just before 10 am and now I’m up for the day. I think I got maybe 6hrs. If I’m lucky.

I’m up at this hour because I promised Will I’d be doing an afternoon make up shift much to my wife’s contention. It doesn’t matter if I’m in today or not at 1:30pm. All Rob would say to me was, “pick it up James bla, bla. Bla.” and move on. I might surprise myself and do well this afternoon. But I made a promise and I keep my promises. When I say I do something, I generally mean what I say.

Anyway I’ll be home at my usual time. Hard to believe 28 years ago today, exactly, I left New Westminster BC for Edmonton. Edmonton has changed a lot since then. The Cecil Hotel, a landmark burned down only a few years ago. Of course this area only p until just 6 years ago remained much the same. We got West Edmonton Mall, Grant Mcewan college went up in 1993. Medowlark Mall is only a shadow of it’s former self. All the sky scrapers were built in 1981. The university keeps expanding and so does the lrt. But even though things have been added it’s still the same city. More people have moved over the years. Stoney Plain Road from 101st-124th st has been totally developed. Up until about Cross town motors on the North side of SPR, were the CN tracks/yard. That whole strip area was a good mile if not more long. The South side of SPR was developed first in the early 1990’s. Sure a lit if things have changed but Edmonton still has the same feel and same look it did when I first moved here 28 years ago.

Anyway, I’m glad I worked on NW yesterday. I don’t know how much I’ll get done today but I want to write when I get home.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I called into
work but Will gave me the please come in water works story because Pat isn’t there. But I said I couldn’t and that I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon.

Also, I ended up drafting 2,500 words for NT. I’d like to get the EIP bar going but it doesn’t want to work for me. The WIP bar graft is only for use within the FM site to use them on my own site, I’ll need the WIP bar program. The total word count is 3,592 thus far. I hope to have 10k done by Sat night. The whole novel could be ready by the Oct 9th long weekend.
Also, wrestling is on in an hour and the pizza wasn’t bad.

When I get home from work tomorrow night, I'll be writing. I'll have time for a quick Blog round in the morning.


e.Jim

We’re expected
to get up to +28* this afternoon. Nice.

We got into bed about 2:00am and Anne gave me a back rub with some A5 rub and my back was burning for quite awhile. But before that I took a travel pill and I was out like a light. I listened to a bit of Coast and I woke up around 6am to feed the cats and mostly to do the cbi thing. I was back in bed about 6:30 and asleep by 7am, I think I got 7hrs of sleep and woke up with a slight headache. My neck was stiff and soar when I got up out of bed about 12:20pm. I slept a bit more and watched some news and the markets.

Also, last night I worked on scene 2 and got about 300 words done. I hope to do a bit more this afternoon.

I’m on to my first coffee here.

Anne is sleeping and it’s a beautiful day out there. I looked at the calendar for August and it matches and lines up perfectly with the calendar date of 1978. Why is this date so significant? Because it was this week, 28 years ago a young 26 year old named e,Jim Shannon ventured out of his comfort zone in New Westminster take a via rail train to Edmonton. I thought I was only going to stay for my brothers wedding. This year will be Mike & Doris’s 28th wedding anniversary.
I couldn’t tell when I left or what day it was. I believe it was in the afternoon and I think I arrived on a Thursday because I just didn’t want to eat and run. I think I left on the 15th. And Jeff met me at the CN building downtown where the trains came in. They come in now at the CN yard in Calder just West of us. But that train ride was an overnight ride. I was in Edmonton once before, 1976 for some reason because I recall seeing the Pink Panther movie with Mike etc across the street from the Bellaire apartments now called Baycrest apartments. Mom was working at the Charles Campsell hospital there. I made the decision to stay here after my birthday. I recall how that week I got UIC to transfer my cheque here but for some reason they had to drop it off at the TD bank in St. Albert of all places in the Grandin Mall. I recall that was a Thursday afternoon but the week after. But it was still in August.

Anyway, Anne’s off today and I’m going in. I think she would rather have me at home this afternoon because she went out and bought us a frozen pizza but it’s a better quality kind. So, I asked her if she wanted me off today and she smiled and hugged me. Just as well because wrestling is on at 8pm and I get to watch that on the score and I can spend some time with my novel as well but I’ll go in for tomorrow afternoon.

Also, I went and changed my typing font for my novel. I usually work in comic sans but instead I changed it to Courier New because editors like the typewriter feel to the page they’re reading. I hope. It also makes me feel like I’m writing something more professional. Comic Sans works okay for diary projects but it’s time I turned my writing p a notch or two.

That’s it for now.

e.Jim

Well
I began work on NW anyway and got the first scene more or less done. 1000 words. That's a pretty good goal for this project. 1000 words/day.

