E.Jim Shannon

we braved
the cold weather and walked down to Clairview, very cold out there. After a bit of a wait we had a cold walk to the office and inside upstairs. We didn’t get to see my Doctor until about 40 min later and I had

drops in my eyes he made some scans and I have the yag booked for Jan 10^th which is on a Wednesday. I could have had it this Wednesday but it was too late. My vision should be about the same until then. It’s a day in day out kind of thing and he’s going to do both eyes at the same time.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 6:13 PM 0 comments

My vision
is progressively becoming more and more hazy but that’s why I’m going over to see my Doctor today anyway. Most likely to give me a yag orientation and finale yag scans. I’d like to go in for it today but I don’t suspect it’s going to happen until next week about this time.

Having my first coffee of the day here.

Currently it’s –23/33. That’s cold. Last year, our winter never really hit us until after January. Even then we hadn’t got up to –20 during the day like it is now. It’s supposed to warm up but then we got that windchill, so even a –3 could have a windchill making it feel like –12* and that’s cold enough as it is. I think we’re in for a couple of days of Chinooks next month but for the most part, this winter kind of reminds me of back in 1979.

Anne and I are going out to brave the cold winter in a couple of hours. I’m going to wake her at 1pm so we can get ready to leave out of here at 2pm. I want to be in that office at 2:35pm. I’ve got some anxiety over this stage of my vision woes. I wish I could stay inside all afternoon but I’ve got to get this thing done.

Last night I worked some more on the extension scenes for “F” and I like what I got, some good stuff developing there. I completed the middle. Now I’m going onto the end. I’m also going to use some tricks I learned from Bickham and Swain, I’ve got 112 scenes and the work should be 144k. I’ll be in full writing mode Jan first. I’m also excited about the next novel project after this one. “MF” But I’ll probably finish “F” about the end of March. Then I should have “MF” outlined out by the time I finish “F” and I’ll start “MF” right after “F”, “MF” will have about the same number of scenes and if all goes well, I’ll be in the 2^nd rewrite stage when “MF” is done. “MF” should be completed by about the end of June. I’m going to do about 2 more drafts of “F” and the ms both “F” and “MF” should be ready to market by this time next year. Nut I’m going to write a few short stories as well and send them out. Last time I looked “Crosshairs” had over 125 views. I don’t know what the number of views is now or even if the story is still up on the site.

But that’s all for now..

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:28 PM 0 comments

Wow.
Add the gravel pill and the lack of sleep I’ve had the night before and the past couple of days, I slept for 11,5 hours. I recall going to bed at 1am right after Hogan’s Heroes. I might have stayed up to listen to Coast and it looked like Art had a pretty good show going on. By 1:30am I was asleep, I woke up at about 7:10am to do the cbi thing and in bed about 7:25am or so. I think part of the reason why I’m not sleeping well is because I’m not putting in a full day of work. Because I had all the sleep from the night before I’ll have trouble getting sleep overnight.

Last night I was spending so much time on the Fantastic fiction site I forgot about my TNA wrestling. I only realized this as I was watching the news. Shit. I was so involved preparing a special book order for Audrey’s I forgot the time. Other then specialty books on writing; Audrey’s doesn’t carry a good selection of SF books. Not like Chapters and even then their selection is small. I placed a special order on Peter F Hamilton’s “Judas unchained” and that won’t be out until the spring. For all the food it does me, I might as well special order from Chapters but I’m going to special order from Audrey’s and by my books at Chapters.

Not much on my plate for today. I’m feeling the gravel pill still in me working away. I’ll probably work on “F” some more and flesh out the main characters. There are some ideas I need to work on and the story subplots. I’ll tinker around again on my website. I added a topic “My Favorite Science fiction Villains.” Last night. I’m going to add another list on heroes soon.

Anyhow, that’s all for now..

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 4:04 PM 0 comments

okay, I
done all my cbi and shower.. I just got to pack my thing sup and get my coffee before I’m ready to head out the door. I don’t mind heading out to work this morning. I went to bed about 3am and I got up at a bit after 7am, so I had a good 4 hours sleep. I’m okay to go for the day. I think what I’ll do because Anne needs the bus pass to do her thing this afternoon, is I’ll go over to Audrey’s see if they have what I’m looking for and then down to Money mart. I want to check on some banking services but that’s another story. Then I’ll come home.