I wanted to get the WIP bar going but not able to get it working in the template for some reason. I'll figure it out.

e.Jim

We were in
bed by 2:30am and I gave Anne her br listening to Neal Adams and Art Bell. Art received a “fast blast”, as they must have been talking about the foiled terrorist attempt in London last week. The fast blast was from a woman that said since no gels are allowed onto airplanes anymore what about her? She wore breast implants and they are of a gel material. Lots of women wear breast implants. A very interesting question. I passed out by 3am and up at 6am to do the cbi thing. I had to refill my Novilin pen with an other tube of insulin and that’s not an easy thing to do when your half awake like I am now. Anyway, I slept until noon getting up there, not from anything in particular but I did have enough sleep. I must have got at least 9hrs.
I’m onto my first coffee here just waking up slowly.

Anne’s going to be up soon and we’ll have our 2pm “brunch” and I’ll watch Daniel Boone and I want to go out for a bit of a walk out here and see what stores are in the little strip mall just down from us. Apparently it’s all occupied with tenants. Then I want to come back and work out a few more scenes for NW.

Next week is going to be a full week for me if I can get it together. I want to have Mon 4hrs, Tues, Wed, Thur, 7hrs, Fri 6.5, Sat 4hrs.= 35.5. Hrs. That will get what Anne wants and get me my lodge dues. I also want a cell phone as well and start saving for that rainy day. So, this means other then Monday, I’ll be posting short Blog entries all week. Then I’m having Sun and Mon off. I might just work the full week and then Mon-Sat and then have a Sun/Mon off and work more or less full time. So my Bloging might just be a few paragraphs and my usual longer posts on the weekends.

e.Jim

I accomplished a lot
today even though I had no nap. Firstly I completed scene sheet #19. Well more or less. And I got the Amazon code to my reading list to work. I'm happy with that. Also, I cleaned up (some what) my sidebar. I still have large gaps in some things but everything works okay.

I decided that I'm going to stick to my Nov 11th game plan for NW. That way the rough draft should be completed by the end of the year and I can get right to work writing S-O and so on. If all goes well, I should have S-O rough draft completed, by March 15th. Of course, I'll be working NW. I should have the outline synopsis for "D" ready by April 1st 07. "D" should be ready in the rough draft by June 15th '07. I have the AV project beyond that.

Anyway, that's all for now.

e.Jim

There
I got the book list links up. The book cover's are in no particular order but I'm a bot reluctant to read Brass Man until I get the other books in the series. I'm still reading Mindscan and about 2/3rds of the way done. Two Moons by James P. Hogan is on order but not yet ready for me to pick up so after Mindscan, I'' be reading Joe Haldeman.

Now if I can only get the images side by side.

e.Jim

This morning
I got up at 6am feeling tired but no worse for wear. I worked on scene’s #15, #16 this morning and finished that off. I’m going to try and do #17 tonight and #18,#19,#20 for tomorrow. Back to the start of the day. I got all my stuff together feeling tired and drained. I got downtown to Carona and into work. There was Wanda, Me, Bud, Pat. I had $205 by break and I hit the bathroom then Will says for me to grab dialer 1-6 over on this side and we did Wheelchair sports. I ended up doing better, at $485 but the shit began to wear on me and not having much sleep the night before and being called and forgotten last at the “roll call/attendance.” So I was kind of Po’d there leaving. The Can West care-a-way fest parade got underway on the way out. Normally I stick around and listen to some of the music but I was to wiped out and all I wanted was just to catch my train and head for home. A relaxing uneventful ride home, just the way I like it.

Anne was waiting for me at home and I got the bus pass for her and I went and tried to have a nap but I was really over tired and all I did for an hour and a half was to just doze. I didn’t get any rest at all but tonight I’m going to take a travel pill and hopefully after Anne’s br I can listen to a bit of Art Bell and pass out.

The side bar is evolving as I'm trying to clean things up a bit here. I took out nessecary music because the code wasn't displaying the code I wanted. The book links aren't working for me either but I'll try and play around with this later durring the week.

Well that’s the idea anyway. Tonight on Coast comic book artist Neal Adams and tomorrow Charles Shults on virtual reality. Some good shows coming up on Coast this weekend. That’s all for now.

e.Jim

We had a
nice trip into work. It was lightly raining out there. I got off at Carona and went into Audrey’s books and shopped around. I picked up a Joe Haldeman's book. “Old Twentieth” And no it’s not, thankfully, part of a series. Nothing wrong with that but I like stand alone novels unless I can buy the books all at once.

I got a couple of fast sales and almost another $360 VIP pas but the potential customer didn’t know how many people would be coming with her. I ended up with $380 as Will put the taps in there for some of us.

I’m going to decline Friday night Smackdown tonight only because I want to do some writing and work on the scene sheets for NW. I can always catch it later on. They might have it again later on during the weekend.