Early this morning I figured out how to add Amazon book images to my sidebar. I think I might place it over by the other side of the main page because that side is getting to busy. I already have “currently reading” and coming up next. Since I took out the wip bars it seems like “Books I recommend” should be on the other side. “Or recommended reading.” I also want to have a recommended listening as well.

Anyway, it’s –23/31 out there. So I’m not looking forward to that 10 min wait or so in the cold. That’s the only thing I’m not looking forward to doing this morning but once that bus comes by, then fine. I’ll go over to Tim’s get the staff donuts and then I’ll get myself a breakfast sandwich walk across that frozen parking lot and into that warm office for 4 hours. Then I’ll do my stuff after work and come home for a couple of hours of sleep while Anne is out doing her thing.

Oh the Oilers won as well last night, 5-1. Good job guys.

Don't think I'll have enough time to move this over to my website this morning. Later when I come home and grab some sleep.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 8:30 AM 0 comments

Having my first coffee of the day. It’s a good one.

So, this afternoon I’m going onto work and I’ll be listening to the Oiler/Chicago game on the radio. JT usually puts it on and it’s a short 3.5 hour shift. After that, I’m considering heading up to Chapters again to see if
They have the sequel to Pandora’s star in stock. If not my alternative is Julie Czerneda. They’ve got book 1-2 of the Species Imperative series there. It’s easier to get to Audrey’s and I don’t have to be standing out in the cold waiting for a Chapters bus. I think I’ll go to Audrey’s tonight instead.

Speaking of the weather it’s currently –19/32. The windchill is bitter mostly because it’s a clear day out there making it even colder. I’m not dreading that early morning wait for the bus in the morning when I have to go in. I’ll be wearing my gloves for sure.

So that’s about all for me today.

e. Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 2:09 PM 0 comments

I stayed up
listening to the whole Coast show last night and after that I did the cbi thing and went back to bed. Again I’ve been up making hourly trips to the bathroom. I think this is a prostrate thing going on. So, I’m trying to not drink anything today but I need a coffee. Maybe that should be nothing to drink after 9pm.

Not much going on this afternoon. Its pretty cold out there –17/20 and we got some snow over night as well and the weekend we’re going to get a few days over –20. I haven’t seen –20 yet during the middle of the day but it’s coming.

My first coffee of the day, ok, I’m trying to read Neal Asher’s Gridlinked but I find reading anything like a novel, tough until I get this vision cleared up. To read email and websites I need reading glasses but to write in my diary and see the letters on the keyboard is okay. Well even the keyboard letters look a bit blurry. I’m typing this in Comic Sans MS 12, which is almost like bold without being bold. I can see all right to get around but for work most names on the screen I need these reading glasses on and they’re hard on the eyes as it is. Anyway that’s about it for me for today.

e,Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:58 PM 0 comments

I tried
to access the JFK newsgroup again, but the news server blocks me out allowing me to read posts only. I’ve been down this road before.

Yeesh, I didn’t get to bed until 3am and I had trouble sleeping. It was 4 am and I figured I’d get up and fool around online for a while and read some of my blogs. Catch up on that reading. The cause of my sleep troubles mainly was all that extra sleep from the day before and a couple of cups of coffee at the office where I work last night. I finally ended up in bed after I did the cbi thing, which was about 5:30am.

When Anne and I were at the specialist’s office Monday the receptionist was sending me back to my Doctor. I heard her say book a Yag, which is the laser surgery they do. They wanted to book me in for Thursday but I was missing time from work. Now I don’t know if this is just a follow u from the last time so he can continue the pre-yag work. He most likely has to take some readings to set things up etc. I could have the yag in his office as early as Monday’s visit or as late as next month. It’s hard to tell with these kinds of things.

I’m up earlier then usual for the, can’t sleep thing mainly. But I’m onto my first coffee of the day. Not that I need it but I’m enjoying it.