Anyway, when we got out of there at 8:30pm it was dark and overcast. I caught the train and rode back alone just the way I like it. But the bank bonus was released earlier and I ended up getting a $21 bonus but a $15 bonus from last night. That’s a good $36 added onto my cheque for next week. Well, that’s all there is for tonight.

e.Jim

This entry is going to
be a long one. I had a break last night after we tried getting some medicine into Pledges. We got about half of it into him. But I was in bed by 2am and I fell asleep by 2:30am. I woke up at 4am with a bit of energy and went to work on the computer until about 5:45am. I completed scene sheet #11-#12 for NW. I’m going to try for a couple more tonight when I get home after work tonight. I went back to bed after I did the cbi thing and slept until 10am. I barely remember Anne getting up to go out and cash the cheque. So I slept and dozed off some more waking up just before noon. I’d say I got 7hrs and I’m refreshed for the rest of the day.

We got a rainy day going on out there and I got up to watch the first half of the news and I’m onto my first coffee trying to wake up here.

Tomorrow after work, I’m going to go out to Chapters. Not at WEM but at the Whyte Ave location. Makes more sense that way. From the University I get any bus going down Whyte and that’s like only 10 min away and after looking around for what I want, that’s another. I should be back before 5pm. If I went out to the Chapters at WEM I’d be back by 6:30pm at the latest. My goal is to still buy 1 book week, read one book/month.

I thought I had uncovered a major flaw in Robert J Sawyers “Mindscan” but then I realized, it’s the other guy. Helps to pay attention and save me some embarrassment at the same time. I’m really enjoying Mindscan. it’s a great read. Robert J Sawyer is a fabulous writer and delivers the goods. I’ll have more opinions about the book when I finish it sometime before the end of the month.

Okay, now that I’ve had time to digest the news more details of the foiled attempted airliner bombing in London from yesterday morning. This is really mind boggling stuff and if these terrorists were successful they would have killed off about 3000 people. Congratulations to London security people. So now passengers are not allowed to bring on board airplanes, personal care items, bottled water, juices etc. This includes toothpaste tubes, shampoo and similar products. Pretty amazing. The terrorists attempted to bring aboard bottled waters and sports drinks that contained liquids capable of making a bomb. They were going to use a disposable flash camera to set these bombs off at max altitude over the Atlantic ocean. The cabin pressure would have finished the job. Pretty scary stuff. This foiled attempt caused delays at Airports in the US, UK and here in Canada. So now the items mentioned above are banned items in airports every where.

On a lighter note the PC turned 25 today. 1981. Hard to believe how far they have progressed. I faintly recall watching TV commercials showing the “Charlie Chaplin” figure being the center piece for IBM commercials. I didn’t watch a lot of TV 1980-81 because, well I didn’t have one until 1982. But the personal computer these days couldn’t even hold enough power to maintain one MP3 song on an Ipod. Even my little 130xe Atari back in the day was miniscule in comparison.

Last night they moved us tap shooters over to where we normally sit but we were still doing hockey, I ended up doing $385 and we were playing this silly dice game. I came in 2nd with that because a $50 sale gave me a dice roll. I think I came in at top total as well because I got a $360 VIP sale. I think my highest sale ever. Now lets see if it banks. I asked for the credit card but they said no. Anyway, I ended up with doing $635 on semies. I also got a $20 credit card. Good stuff. But they were going to work us right to the wire and I left my recap there as I had a train to catch. I came in at my usual time and prepared to settle in for Smackdown but the Score announcer said something about how, WWE finally got it right to move Friday night Smackdown to Friday nights. Good stuff because it used to run into my lodge nights and a lot of hockey games are on Thursday nights.

Okay, time to Blog this and make my Blog rounds.

e.Jim

Wow, how
could I have missed this one. Aug 9th 1988 the Gretzky trade? The great trade 18 years ago. That was on a Tuesday afternoon. I recall coming back from Joes and Bob told me the news just as I was coming off the loading dock and into the building. I was shocked. Stunned for a couple of days. I was 36 years old at the time and my 37th birthday was just around the corner. But the Gretzky trade was kind of like a symbol for me. A symbol that I really was getting old. Leaving my late youth for early middle age. I hadn’t figured on that at the time but the Gretzky trade was the end of an era. From 1978-1988. Those 10 years were special in my life and probably the most special of times in my life.

e. Jim

I went to
bed about 4am and slept until 6am. I got up to do the cbi thing and back to bed and slept until Anne’s alarm went off about 10am and dozed off for about 40 min. So I think I got maybe 6hrs. I could use a lot more.

Today I’m going to work on scene sheet #10 and go into work and get my cheque (I hope) and work at that friggin hockey tonight. And put up with more of Will and Tony’s yelling in the isle. We’re probably going to do this hockey bs for awhile. Pain in the ass. I think I got 8 sales yesterday and a $25 credit card. We also had a full house as well. Mostly these are kids still in school.

So apparently overnight there was another terrorist plot that was foiled in London England. I only heard a bit of it on the news but at this point I don’t know what the details are. It seems that airlines are going to get even more cautious with carry on luggage. Not that it makes much difference to me, as I don’t air travel anyway.

Anne went on a bottle run earlier and to the Pet Mart store. A bit of lunch and then off to work, We’re low on groceries right now but I hope to get my cheque tonight. There’s a 99% strong possibility I will.

So, space shuttle Atlantis is about to go up soon. What by the end of the month? Apparently to replace some solar panels on the space stations.

Sitting here having my first coffee. Coast had just open lines last night. I listened for a bit but lost interest.

This week is the folk fest and then after that the fringe fest and that should be it for the festivals this summer.

Nothing new on the Oiler hockey front but I have a funny feeling Kevin Lowe is up to something. Before the enf of this month he’s going to make another huge announcement about a major deal. Something like the Pronger/Peca trade deal from last year.

Other then that, it’s the dog days of summer. At least we’re out of that heat wave we had 3 weeks ago. It’s more comfortable sleeping with the temps around +20* Not that we really have any problem with that because we have an AC.

Before bed last night I went and set up a Myspace account. This is still going to be as is and I’m not really doing anything with Myspace at the moment. I’m thinking to just use it to advertise my Blogger blog. See if I can get more traffic to my Blog.

But that’s all for now.

e.Jim

We went to
work feeling okay. I got in expecting Rob to say something about my total last night but no. Pat suggested I do sponsorships and I did. I ended up $90 by break and $160 and $25 credit card. I was in a placid mood coming home. It was raining a bit coming across the parking lot there. I just wanted to get home and Anne was right at the door with a shopping cart when I got to the front door. We got some medicine into Pledges and at least that job is done.

I’m going to try and work on scene sheet #8 for NW tonight before bed as I still want to try and get the beginning part before Aug 15th. It’s a bit of a long shot but we’ll see.

Also, I was looking at joining a Book of the month club and the prices aren’t bad but in hard cover format. I need to compare books at Audrey’s and see how they measure up. The offer is 3 books for $1.99. But 4 hardcover books/month is like $100/month on books. I can get 6-8 paperbacks for that much. The savings are there if you want hard covers but too rich for my blood. I can get 2 paperbacks for the price of one hardcover. The club is great if you like hardcover books.

e.Jim

Yesterday, what
a washout. We get into our jobs alright and there was JT. Rob gave me a bit of a bad time about missing the weekend but because of them doing a last minute about face for Saturday and I said I planed this with management 2 weeks ago, he quickly did an about face and that was the last of that. “Anyway, we did the mix the tap shooters in with the front 20 game again.” and I had “0” by 8pm. So he shut our dialers off. We were doing the Canada legends hockey. Some people were doing really well, others like me barely stayed on the board at $50 like JT. The CLH thing was all cold calling to boost up the tap base. Anyway, I hung around a bit and then headed to the train station. One of the other little Chinese or Vietnamese kids were there. Just a young kid that befriended me. He worked with us before at the older office. We had a chat on the way to the end of the line and I must have got in shortly before 9pm and there was Dick Powel on the screen in “Murder my sweet.” Great movie. Phillip Marlow is one of my favorite characters, played by 4 other actors including Humphrey Bogart. They don’t make films like that anymore. Instead we get crap movies like “Snakes on a Plane” and “Zoom” Yeesh.
Anyway, I enjoyed watching that until just before Anne came in about 10:30pm and she put together some kind of frozen pasta thing for me that took a long time too cook. I watched the news and she suggested a break tonight. Good stuff. I stayed up to work on scene sheet #7 and did a bit of research.

I was up until 3:30am andwent to bed. I got up at 7am, so I had a good 3hrs sleep and then back to bed and up at 11am and fell back to sleep and up at 1:30pm! I had enough sleep.

Just a short entry today more later.

e.Jim

I got these


contributor copies for getting the story accepted into "Lost Worlds." The story was "Earth Tones" but the story never saw print because of the cotract language. I was overwhelmed by it all. I probabaly should have just followed the prompts and said "Yes" to everything and that would have been done with it. Does anyone remember this zine and what happened to it?

e.Jim

Gawd,
that chore is done. We got 2/3rds of the medicine into him. It's harder on him then it is on us I'm sure.

Anyway, my wife is getting lunch done and I shaved and had my shower. It's going to be another hot one today.