I still haven’t tried to call Compaq tech support yet as to how to get my other system back. I think it’s lost. What bugs me about it is I have a years worth of diaries and some stories and other stuff online including the reworking of NW plus almost 100 or so photo’s mostly of cats and home life. All of those are gone as well. I’m never going to get a Compaq again. The best computers to buy are the ones a friend builds for you if you don’t know how to do it yourself at least in my experience. That is if you don’t mind spending a bit of money on the operating system and the components. Your, not going to be saving much money because if your friend is building a computer from scratch for you, chances are he’s doing this out of his business. Also, chances are he has a volume license on his operating system. What this means is that you will get a recovery disk. Of course all of this is in some cases. My problem was I didn’t back up when I should have. Next computer I get, I’m going to make sure it’s fast and the clerk shows me how to back up step by step.

Another cold day out there here in Edmonton. Right now it’s –17* out there, More like –17/-20 the other number on the right of the temperature reading is the dew point, opposite to the humidex reading in the summer. How hot it feels. In this case, it’s how cold it feels. Similar to windchill, so when I write –17/20, it means the temperature is –17 degrees Celsius but it feels more like –20. I don’t care what the temperature reads. I care how it feels. Right now its –17/20 out there. I think this has been the coldest day of the season. Tonight when I came home it’s going to be a lot. Even going to work a lot colder then it is now.

Also, last night I began the character sketches for some of the main characters in “F”. I should have them fleshed out by the end of the month. I hope to be writing the rough draft by Jan 1^st if all goes well. I should have the rough draft completed by the end of March. It’ll be done when it’s done is all I can say. And as that work is being written, of course I’ll be designing characters for my space-opera series but this is a long-term project.

Well, the Oilers won last night, 2-1. Good stuff, they beat the Flames and ended their winning streak. That’s a good thing. The Oilers play Chicago on Friday night and don’t play again until the 28^th. Anyhow, that’s about it from me today.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:47 PM 0 comments

Still reeling

from the best possible outcome from yesterday’s doctor appointment with the specialist. It feels real good knowing that I don’t have MD and there is no diabetic damage to the retina.. Before the year s out I’ll have my vision restored and back to normal.

Last night I was in bed by 1:30am. I slept and barely heard Anne come in. I clocked her coming into bed just before 3am. I passed out and slept until 7am. So I got 6.5 hours from that. I stayed up a bit after the CBI thing and worked a bit more on “F” and reading a bit more on Marshal. I need a book on subplots. I know what they are and their purpose I just don’t know how many per viewpoint characters. Is a VP character it’s own subplot? Is that all a VP character is for is to advance the subplot? I don’t think so. I tinkered around with this for a while and about 7:40am I went back to bed and slept until 11:20am. That’s another 3 hours 20 min. So I’d say about 10 hours al in all, to make up for yesterday.

Not much on my plate today. I’ll be tinkering around with “F” and then Anne and I will go into work and JT and I will be listening to the Oilers at Recall Place Hockey game. They are hosting Calgary tonight and the Flames have been on a 7 game winning streak now. The Oilers are sitting at 21 points on the season and 4 points away from Calgary under the play off cut. So any night the Oilers play Calgary is an important night. And the City will be adding extra cars onto the trains as well. Wuu whoo.

Pardon me here if I get into the philosophical rant/mode here but over the weekend we’ve had 2 murders by knife stabbing and the same guy that looked like he stabbed one guy in a Whyte Ave bar stopped a truck at an intersection pulled the drive’s door opened it and stabbed him and drove off in his truck. Then there was another tragic stabbing of a 17 year old having a private birthday party at a community hall and 4 knife-packing teens killed the kid and took off. There was another stabbing in the City as well over the weekend. These make it Edmonton’s 34^th homicide of the year. What’s gotten into this City anyhow? Just about every weekend someone is getting killed. I know what the problem is. One common denominator is responsible for it all.

But I’ll leave it at that.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 11:59 AM 0 comments

Raw wasn’t
bad tonight. I think the best match was the ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship. Jeff Hardy won that one but what a match. On a scale from 1-10 I’d rate Raw tonight about a 6. Not great but not bad either.

Anne got short changed $15 bucks at the Petsmart store and recovered it abd came back with our Pizza just at the time of HGWT. After Pizza I had a 2 hours power nap. I needed it badly. So, I’m good to go tonight.

One thing that has been lacking since my vision problems over the last few months has been reading time. I’d like to spend at least an hour/day reading books. When my vision clears up Ii hope to be doing just that. I figure if I can read 100 pages/week, that’s not bad. I can read 1 book/month. What with my writing and other items/work etc, that’s not bad.

But the best news is my vision is ok. It’s not 20/20 because of my right eye, but having the posterior capsular haze thingy is the best possible news that could happen for me. And if this is just a Doctors office visit then I could have the laser surgery done next week but I think it’s a hospital visit and I have 2 more visits to work with including next week. But at least my vision can be restored to its post cataract surgery phase. And that’s splendid news.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 10:26 PM 0 comments

last night
I watched the Oiler game here at Rexall place playing Detroit. The Oilers won in a shoot out. Good stiff. But mostly as I was flipping back and forth between channels I was watching TNA wrestling. I love TNA. Excellent stuff. I also fleshed out the middle of “F” and working on what scenes I can expand on in the ending portion. Having a great time. I’ve got 5 more scenes to go and I’m just about ready to do the character sketches and that’ll be fun. Then come scene timing, each scene in chronological order. Scene one Ten am Wednesday type thing and some of the scenes will change depending on what I come up with for the various vp characters. But I’ll be working on “F” for the balance of the day.

So, this morning I went to bed about 2:15am after having that gravel pill and

I passed out in due order. Other then waking up to use the bathroom I slept well until about 7:10am. I did the cbi thing and went back to bed and slept until 1am. A good 6 hours and 5 hours before that. A good 7 hours sleep. Wow.

Also last night I began the early preliminary work on my Space Opera. I’m planning a 10 vol. set. Each book will be around 155k, 120 scenes in each book. I might just write the whole thing before I release any of it and work on my other projects.

I’m still working on my website as well and that’s a work in progress.

Tomorrow is the big day. I’m not looking forward to going in but I hope I get answers right away. If I am in the early stages of MD then I’ll face up to that. Like I have a choice, If all I have is that posterior capsular haze thing, then I’ll be breathing a sigh of relief. I’ll have an update tomorrow afternoon. Right now my vision is hazy. Strait lines are strait. I can read this from 12 inches away. It wasn’t as bad as before where I had to get right up to the screen and read, But MD is mostly an age/hereditary thing. Diabetes can be a factor in MD as well and that’s another condition I have.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 3:32 PM 0 comments

I tried
going back to bed after that but no such luck so I figured I’d get up, have a coffee and play around on the computer for a while.

So, then today I’ll be heading into work just before 9am and I’ll get the staff donuts and one for my wife and I’ll get my breakfast sandwich and settle into work.

What’s after “F”? I’m going to work on my space-opera series I call EOS

Going into work was easy. I got the donuts for the staff and a breakfast sandwich for me. I got a donut for my wife and a non-glazed one for me and I ate my breakfast sandwich, Very tasty. I had a great start to
the first half and slower in the 2^nd half. JT was there providing some entertainment. By the time the last hour was upon us I was feeling wiped out. I was glad to get out of there and home. Anne hadn’t even been out of bed at all and I came in and we talked for a while then she got up to go out to do her stuff and I tried having a nap. I don’t think I got very far though, Perhaps an hour.

Tonight I’m watching the Oiler/Detroit game and some more work on “F” and that should be about it. I’m kind of worried about Monday.

My email is slow and behaving erratically all week. I’m gradually receiving emails from Markus. Right now working with blocks. He seems to think that individual Topics in automatic Topics menu can be changed. The blocks determine the overall structure of the page. But that’s only for blocks in the block management area not for individual Topics because he went and changed the front page to a 3 column layout for me and now everything is in 4 columns.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 7:24 PM 0 comments

Ok, I got
up just before 6am and did the cbi thing. I answered Markus’s 2 email and shut off the computer and went to bed, I think I got maybe 4 hours of sleep in after that, I’m alright for now. I won't post my big adventure from yesterday here but you can read it on my other Blog titled "What a day" as I slowly phase out of Blogger.