My first experience at trying to be a writer was 1970. Regan Ave in Coquitlam BC. I recall at the time I was writing fanfic. I didn't know what fanfic was at the time. No typewriter, just pen on lose leaf filler paper. Then I got this boxed writing course a year later but I didn't do anything with it. I think in 1973 I sold the course to my friend Charles so I could live a his place until I got myself organized after my parrents moved here to Edmonton. In 1975. I wrote an article on the battle for Shillo American Civil War for the Trumpeter club magazine. I didn't do anything writing wise except my diary which I began in 1980-present. About 1985 I returned to writing fiction. I liked science fiction so much I wrote a novel called "Zyphrium Rising" which was a monster that went nowhere on a noisy portable typewriter. I wrote that in my little shipping office at Cobogo and home. See link Cobogo else where. I bought my first computer in 1987, the Atari 130xe but didn't do any writing with it. In 1988 I bought the Atari ST and in 1990, I wrote another partial meandering atempt at a novel "Gems at Oriel's bridge" and another "Meltdown." I think I still have the computer print out of some 300 double space pages of that around here. It wasn't until 1994 I was able to publish my first short story in a small press magazine called "Lost worlds." I also submitted a lot of short stories to various places and even got a kind comment by Orson Scott Card. Mostly I submitted maybe a half doz stories to Writers of the future contest. In 1996 my father past away and I got mixed up in a MLM company. I got some bad advice from my upline saying, "write when your Diamond." I made a go at that until just after I got married to my lovely wife and gave it up. I think I began writing more seriously in 2002. I submitted a few stories in 2005 but nothing that got accepted. Last year I wrote several novels that were a bit better then "Zyphrium rising." Today, I'm more focused then ever and armed with fiction writing education I never had before

Like I said I didn't get into writing again seriously until 2002 and this was stops and starts. More on this latter.

Supper time. Sorry about the typos. I'll clean this up and finish after I come back from work tonight.

e.Jim

We're about
to "do" Pledges, Ie. give his meds. At least it's in liquid form but the tough part is holding him down and he makes the most disturbing noise while we're delivering 3 doses for him.

Dreading going back to work today as it was nice having 3 days off.

Other then that not much going on. I wrote a comment on Neal Aher's blog earlier. You can read it here if it gets published in time.

Sigh back to the job thing.

e.Jim

I had a
better sleep even though I didn’t get to bed until about 5:20am after I did the cbi thing. But I had a good 6 hrs of sleep and I dozed off lying in bed listening to some Coast. I feel pretty good to start the day back to work after having a rare long weekend.

This week I’m going to try and apply at A and see if I can get some afternoon shits done. If A hires me on in this worker shortage economy of ours, then I’ll put my hours in there instead of at X.

The BP Alaska oil pipeline has been taken off line for awhile due to pipeline corrosion. That means they’ve got to repair hundreds of miles of pipe and that ended up costing the US about 8% of it’s oil consumption. Or 400,000 barrels of oil/day. That’s a hell of a lot of oil. Last night oil was at $76/barrel but dropped a little bit this morning. The market will sort itself out I’m sure but it’s good news for Alberta.

We’re supposed to bein for a hot one today. +31/87.8F but we need the heat. Later during the weak temps are to drop about the 18-21 mark. That’s okay to. I lie the heat but I don’t like heat waves like the one we had a couple of weeks back.

I worked on scene sheet #6 earlier and I’m pleased how the story is developing. I should have the beginning done by the 13th and the middle done by the end of the month and the ending done by Sept 9th. If any luck at all, I should be ready to write the thing Sept 15th. One scene/day. Two or more on the weekends. Min of 10 scenes/week. The rough draft should be ready by remembrance day weekend, in which case, I’ll be working on the scenes for my next novel. S-O. I’ve already got the basic events by Chapter. I won’t be ready to write S-O until about Feb ’07. By this time next year, I’ll even have “D” rough draft completed. These are all stand alone novels. Though NW could be potentially a series. Maybe. Well, time to Blog this and do my blog rounds.

That's all for now

e.Jim

I found
Neal Asher’s Blog yesterday. Very nice Blog. Since I bought Brass Man on Friday I had to ask about a character he calls “Mr. Crane.” It seems this character has been in other books and BM is in a series. So this is a trilogy. I’ll probably finish my 2nd pass at Mindscan before the end of this month but because it’s my 55th Birthday coming up Aug 21st in 2 weeks, my wife wants to take me out over to West Edmonton Mall for Summer slam. Firstly, she’s going to go to Olive Garden and pick up something and I’m going to go to Chapters and pick up my September reading list. Two Neal Asher, I’ve got Two moons by James P Hogan on order. I also want to get one of J. Alan Irwines books as well, but that’s a special order. Probably for my October reading list. I also want to pick up one of Chris Roborsons books as well. My budget is 4 SF books/month. I plan on reading one book/month more as my reading speed picks up. So, I buy 4 read one. But if I finish a book in 2 weeks, at least I know I have a back up book

After I buy my books at Chapters on my B-day, then Anne will meet me and we go to the food court and then with my booty of books I go watch my Summer slam and then home. If this works out okay, I’ll be going to every wrestling event there and of course pick up books along the way.