Anyway I’m onto my first coffee for the day.

I’ll be going into work on my regular time with my wife and after work I’m heading over to Chapters and picking up a couple of books. There SF selection is a bit better the Audrey’s but not by much. Of course Audrey’s mixes their SF with Fantasy and their 2 different genres in my opinion. Fantasy (Lord of the Rings) is not Science fiction or even speculative science fiction. Some even think Star Wars is a Fantasy. Not. So, I’ll be going over to Chapters and maybe pick up the first 2 books in Stephan Baxter’s “Destiny’s Children” series or possibly try out Julie Czerneda’s books. Nut if I’m going to get series I’d rather start the series from the first book not pick up something in the middle like I did with Baxter. But I really prefer stand-alone novels. Any author will say oh they can be enjoyed as a stand- alone book, (sucks you into buying the series,) Another thing I don’t care for as far a retail stores go, is that they don’t stock older works. Like, I’d be very surprised if Chapters has anything by Clifford D Simak or Andre Norton. One thing I like about Audrey’s is they at least can special order for you at $1 more/book. But I’m going to Chapters tonight to see if they have that Clash on Broadway CD there. There’s a used cd place just down from where my wife works and I can get used CD’s there. But I’d be surprised that Chapters even has it at all, if they do. I doubt it but we’ll see.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:08 PM 0 comments

I was in
bed by 3am and I don’t mind that. Coast was pretty good, on UFO’s and I like shows like that but I’m not going to be up until 5am. I’m up at about 6am and I think I got 2.5 hours before I did the cbi thing and up until 7am checking out my website from the new link Markus had given me.

And I find that my email client is blocking my email inadvertently. Now I’ve got to give them a call and ask them to correct that. More headaches. So I think I slept form maybe 7:30am until about 11.00am. I’d still be in bed if it wasn’t for my wife restless and up now doing a bottle run. I don’t mind that so much as I minded the cats but it was just one thing after another and my Markus email being blocked, I’m not in a good mood this morning. Normally I’d love to be snoring away in bed.

Anyway, I’m having my first coffee here.

It’s a nice looking day out there. Tomorrow night I’m thinking about going to Chapters again and buy a few more books. I might even be able to get myself that breakfast sandwich from Tim’s as well Sat morning. Nice.

But I still have to contact my isp and find out what’s going on with my email. This is really annoying me because I want to be able to do some more website stuff with Markus this weekend. I really like GL because it’s so easy to use except that text editor is lousy. I’m thinking of a 3 column layout for the front page of my website and the Blog 2 column the way my Blog is laid out now. Everything else 2 column and all in the same color scheme type thing, I also added this morning My top to SF TV shows, Even though I didn’t watch the show very often I thought Babylon 5 was by far the best SF tv show of the 1990’s.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:16 PM 0 comments

For some
reason my website is down and I wanted to go in and play with it. I think this is because Markus transferred everything over to Iowa, most strange.

So I emailed Markus about this. It’s probably 9am over there in Germany right now since they are about 8 hours ahead of us. I’ll get more info when I get up around noon.

I took a ride out to the end of the lrt line. Very nice out there It’s about +4* but was +6* around 11pm. Just as nice heading out this afternoon.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:44 AM 0 comments

I’m blogging

at my website and Blogger for the time being. Yesterday I managed to get a stat counter project going to view stats so that’s a good idea.

Anyway I got to bed about 2am and slept off and on but got up again about 5 to do the cbi thing. I took a bsl reading last night, at 15.3! Yikes. I haven’t had it that high in a long time. I went back to bed after the batteries were charged up in my battery re-charger. The green light was off. So now I can start using my digital camera again. But what I need instead of books this pay cheaque is back up disks. I might be able to buy one book and a set of back up disks. On this computer I’ve got one folder for everything. I went back to bed around 5:30am and slept off and on all morning getting up to go to the bathroom. But I’m sufficiently refreshed now as it is.

I’m finishing up my first coffee here.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:00 PM 0 comments

I ended up
not going to bed when I wanted to at about 2am. Instead I was fooling around with my website now that I can get access to

the admin area again. I wanted to stick with OS Empire but I’m not getting the kind of support I’m getting with Markus. So, when I get my holiday pay taken out I’ll put the request in Dec 22^nd and I should get the full amount added onto my pay cheaque Christmas week Dec 28/29^th. Most likely on the
28^th depending on Christmas being a Monday and how head office issues out
Cheaque. If I get it on that Thursday night then Friday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, it’s probably better if I do the WU baking thing that Saturday afternoon. After work, then I can go to Chapters and pick up my Christmas present. So, if all things work out well, I will be moving this blog over to my website, This morning I already transferred most of the links over.

Also last night I was able to move some Amazon book covers over and I almost had a bit of a scare when some of the code pushed my whole front page over. I’ll still keep Blogger up and running, as it’s not costing me anything. Almost everything that goes there to Blogger is being typed on my msword account anyway.

I also want to get Msword Student Teacher edition and have a copy of that I can move around between systems and I hope to get that asap.I’m onto my first coffee.

Anne and I were talking today saying that because I didn’t sleep very well over night and she’s off tonight, I’m going to have tonight off. So I’ll be going over to Bo Didlies call Tony at 4:45pm and let him know my diabetes is acting up and I’m not feeling well. Which is true, I’m not. But I’ll surprise him and show up Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon, Saturday as well.

Sorry for the inconsistencies here folks but ms word and blogger don't mix very well.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:32 PM 0 comments

It's 12:40pm as I write this. I woke up this morning about 5:30amm and did the cbi thing. I was ready to go back to bed but I got some nifty ideas for not only expanding the story but while still keeping with the original theme turned it up a couple of notches. I wrote this stuff down on paper. I went back to bed about 6:30am and got up as more ideas came to me. I think I got up about 3 times. By 7am I had enough and I went back to bed for good. I got up to use the bathroom a couple of times and Anne left to go to the meat market and I think that was around 8:30am. She probably had enough sleep as well. So I slept until 12:30pm and Anne was home doing her stuff. She closed the bedroom door and I had a great sleep from 8:30am 12:30pm. That was a solid 4hours plus the 2 hours after Coast. I think I got enough sleep.

I’m only now having my first coffee on the day.

Okay, some news finally on why my blog woes and why the sidebar is all screwed up. I got a reply from Thur over there at Blogger forum. I’m known as Envaneo and most other places on the web. Anyway, Thur suspects it’s a browser issue. Firefox doesn’t display css as well as IE, which is why things like the weather pixie and my stat counter and other stuff are at the bottom of the page. So until I go back to IE, I’m pretty well stick with this.r>

Snowing out there. Nice. I like snow days. Drivers don’t but I do, as long as I don’t have to shovel the stuff.

But this City is cheap. Seniors bow have to shovel their own walks in front of their homes in the winter when its snowing. In the past if they didn’t nothing and the City went out there with a bobcat backhoe. Now the City will fine them for leaving their walks unattended and won’t remove the snow. A lot of these people can’t do the job so they get relatives or do it themselves if they’re able. The snow isn’t so good on that respect. When I was living over there at the “villa Maria” Tea the caretaker was out there constantly shoveling the snow from the front sidewalk to the street sidewalk. It’s the City’s sidewalk they should maintain them. This City is cheap. At 9pm the university students one stop before the end of the line get on heading towards Clairview and the people that work downtown in Call Centers like me get on and the City only puts 2 cars on the trains to handle all that traffic. From Sept- the end of June when the kids get out of school the two car/train is full to the rafters and many tomes, I’ve got to stand from downtown to Clairview. The only time the City will have 3 cars on the train is when there’s a sporting event like the rodeo in town or an Oiler game. Sometimes they will when there’s a concert. But this City is cheap.

Anyhow, this afternoon Anne and I are going into work. I’ll put my 4 hours in and Greg will have the hockey game on as the Oilers are away in Denver. Then I’ll come home to watch wrestling and that will be my evening. Sp I’ll have a full plate this evening.

Damn this Blogger compose window sucks. Its not behaving well. I can't align left in some cases. I'm likeing Gl more and more.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:33 PM 0 comments

We went
to bed about 2am and listened to a bit of Coast. Art Bell made an interesting announcement from a news article that scientists have been able to restore sight in mice and has nothing to do with Stem cell research but the treatment won’t be ready for another decade so Art read from the report. I read the report as well and it didn’t give a timetable for when transplanting cells can be used in humans with eye disease. Stem cells could play a part in this later on of course. But I would say Art’s Timetable for when this could be available for humans is at least 10 years away. I’d say sooner.

Anyway, Anne and I shared a beer and I was asleep by about 3:30am and passed out. I woke up at 6am and went back to bed. I think I got p just before noon and watched the Oiler game, I think a brief break from that to answer Markus’s emails. There’s a good chance that I will be moving away from Blogger because I want a website and a blog all in one presence. Plus the tech support is better. So I returned to the Oiler game and had a nice egg benedict brunch watched the Oilers lose. After that I watched the West CFL semi finale Saskatchewan at BC Lions. It was all BC. So it will be BC at Montreal for the Grey Cup next weekend.

Anyway that’s been my afternoon. It’s been mostly sports. Hockey at noon and football after that, it’s been a good day what with that marathon writing day yesterday. I’m up to scene #62 now and on the way to finishing up the outline. Then I’ve got to work on character sheets for the characters. I won’t be ready to write this thing until Jan. 1^st anyhow. That’s a long weekend.

If I do decide to go put the website up and move away from blogger it wont be until the New Year anyway. I’m considering a Wordpress template and I won’t need to worry about any FTP. What I will probably end up doing is making an announcement on my blogger site and provide the new address as my last blogger post. If I can.

There’s also the possibility I have the early stages of macular degeneration and I won’t know for certain until next Monday on the 20^th. But in the event I do, and I will be losing my vision central vision, I can still use my computer. Widows has, Jaws for those with vision problems like mine. I can answer and compose email etc even though it’s brail supported. I can probably use a brail keyboard and with speech recognition software, I can still use MS Office and it’s applications. So I want to set the website up ASAP before (if) I do have MD. Again, I won’t no for sure until the 20^th. But if this is just something they can do with lasers and its just scar tissue on the membrane then I’ll be okay. I hope.

There are lots of things to consider and at the same time I don’t want to take on a major project like a website that will tie up a lot of my resources. Not like $100 bucks a year is a big deal. But I’ve got to consider the real possibility that I could be going blind. Even MD is not total blindness. If I can see peripheral vision blurriness like I have now maybe I can live with that. And wait 10 years for the possibility that the treatment for restoring sight may be available in my lifetime? And on it goes. The other thing I think I have is posterior capsular haze and this happens to about 40% of cataract patients months or even years after and this what I think I have. The reason why I think I have this pch is because MD is an eye disease that is genetic or related to aging. Other factors play into it as well such as smoking diet etc. The reason why my Doctor sent me to the retina specialist was because he couldn’t see back there inside the retina because (I think) it has to do with this pch thing. Also being diabetic might play a roll in MD as well nut diabetes is not in my family.

Anyhow that’s all for now.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 6:34 PM 0 comments

Sometime maybe last year I can’t recall but Anne had bought me this terrible product: A paste like substance that is supposed to remove scratches from CD’s. I tried it on all thereof my Clash on Broadway 3 cd set. Even when I bought it in the early 1990’s it was used. I applied the paste on all 3 CD’s and as per instructions tried to remove the paste after it dried. I put the CD’s in my cd player on my computer and all 3 CD’s won’t work anymore. They were ruined. I was resigned to maybe never getting the package again. Until I stumbled upon Chapters and they have it there According to their website. Excellent. It’s a $40 item. So I think what I’m going to do as a Christmas present for myself is to get, The Clash “On Broadway,” My Chemical Romance, “Black parade” The Killers, and Yellowcard. So that’s 3 CD’s and some books. With the other half I’ll sign up for Markus web hosting and turn my GL site over there but so far he’s not really doing anything.

Blogger Beta is really awkward to use right now. This is not a clean system.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 7:36 PM 0 comments

Hows that
for sleeping in late? We got to bed about 4am and listened to a bit of Coast. I had taken the gravel pill about 2am. I ate those sandwiches and Anne had something to eat. It was getting on to 5am so I figure I may as well stay up until 5am and then do the cbi thing. A bit after 5am I was asleep and I slept well up until I had to get up several times to use the bathroom. I only got out of bed about 12:25pm.

I’m waking up with my first coffee here.

Well, the Sun is out probably the first time all week.

I worked some more on “F” last night and I know the direction I’m going with the next 15 scenes of the story up too the 3^rd crisis point. I don’t get into shock value like J Alan Erwine does but that’s his style even though he says they’re done not do this for gratuitous reasons but I think the reader would get board with too many of these shockers fast.

Anyway it’s Remembrance Day out there in the City.

The Oilers won one last night in Columbus 4-1. Good stuff. It breaks a 4 game losing streak and they go into St. Louis Sunday to play an afternoon game. They are off to about the same start they had last year. I’d be happy if the Oilers just make the playoffs this year.

e.Jim

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:11 PM 0 comments

Not a bad
day out there even though its overcast and most likely pretty cold. If you call –7 cold.

Last night I was in bed by 2:00am and past out by 2:30am. I woke up at 6:15am I had just over 4 hours despite being in a bad mood. I’m over it now though. I decided to stay up until 6:45am and work on my outline for “F”. I’m about half way done the outline for the novel and onto my 2^nd crisis point of the story. Good stuff. I slept a bit around 9-12pm when I got up and. I got my coffee and here I am. Sort of.

I fired up my computer and checked my email and I got one from Markus. It seems my ejimshannon.com is canceled. Markus can host it for me for the same price as what mark was hosting and Markus doesn’t mind helping me out. So, I think I’m going to set things up with Markus, not Mark.

Also, I may be faced with the realization that my Compaq files etc are gone forever. I think I’m going to stick with W98 until I can save up for a fast laptop next year.

So tonight I’m going to go to Chapters on the South side and pick up a couple of books and come home. I won’t be able to get my hair cut until Sunday because everything is closed Saturday because of Remembrance Day. Well except Walmart and other American companies.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:53 PM 0 comments

That kid
upstairs is still at it. Like a fucking wind up toy, you think I can get any sleep around here with that racket going on? It's not really their fault though because just before they moved in above and the older couple moving out the caretakers put in a sub floor in their suite. Whatever that means. JT knows more about that then me but the people upstairs don't know this. I think it's a tactic to get us to move out because we've been here so long and they can come in gut the place and up the rent by a couple of hundred bucks. We've been here for over 10 years and me here for 6 and we barely heard a peep from the couple upstairs until the family with a toddler moved in.

The reason why 2 days are missing from my journal is because I bloged my journal. For some reason Bloger/betta wont let me paste onto the compose area. It changes all the time of course. I don’t see any real value in blogger beta personally. They didn’t really improve it much. Okay I can past now but I get this space between the date and my title in blue.

Anyway, I didn’t go to bed right away. I turned in about 5am after the cbi thing. I wanted to work on “F” some more is what kept me up until 5am. I slept until 9am when that brat upstairs began running around all over the place Anne and I getting up a few times to go to the bathroom and the cats roaming around.

Anyways I’m onto my first cup of coffee.

My wife got her pay today and I’ll get mine later. Plus we had that GST cheaque that came in handy. So that’s $600 or so just this week alone. Not bad.

I was also up looking in Fantastic fiction around 4am as well to find some books I’d be interested in over there at Chapters. After I post this, I’ll be browsing in that and calling Chapters from work and asking them about titles. I’m very picky about my SF reading preferences. I don’t like series. I don’t particularly like military fiction. I don’t particularly like hard sf. I don’t like young adult, I don’t like alternate earth history novels. I don’t like SF comedy. I also don’t like long SF as well. The longest book I’ve read this year has been Robert J Sawyer’s mindscan. I’m currently reading Neal Asher’s Gridlinked. Not much dialogue in it but it is fast paced and I'm enjoying it. So, I’m rather picky on what I like to read.

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 12:57 PM 0 comments

Labels: Basically I know

// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 1:12 AM 0 comments