Last night I went to bed about 2am and enjoyed Coast. Howard Bloom and Art Bell. Great combination. I slept until 6:45am, almost 4 hrs. I did the cbi thing back to bed and it was getting up 4 times through out the morning to use the bathroom. Cats roaming around on the bed and scratching wall. I woke up around 12:30pm with a slight headache right shoulder soar, neck soar, right eye floater, scoliosis always in the way. I’m over weight by a good 30 lbs and being diabetic getting up in the morning doesn’t help much either and I still need to write with what little time I have. I make time. It’s all about priorities.

I figure, my time at the computer is more precious to me then most anything else spare time wise. I’m on this thing 5 hours/day and more on the weekends. 15hrs. I’d say, 35hrs/week I‘m online or at this computer. That might be a lot of time, but I’m also writing and Bloging etc.
Writing wise, my goal isn’t so much in word count as it will be in scene count. I’m going to work on 1 scene/day and most likely 2 scenes/day on the weekends. Or 7 scenes/week. My books have 80 scenes/100K, not including transitional narrative, excluding SSF info dumps. NW is going to be 100k. Neal Asher’s Brass Man, came in at 141K he tells me.

The good news is, the crack heads have left. I think. We were able to sleep more or less peaceably. Well except me and my bathroom breaks. I drink a lot of fluids during the day.

Time to post this and make my Blog rounds.

e.Jim

the caretaker
had a talk with the people above us out side and I got most of it, she wasn’t very happy with them. Apparently it seems that they’re here on "loan to party" on the weekend. But it wasn’t just me that was complaining but lots of others as well and watched them chucking beer cans off the balcony on top of that. If they get anymore complaints of stereo etc, then they will call the Police. Good. Maybe we’ll have a quiet night. We'll see.

I had a pretty good night, settingup the first 2 scenes and I have all the Chapter folders done and all the scenes in those Chapters. All I got to do is to lay out the scene sheets and write the story.

e.Jim

Hip-hop or Rap
or some God damn thing coming from upstairs, and it started half an hour ago. Bastards. Now if I had my own cell phone, I'd complain and call the Police. This is crazy. The people in #403 can hear it too no doubt. Chances are they aren't home. Except for that fucking stereo. The thing is those assholes seem to know that management can't be reached on a Sunday, much less a Sunday morning no less so they have free reign on cranking that thing up. Security around here is a joke. Basically whenever they can get somebody. This isn't an adult building. It's a family building and that makes all the difference. They seem to lower and up the volume at random. It can be quiet for a min then Up. Then two min later, Down. Right now, it's down but we'll see how that will last. Sigh the price I pay for being a writer.

Anyway , Anne ruined my weekend and now that BS upstairs and their stereo. It's up again. So the above tells me two things: 1.) The caretakers are gone for the weekend. 2.) and so are the people in #403 but #403 are probably stuck the same way I am. Anne is oblivious because she has ear plugs but I don't think they are fool proof either.

Yeesh. The music ended about 7:15am but Anne made a good point, we don't know if it came from upstairs above us or downstairs from the new people that just moved in. The old couple above us were very quiet and we had them here since when I moved in, Nov 2000. Six years of peace and quiet, which is why I liked living here until the crack heads moved in beneath us on the ground floor and the bums above us shortly after the old couple moved out.

Anyway I got 2 hrs and I did the cbi thing at 5am. I was in bed by shortly after 6am and no sooner did I hit the pillow and was just falling a sleep, that's when the music came on from either below or above. We believe that it's coming from upstairs and there's still crack heads below us. We're getting it from both ends.

Anyway, I was able to label desktop folders by Chapter numbers and insert the scenes within. Beginning-Middle-End. I think in the middle, except for Big Surprise #2 before and after, I'm going to have 2 scenes/Chapter and slow it down until the ending. So, I'm going to Blog this and go back to work on the cosmetics of NW, between struggling for serenity and the crack heads.

If I had a million doallars, I'd pack the wife and the lads out of the City, to some place quiet, like maybe Pentictin BC.

e.Jim

Uggh. I decided
to stay up and watch HGWT and The Rifleman. I took that travel pill about 2am and it was well in my system by 4am. I woke up at 7am did the cbi thing and had trouble sleeping past 7. I think I finally slept from 7:30am maybe until 1pm! Anne closed the door and was still up to let me sleep for as long as I needed to. I’ve got 3 days off, what the heck.

I’m having my first coffee.

Looks like a nice day out there for Heritage days weekend. The gang is working over there at X no thanks to Smitty whining about not having to work Sat. “I’ll look into it.” I’m sure he’s relieved we’re there Sat. Some of us. A lot of people had plans for the weekend. But no Bud had to open his big mouth. I hope people said something this morning at the office.

Putting that aside, I’m working on NW today. Mostly timing. I want to get a good idea how long each scene will take in character time. If a scene only takes about an hour to complete and it’s 8am scene time, and suddenly it’s 3pm in the afternoon, what did the characters do from 8-2pm? That time should be accounted for somehow. Timing is different then pacing. Pacing is the frequency of action. Most things slow down and meander in the middle. Not in NW! Anyway, time to Blog this and do my Blog rounds.

e.Jim

We went into
work no problems. Anne was holding the train doors open for me and we went to work just fine. I got my cheque and everything was fine including my bank bonus. Also, I another bank bonus again this week. I banked just under $2500. I love it. It’s times like these when I like my job even though we did Hockey again. I got a $200 sale right off the bat. And a $15 credit card. Helps my bank. Tomorrow at 4:30pm we’re having a staff pizza party and that’ll be nice. It’s going to be a 3 hr shift at best. Plus a long weekend. Sweet. In about an hour I’ll be giving my wife a br and then I’ll want to pass out. I didn’t get a big cheque but I got a full one and my bank bonus.

Next week I want to put some more hours in and start saving up for my lodge dues. I don’t know if this year, I’m going to join RA. I’ll wait and see how it goes. I can barely attend one lodge night/month, little alone 2/month. But 2/month is okay. I want to get a new suit as well. The other one is the same suit that I started in when I joined the lodge back in 2002.

That’s all for now

e.Jim

My wife returned
from doing her shopping and I’m, onto my first coffee. We didn’t get a chance to do Pledges last night because he was hiding on us. He came out from the bedroom about 2am and we figured give him a break and we’ll give him his medicine before we go into work this afternoon.

Yeesh just as the Nation just laid to rest 2 soldiers another one was killed this morning and 3 Canadians were killed working for Nato. The soldier this morning was out of Edmonton. I’m not going to get to political here but I support our troops in Afghanistan and I think they are doing a great job. So far since the Afghanistan mission (what 2002 now?) we’ve lost 20 soldiers. These were decent people trying to help the Afghan people recover from over twenty years of war. No matter what your politics are our brave men and women over there need our support. The mission must go forward.

Alright that said I’m enjoying my first cup of coffee and at least we got the rent paid. Next our bus pass but we’re going into work using bus tickets just for today. We’ll get the bus pass tomorrow and we paid the balance on last months cable/internet bill and some on the utilities. This months cable is about due and we’ll have a cheque for that. In other words, this month is covered.

I had enough sleep. We got to bed about just before the end of Coast and Sparky woke me up about 6:15am. I did the cbi thing and was in bed by 6:30am or so. I slept until noon. I had 8 hours and that’s more then enough sleep for me.

I made some strategic movements within NW last night and this morning. I took out one of the Pov characters. This character was in about 4 scenes anyway and the character would be more suited towards being shown through the leads pov. Now I’m back to my 4 principle characters and I feel a lot better about that.

We gave Pledges his medicine and he took it a lot easier then the last time. Now that job is done for the day.

e.Jim

I went to bed
about 5:20am after the cbi thing and slept until 9:20am. I got 4 hrs of sleep and dozed off from 9-10am. It was hard to get back after that with the cats coming into bed roaming around.
I’ll get by on that for today.

Lots of stuff going on in the City etc. Heritage days is coming up this weekend. Then there’s the folk festival and at the end of Aug is the Fringe. In Sept the Who concert and then NHL training camp comes around and The Rolling Stones have their concert in Regina.

I’m going to continue to work on the basic scene elements for NW. After NW, comes SO and after that “D“. NW start date is Nov 1st and I should have the rough draft done by the end of the year. I figure I’ll have SO scene sheet ready for June 1st, I want at least 3 stand alone novels in a package in case editors like what I’ve done with NW and want to see more of my work.

So, on my plate today, Work on NW and do my blog rounds and have lunch then go into the job thing with Anne. She’s still asleep btw. The cell phone rang again while I was watching HGWT and The Rifleman. We don’t answer it during the day unless it’s work or family. Usually it’s a 1-800 number and we can call block those.

The space shuttle is ready for lift-off again near the end of this month as Nasa is ready to wind down the shuttle program for 2010, which isn’t that far off. I’m also following Bigelow Aerospace and their Genesis 1 project. Genesis 1 is one of their first inflatable habitats and it seems to be holding up quite well. They eventually want to build orbital hotels and develop space tourism. I’d like to see a massive space station maybe used to help intercept asteroids say out by the Lagrange points or L5. The station might be used as a platform to intercept asteroids and as a stepping stone to the moon etc. Of course it’ll be beyond my lifetime.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

e.Jim

Coast was
okay tonight but it was the first hour I wanted to listen to: Seth Shostak and his reaction to Arts guest Steven Greer Sunday night saying that several key astronomers at SETI said that they have been receiving Et signals for years etc. and some Govt agency has been jamming these signals etc. So surprise, surprise on the Coast Website the first hour was about Seth Shostak of SETI and his reaction to Greer’s claims. I like listening to Seth. He had some interesting things to say but he “answered my question” throught the call in portion about how SETI is using earth bound technology to look for Et signals assuming they use earth bound technology. Radio waves. No wonder why we’re not able to find any civilizations out there. Seth was right though, radio waves is the best technology we have to work with for the time being. Even if we don’t get a signal some good science is being done. I don’t think we’ll ever get a signal this way. The best hope for finding Et is the Kepler planet finder mission and that’s going up in Oct 2008. Kepler is a 4 year mission to look for earth like planets in what's called the Habitabale Zone.

Anyway, I worked on NW earlier and the begining is there. I augmented the early middle and I'll be working on that as well but right now, I want to do an early cbi thing and go to bed.

e.Jim

Anne had another
day off and she escorted me out of the building before she went to pay the rent. I headed off to work. Work went slow tonight. I had a $35 credit card sale and we we’re almost out of taps and into the semies by break. I did my bsl reading sitting at 5.7 just before 9pm and I ended up with $372. John and I were fooling around the last hour but I ended up getting a $105 sale. Five tickets. Good stuff. I was glad to get out of the building and it must have rained outside because the sky was all pink and blues and reds. Very nice. So, tonight, I’m having a small lunch during the news and we’ll give Pledges his medicine. I’ll do a bit more on NW and hit the sack about 1:30am and give my wife a little pampering anf listen to Coast for a bit and pass out. Do it all over again tomorrow. Well, sort of. We only need to pay the rent once a month.

e.Jim

Anne went
out for a bottle run just now. I’ve got water on the stove for a coffee. Coast was pretty good last night. I stayed up until 4am to watch HAWT and The Rifleman. I slept for about an hour and got up to do the cbi thing then back to bed before 6. I slept from 6-11:40am and watched the last half of The Rifleman. I’d say, I had 6 hrs sleep and I slept a bit listening to Coast. So I had enough sleep.

I was watching a news bit this afternoon on the Oil boom here in Northern Alberta and related to the population explosion here as well. It seems that just this year alone, Alberta will have 15,000 new babies born just this hear alone. By 2010 close 18,000 babies born. That’s almost 60,000 new babies being born over the next 4 years. Pretty amazing. The price of oil/barrel today showed $74.90.

Another story I heard last night this is the 30th anniversary of the Viking Mars mission. Two years later I remember as a young lad of 26 boarding a Via rail train from New Westminster BC to Edmonton in August 1978. Thinking I’ll be gone from home for a few days and be back soon. I stayed ever since. But when I left the comfort of my home in New Westminster week of Aug 15th 1978 I had all the intentions of returning home. Hard to believe that was 28 years ago.

As I said Coast was pretty good last night. Richard Hoagland still thinks there are artifacts on the moon from an advanced civilization. With the earth being 4.5 Billion years old, why not that advanced civilization originate here from earth maybe say a billion years ago? If SETI can’t find Et (looking for Et radio transmissions.) since SETI began what 25 years ago and found nothing so far, where has everybody gone? The answer is we’re looking for radio transmissions. Something we use here on earth is to assume that if we use radio then so must Et which is asinine. Et isn’t going to use radio transmissions to communicate anymore then Christians are going to pray to Pagan Gods. Et using radio transmissions is like looking for terrorists because of the color of their skin. An advanced civilization isn’t going to use radio signals just because we do. So what kinds of communication will an advance civilization use? I mentioned yesterday they could use telepathy. They may use an inter-dimensional form of communication. They might use photons, or even tachyons or even gravity waves. Speculative Science fiction is loaded with no shortage of ideas on the topic but radio waves? Come on. I read that SETI, or a branch of SETI or something like it or bla, bla, bla, is considering using laser pulses in micro second bursts to the nearest star systems. That’s a little better then radio waves. More on this another time.

Anyhow, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Okay it’s a new
month. I turn 55 this month. I’ve always thought 55 wasn’t old but it means that my senior years are close at hand. Like turning 30 I thought ‘uh-oh, I’m getting older.’ other then having diabetes I have no bad habits. Except the occasional beer 2-4 times month and scoliosis which is a back problem, I have nothing wrong with me. I could live another 20 years. Maybe longer. 55? Bring it on.

Tonight we did the Legends series. Canada vs. The World. It’s kind of like Old Timer hockey but with the backing of the hockey hall of fame. I got a $110 sale for 2 mid bowl tickets and another one and $350 in credit cards just today. I got a $110 sale off of a “semi” yet. I had my last sale X2 lower bowl seats $95 each by the glass and on a credit card and I closed on money. I was late getting out to arriving home just before 10pm and I watched Raw, Very good this time. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate it a 8. All in all I had a great night. I received a bonus for highest average sale and possibly a bonus for the top total in the room. There were some exceptional taps in there. I saw a VIP lower bowl family pass, not him. This is a great campaign. Too bad it’s going to last about a week.

We gave Pledges his medicine and he didn’t like that but he took it.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim