E.Jim Shannon

The way into
work went well. I met up with Wayne at Stadium. He’s one of the newer people on the front 20 I say hi to every now and then. I went to get the donuts and brought them in and listened to my tunes. I only had one donut there and my coffee. We had 6 tap shooters and maybe 4 others in the front 20 but we did SM again. I called Shaw tech support to explain what’s going on and they had “no clue.“ Yeah right. They claimed they reset the set box for the digital cable and I arranged to have a tech guy come over Wed from 1-4pm. Okay, we’ll see. I did a lot better pulling in $650 and a $10 credit card. It was really nice coming home and my train pulled up right away.

I got in without incident and tried the TV. It’s still persisting. Snow and digital breakdown. At least the internet is working. Mike explained to me the same thing happened to him because he and his wife signed up for the same service and apparently this began when Shaw cable introduced their telephone service system. The phone service is competing with the same service as the rest of Shaw. So every time we get the snow someone nearby is using the phone. This doesn’t happen with Telus/DSL because it’s built differently. They’ve got phone/Internet/TV now as well and this came out only within a year of each other. The only drawbacks to Telus is we ow them some money and might be on their "black list". We both owe. We’ll probably have to have a deposit on the service. Also Telus DSL is slower then Shaw. We can keep Shaw going just fine without the digital service and if the tech can’t fix this Wed then I’m going to ask him to pull the plug on Digital service. In the meantime, I’ll be calling Telus and find out what they need from me so we can get on Telus and away from Shaw. Indeed if this is the problem. I don’t have confirmation just yet but If Shaw’s “new Phone” service is the culprit then we’ll be saying sianara to Shaw and Hello Telus.

The problem with Shaw was they were so intent on rushing the phone service through to compete with Telus and theie convergence model they didn’t realize the full scope of the problem they will face. I’m sure they did. “We’ll lose customers until we fix this thing but we can absorb it.” So if the tech guy Wed says, “yes it’s the the Shaw phone service,” then I’ll be asking to disconnect us from the digital TV service and over the next few months we’ll be moving over to Telus. I’m going to miss Gold Trails’ and all but this is crazy. It’s not going to affect our regular cable or internet and we’ll still be able to watch TV in the front room.

I got home and I had a little nap from 3-5pm. I got up about 5:15pm or so and the problems with the TV reception still continues. But if this is the case and Shaw has no idea when the problem will be fixed, I’m going to buckle up and work as many hours as I can to earn enough to clear any Teleus obstacles. If they require me to have a deposit no problem. We might even have out own phone back hooked up as well. Get everything, phone/cable/internet all on the same bill for a bit more then what we’re paying now. We can just have Internet and cable without the phone. Telus was originally in the 1990’s was just a phone company and before that it was called AGT. Alberta Government Telephones. The only problem with Telus will be the initial outlay of cash. Cable and Internet, probably what were paying now and the bill plus the deposit. It’s not going to be like $1,000 or anything like that. Maybe half that.

Anyway, that's all for now

e.Jim

I met
Anne at the station and we rode in feeling alright under warm conditions. I mentioned about the Blog to Rob and the Website but he’s only interested in it for advertising purposes. Alright. I setteled into a nice evening of taps doing St Mikes. No problem. I had a slow night but I ended up with $365. Not great but I began the week low and peaked Tuesday night and went downhill from there. Mike gave me $20 for doughnut money for the staff for tomorrow to pick them up on my way in.

Ordinarily I’d go over to Audreys after work for a book but I had anly about $3 in cash on me. Before I get any more books I’m going to wait until the lodge dues are paid off and I renew my Norton subscription. When all that is taken care of, then I’ll be buying books again.

Tonight, it’s watch the news and have a bit of supper and then watch ECW and go to bed as I’m up early in the morning for work.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I tried to
sleep but I had all this energy and I got up but only to watch one part of Gold trails. I was in bed by 5:30pm. I woke up with a headache this morning about 10:30am and I still have the remrants of it. I past out on the couch until Anne woke me up on her way out and then at 11am the alarm went. Oh brother. I’m syill going in for tonight and tomorrow because I’ve a bank bonus up for grabs.

We’re a bit behind the perverbial 8 ball here for October as we’re going to be slightly behind in our rent and we won’t be able to get a bus pass for this month plus my lodge dues are due amd I’ll be needing insulin. I’m still going to lodge next week but I won’t have the lodge dues until the 19th and I’m not taking any Saturdays off until then. I’ll be at work for the next three Saturdays. Then I’ll have the 19th off so I can go to Super Sat. Speaking of which I’ll be attending every lodge night next year. I’m glad I made that coffee. Its helping me feel a lot better.

I know I said one book a week. I’m 30 books behind so I’m considering going to Wee Book Inn to get the rest because WBI books are half price. Rather then costing me $300 it’d cost me $150. More or less. Also, I’m trying to read one book a week and that’s hard to do, well for me at least. I’m lucky if I can read one book a month and even then that’s pushing it.

At least the weather is holding up. Temps are hovering around 19* Other odds and ends here,the Oilers lost to Pheonix last night. There were I heard 9000 fans there because of the baseball coverage there were no game highlights. Al available cameras were covering baseball. Shows what a low sports priority hockey is in the US. No doubt NHL hockey will pick up again once baseball season is over.

An interesting story about email in business today causing the loss of thousands of hors in loss productivity due to inter office emails. One of the big culprits is the Blackberry hand held device. Some companies here have adapted a 6-6 no email policy. Somewhat realated what with all of the Ipods and cell phones and tect messaging etc. Mike (new manager) made an announcement about no emailing no Ipods or cell phones in the office because people can’t concentrate on their calls. It becomes a real problem in industries like ours. I’ve got nothing against this technology but there’s a time and place for everything. I don’t own a cell phone but I do have an MP3 player and I don’t think I’d like a Blackberry what for all the email I get. Its not worth it. I mean it’s a 4 hour shift.

e.Jim

Yes it’s late
I know. I’ve been to bed, sort of and litening to Coast. Good show tonight. I really enjoyed it, still on actually but I’ve had enough and I want to get onto other things at the moment.

Work went well. It was very warm on the way in and temps at 19* for later today. Nice. I got my cheque and I made bank bonus again. I had a chat with Rob there about a blog and he’s interested in having one. So we exchanged email address's and I have the X logo. I should clarify for him that there isn’t much difference between a blog and a website except the blog is something like a diary and can be added daily. Sice Google is free, we’re going to go with that. But so is MySapce and I’m not sure what I want to do first. MySapce or Google. He said he’s willing to pay me but there’s no need for that because it didn’t cost me anything. That wouldn’t be ethical. I didn’t think much about that after because I just wanted to get on with the job. We ended up doing SM again and a bit of AAD for the last hour. I ended up with $525, which isn’t bad. Mostly small taps. I got home and fired up the computer and got Rob’s email and I sent Edgar, who rides “shotgun” with me the link to David Sereda’s blog.


Okay, so Google has enhanced it's blogging service. No doubt the reason for the big slow down and changes I've been experiencing in lag publishing times. I don't know if I want to change over just yet. I tried to access the change over but Google/Gmail isn't recognizing my current email. I don't know what's up with that.


Also I'm making my posts bold now since these eye floaters have caused my vision to blur. I really need some glasses is what I really need.



I watched the news and Hogan. Anne came home a bit late and served me up some lunch while I was watching Hogan and said another break tonight because she’s out there doing her hamster stuff. I’ll be up allnight and I’ll be in at 6am after Gold Trails’ paddle wheelers of the Kootneys. Also something about a muel discovering a Silver mine or something like that.

All week I’ve been feeling a day ahead or a day behind. Strange. It feels like Saturday right now. Anyway, I’m going to blog this. Or try to.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I might have
had an hour nap before Anne came in to wake me. Coast was excellent last night with David Sereda. Talking about Singularity. Good stuff, Now that’s what I’m talking about. I could have listened to that show all night and it’s worthwhile even getting the pod cast of the show as well. Solid information on a great topic. Anyway, I think I past out about 2:30am and woke up about 4:30am. So I got 2 hours sleep. I watched Okanogan PP and two great shows on Gold Trails’, on Revelstoke and Victoria. I’ve been through both those communities on more then a few times.

So, I went back to bed at 6am and I couldn’t sleep. 6am rolled into 7am and that rolled into 8am and finaly all the lights came on and Anne came incomplaining about how she’s got hours missing from her cheque etc. They’re a bunch of cheap bastards. Well, all these types of jobs are. They’re all crooked to some degree.

Anyway, Anne left again so I was cursing complaining how I can never sleep from 11-noon. So I figure, well Anne had the computer on I got up figuring I had at least 3 hrs sleep. I looked at the clock on the tv and it was 1:22pm. I missed the news . So, I slept from 8am-1pm. That’s a good 5 hours and maybe an hour and a half, so about 6.5 hrs altogether and I still feel drained.
I don’t know how much writing I’m going to get done for today but I’ll return to it when I get home. I usually end up coming home around 9:30pm. I need a timer of some kind that can fire this computer up say at 9:15pm during the weekdays. I know there is a maintenance timer where I can have the computer perform certain maintenance tests. I should see if there’s a power on software application of some kind so this way the computer is on for me when I come home.

e. Jim

The last hour
drained me. My third sale was a $100 tap '04 and a $200 tap '05 and I got it!. $200 and my total jumped to $260 right off. Amazing. Some decent bonuses on the board tonight. A $20 and a $15. Top total and a credit card bonus. I got the only credit card and it was a $10 one to boot. I closed out at $650, exhausted and a $15 bonus for most ammount of crefit cards even if it wa still just one. I was glad to get out of there and home. Extra cars on for tonight because of the Oiler game. Actually the air was very nice out there. I fired up the Computer as soon as I came in.

I don’t know if I’m going in for tomorrow afternoon. Most likely I will for Friday for the 1:30pm shift. Other then that not much going on.


e.Jim

Looks like
a nice looking day out there. I haven’t been out yet but Anne’s been out shopping and I’m on my first coffee.

I went to bed about 1am listening to Coast last night. Stanton Friedman. Awsome guest. I like listening to him and of course on Ufology.

Over the past couple of days since that writing marathon on Sunday, I’ve been working on SO. I’ve got a premise for it, more or less now although this could change over the next couple of weeks. Transhumanism is nothing new in sf, do a Wiki search and all the resources are there but this story has a bit of a “twist” on the topic. “Like don’t they all?”

Tonight I’m going into work and put another 4hrs in and I’ll probably come home and work some more on NW. I should have that done up by the end of the week but I can’t do any rewrite until I get some printer ink and get out a had copy.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Had a pretty
good shift tonight. Anne bought me KFC today and a DQ Sunday treat. Okay, she splurged a bit for me. I did a bsl reading and I’m at 5.1. Low but 8-11pm is always low. I ended up pulling in $780 just under line hour.

I Haven’t done any work on NW lately because I’ve been getting ideas together for SO and I have a premise at last. Now all that remains is to put the characters together and a scene synopsis. I Haven’t framed in my mind how the climax is going to go just yet. All I can say about the story is, it’s tranhumanism and a space habitate/colony about religion/machine .

I was glad to get out of there at work at 9pm. A brief wait at Carona. I thought, the train would be packed but surprisingly no. I mean it wasn’t empty either but I got a seat to myself. Now, if I can keep all my shifts going the way they are now this week and say put Thusday and Friday afternoon in I’ll have enough for my lodge dues. Speaking of which I got my lodge newsletter today and, if all goes well, I’ll have my dues and enough to not only buy a book but also have enough for the festive board.

Good stuff.

e.Jim

It was warm
out there on my way in. I ended up with $344 on BOB and $50 credit cards getting the credit card bonus. So Rob’s shaking up management again. Mike and Greg running the evening shift now. We got out 10 min early and I caught the train strait home.

Earlier I worked on SO for a bit. I haven’t a solid premis for the story, just a vauge idea. The lead character’s name is Doc. I have 5 characters. The novel will be around 80K and 64 scenes. That’s about it. So now comes the brain storming part. Of course it’s speculative fiction, that much is obvious.

Beautiful out there, I went to take out the trash and a nice walk out back just in my t-shirt/pants. The temperature felt more like spring then going into October.

e.Jim

I've been
asked to place another link to "Crosshairs" on my Blog so here it is. I might even try and dig up some of those earlier stories and when I get a scanner, scan them into hard copy. A friend at work might be able to do this for me. This way I can get some of my stories as links in my sidebar. Something to think aboutl

But here's the story Crosshairs with a disclaimer. Poor formating issues might make the story more choppy then it already is. It's not my best story. I don't think I've done my best yet.

e.Jim

I went to
bed about 1am, listening to a bit of Coast and I past out. I did a whoping 5003 words on NW yesterday and brought me to 70,187 words on the story. I had to add some foreshadowing in there too so that 5003 word count was taken from the time when I marked my opening words (high light& bold underline)

Anyway, I went to bed at 1;15am something like that and I slept until 4:20am. I couldn’t sleep. Might as well read Bickham until Gold trails’ ,

The segment today was on Bill Miner, the infamous “Hands Up” train Robber. He was apprehended in BC in I think 1904 and died in 1914. Then the other segment was on the Hudson’s Bay Company. When they had places like Fort John, Fort St James, Fort Edmonton. those were really Hudson Bay Company outlets. Another great show. I mean I’m up at that hour anyway doing the cbi thing so what the heck right?

I was in bed by 6am but couldn’t sleep. I just rested. I came out to the living room to sleep with the TV on, but no way. I went back to bed and slept until just before noon. I slept okay for the news wanting to watch the markets.

This week is going to be a full week for me. I’m working every day this week so I can try and pay off my lodge dues. I’m onto my first coffee right now trying to get some energy going. Then I’m going to blog this and get back to work on NW.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim Shannon

Whew!
I'm exhausted. I decided to get right into my writing. I think it was around 4pm I started. I closed off a few minutes before midnight yesterday and I did a record 5,003 words on the day and I broke 70,187 words on the story. I had an amazing day.

Very tired.

e.Jim

Well that
was an awesome writing day. I ended up with 3069 on the day for Saturday and 65,132 for the story. Excellent, and it’s going really well too. I had a great evening. I got up from my nap, having 2hrs or so and watched the news. Anne made me a great cheeae burger and friesfor supper. I watched some TV and then went right to work on NW. I’m going to try for 5k tomorrow. Then 5K next Sat and the book’s rough draft should be done. Then I’ll put it aside and work on “SO” I hope to start "SO" or just SO by October 15th. At 10K/week another 80K book, should be completed by Dec 9th. If all things work out well, I should have a finished pNW product by April 1st. In theory that is. I'm going to really dig deap with this story exploring characterization language, theme, the works. Especially spelling.

that's all for now.

e.Jim

I got out here
okay with all my stuff packed and ready and had an uneventfull ride in. It was a beautiful day out there even if it was a bit on the cooler side for the last day of Summer. Doughnuts didn’t arrive until 5 min before the shift. I had a good start to the CHF campaign and there were only 5 of us tap shooters working the phones today. I ended up with a $960 day. Good stuff. Also, 2 credit cards, total of $75, so I got the credit card bonus 2 nights in a row. My back was really hurting me on the way home but I felt better at the set of lights before turning onto 137th Ave and I laid down for a bit when I got home.
So now, I’m going to go have a nap.

Hopefully.

e.Jim

Dropping off a
fast note here. I ended up going to bed listening to a bit of Coast last night. "Are we alone" (in the Universe ) hot line. Very good and if it wasn't for this damn Sat shift, I'd be up a bit longer.

So I past out and woke up about 4:30am this morning to get an early start on "Gold Trails.." I put my feet up and ready go. I past out again woke up and I slept through the first show. Rats. Not what I wanted. Eventually before the year is up I'm going to leave this Saturday shift and just work Mon-Fri. Except when there's a Lodge meeting. So, I'll be doing one Saturday/month.

Anyway, I went over to Keith's Sciencefictional and my story "Crosshairs" is still up. It's at the bottom of the page and has since I posted the story, 60 views. That doesn't mean 60 people actually read it. I think it would be useful to have the "read more link" take the reader to a page that has the rest of the story and each page its own stat sheet. For all I know, at this end 60 people read a bit past the read more and thought "crap" and went to do something else. But the story is still up there just the same.

e.Jim

I haven’t been
to bed yet but soon. Anne and I went into work feeling good. She got off at Central to go to Tim’s on her way into work for a coffee and doughnut. I got off at Carona and went into Audrey’s and finally picked up my “Scene and Structure” book. and another book by Allen Steele. “Coyote“. Looks interesting. I was happy with my purchase and headed to work sweating after coming up the escalator under repair and the stairs up to the street level and across the field.

Getting ready for bed now. I hope I can get a few hours sleep and watch “Gold Trail’s” at 5 and do the cbi thing and get a few more hours sleep in before work.

When I came in at 9:00pm I fired up the computer and worked a bit on NW. I ended up with 642 words. Not the 1000 I had hope for but I’ll make that up tomorrow. I’m going to go into work, happy and bring my tunes in and have my doughnut and coffee and put in a good shift. Then come home and hopefully have a nap and then go to work. on NW. I want to get at least 3k by midnight today. This way, I’ll be at 65k by Sunday And maybe even get 5k done for Sunday. Maybe I can have the rough draft completed by the end of the month.

I had a pretty good shift as well. We were doing CHF and I had a $125 sale and I managed to get $75 credit cards and a $5 bonus. I took the HS train home. I should have waited because that was a long train ride home. I ended up with a soar back on top of that as well.

sorry for any typos. I'll clean this up latter.

e.Jim

Well, I got
3.5 hours sleep before I woke up around 5:35am. I wanted to get up at 5 to watch Gold Trails’ but I got up a bit to late and watched the rest of the last show and a good ten minutes into that. Lillooet BC. Back in 1860 it boasted it was the largest community West of Chicago behind San Fransisco population wise. The town is still there today and one of the few surviving towns of the gold rush period. I watched that had my insulin and the rest of the cbi thing and went back to bed. I dozed in and out of sleep all morning. I think I heard Anne get up but I’m not sure. I woke up just after noon and the bus pass/cheque were gone off the top of the fridge, so she went and did our banking. Our weekly ritual. I watched a bit of the news and here I am.

It’s been overcast here for over a week now. Dull and gloomy. But I’m having my first coffee trying to wake up here. Eye floaters are bad today, but I’m just a bit blurry eyed this afternoon. Thank God for reading glasses.

Anyway. Still working on NW, I made a major writing mistake in the early go by not watching my scene word count. I can go under 1250 but not over. But that’s why there’s the rewriting process. For a 80K story/64 scenes, I went way over the 1250 word count for many scene. This is all part of the pacing process but like I said, I can trim off the fat in the rewriting process.

More later.

e.Jim

Yikes. I
began my writing right after the news after midnight. I ended up with 2536 words on the day. You’d think this was a weekend James.

I tried going to bed around 2:30am but sleep wouldn’t be my friend this morning. So I got up just as Anne came in. Coast had a great show on global warming. Personally I think global warming is part man and part nature. I wouldn’t say it’s all natures or all mankinds fault. Anyway, I had another great writing session from 4am-5am and went to watch Gold trails’ I tried to sleep from 6am but again sleep was not my friend this morning either. 6am rolled around and 8am rolled around. Nothing. I decided maybe if I slept on the couch watching some tv. I think I got an hour and then I passed out watching the news, maybe 45 min.

Anyway, 2,536 words for the day, 61,375/80,000 to go. Not to bad, I’ve got about another 30 scenes left to write.

A quick note of sadness here for Edmontonians reading this. Tuesday we suffered the loss of our old beloved weathreman Bill Matheson. Bill was a flamboyant well read weatherman and knew his stuff. He always entertained and brought wit and grace to whatever he did. Most of us here from the 80’s remember the Bill and Bill show. Bill Matheson and Bill Jackson. These two guys had a 3hr show called the 11-2 show. Local talk radio. I even called in a few times. My parents loved the show. So did I.

More later.

e.Jim

We went in
as usual. I went upstairs to face the music and had a chat with Will. All he wanted was a phone call. Show the guy sone respect. After all he did go to bat for me as far as the raise was concerned. Will’s a good guy. Anyway it was back to work as usual. I’m going to go in at my usual time tomorrow but Thur and Fri I’m going to endevor to go in earlierfor a couple of afternoon shifts. I’m exhausted and all I want to do is go have an early night tonight. We did BoB and I did $421 and a $30 credit card. JT was there. A pretty good night. Now I can relax what with all that out of the way.

Okay, 4.5 hours later from the above:

I’m missing my “Gold trails..” show right now because we’re having some kind of a problem with our set box digital cable. We've had this service since 2000. JT who has the same service says his sevice out there in Sherwood Pk is running fine. Anne called Shaw Tech support and they’re sending a tech guy out for later this morning. Good stuff. I want this fixed by the weekend.

Anyway I’m glad everything is going smoothly at my job. Two major items coming up within the next 30 days-I’ve got to get my AV subscription updated, asap. This means working more hours for sure now and so I’ll be going in Thu and Fri afternoon. And of course my lodge dues. I want to pay them off for my regular lodge meeting.

The Oilers won their third strait at Rexal Place this evening. They've got some prommising plyers and I hope they keep a few I like so far. Three games in three days. They play Calgary Thursday. I like Rob Schremp, Peter Sykora and of course Makinov. I'm glad the Oilers traded Dvorack though.

I had another break tonight because I was very tired and I listened to a bit of Coast. By 2am I past out and I only woke up around 4:30am when Anne came to bed. She’s going to do a bottle run this morning and I’m holding down the fort waiting for tech support. As for now, I’m going to see if I can get an hour’s worth of writing in. make up for lost time yesterday.
I think I got 464 words yesterday but I’ll make up for it today.

Hopefully get 2k done today. Let’s start the engine, ignition.

e.Jim

I was in
bed by 2:00am and listening to Coast. Psychic Vampires. Guest Michelle Belenger. The show wasn’t half bad and the guest wasn’t a “Yes man” just out to sell books. She had some substance. She performed with "death metal" bands in her area and flirts on the edges of the Goth type culture. I listened until about 2:30am and was fast asleep by about 2;40am and I woke up from a sound sleep when Anne came back to bed about 4am. So I got up to watch an hour of “Okanogan PP” Or OPP and then an hour of Gold trails. I did the cbi thing at 5:30am and after the story on “Trout Lake City” I was in bed by 6.

But I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. I was worried about work and taking those two days off but I needed a few days off from any intensive talking to recover from this cold.. So that’s what I’m going to say when I go in this afternoon. Rob and Will, will start yelling at me and I’ll be back on my dialer and tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.

I was going to get up at 8 this morning and head over to Chapters. I wanted to see if they had Holly Lisle’s “Last girl dancing.” I know it’s not sci-fi but I seem to recall when she wrote it and discused the progress of the book’s word count that it ended up at 65k. Yet Amazon lists it at 320 pages like I said earlier.Writing longer works like 100k is hard. Mostly coming up with content. 65k is “easier”

Anyway, I got up this morning around 8am and I got a bit of writing done. 412 words so far today. 57,450 on the story. I hope to get up to at least 58k by the end of the day. I think I’m going to scale this book down to 80k. Besides I hear that publishers like books from new writers to be in the area of 80-100k. I also heard that in the sci-fi area that an 80k story is easier to sell to a publisher then a 100k story. But in the end it doesn’t matter if the book is a 65k “Last girl dancing” or a Neil Asher 560K “Brass man” as long as it's a good story. But until I get something published and sell, I’ll write the light weights. Leave the heavy weight’s to the big kids.

Last night I watched Raw. Pretty good show. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate this one a 7. Is Cenea going to join DX?

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

I ended up
writing anyway with 530 words so far. I realized that Raw won't be on until 10:30pm our time and I won't get home until at least 9:30pm anyway and that gives me an hour of writing so I can put my 1000 words in at least.

Anne want's me to stay home tonight but I can reasonably justify staying home for Saturday but if I took off another day,I think I'd get some heat from Rob and I could possibly lose my job so I beter go in for tonight. Besides JT will be there and thats okay.

e.Jim

Well, the
Oilers had their first training camp season game last night. Playing in of all places, Winnipeg at the MTS Center where the Winnipeg Jets used toplay 10 years ago to become the Phoenix Coyotes. There’s been movement to try and get another team in Winnipeg and even Mario Lemuix had mentioned during the cba lockout that Winnipeg might be a good location for their struggling team to go to. That’d be great. If it could happen. But the game played there last night I believe lubricated the rusty wheels of further NHL expansion North, Creating energy and excotement is the first step to these kind of things. I believe that within five years from last night there will be a new franchise of NHL hockey back in Winnipeg. The Oilers won the game last night 5-0.

Anyhow it’s back into work today. I hope there won’t be any fallout to me not coming in for Sat. “I did say I’d ne at the lodge meeting on the Saturday,didn’t I?” Ahem. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Well, I reached 55k last night. That took a lot out of me and I think I might take a breather today what with going back to work this afternoon and Wrestling tonight. Anyway, I’m having my first coffee. Anne’s still sleeping as she doesn’t have to work today.

Tonight the Oilers will be at Rexall place, I forget who’s playing but everybody is keeping an eye on the Makinov fellow. He’s a big boy. Say that means because of the hockey game, there will be extra trains on for tonight. Good stuff.

e.Jim

Well I ended
up with 2670 words on the day. I also broke over 55K. 55005 to be exact. I had a pretty good run as well. More later on.

e.Jim

I took that
travel pill about 2:00am as we we’re in bed by 2:30am. I had another break last night and past out failty easily. I think I slept until 5am and came out to the living room to watch Gold trails, talking about the minning towns in Washington State in the late 1890’s near the BC boarder. Good stuff. Then they talked about this Victoria City minner MacDonaled and how when his bank was robbed in the 1860’s, he had to go up into the Cariboo country and repay the miners on site. I supose this was back in the day when they didn’t have insurance for things like that.

Almost all weekend lone star has had nothing but this "Magnifcent 7" movie. They ran that and maybe a few other shows but my Annie Okley show and others I like isn’t showing up on their schedual. But they were running "Magnificent 7" and it's sequel all weekend. I still have that travel pill in my system making me feel lethargic and slow. Anne’s cooking our brunch. Shephards pie tonight. She’s having Turkey. Yuck.

Anyhow, back to work on NW. Sorry for the typos but I'm really slow this afternoon. I'll go over this once more.

e.Jim

I had a
pretty good day today. I did some logging and I Anne brought us Chineese for supper. It was pretty lame. Also I ended up with 3,010 words on the day and at 52,305 for the day. Today, I hope to have another 3k. At this rate the rough draft should be completed by the first week in October.

Also today marks the 7th year of going into X. This almost coincides with my longest running job at the Army & Navy Dept store in the 1980’s. Coast is excellent tonight, talking about StarTram. Good stuff.

That's all for now.


e.Jim

Last night I
went into work alright but stiff and a little soar. I called Audrey’s to see if they had any books for me I could pick up but they had nothing on my suggestion list except Neal Asher’s “Gridlinked“. I actually had a better night pullling in $719 but no credit cards. I left out into a rainy September evening at 8:30pm and I bought “Gridlinked” and Charles Stross: “Acceleorando” I walked to Carona and a ride home reading Mindscan. Just about done. I’ll have it read by the end of the weekend.

The next 3 books for October will, be Joe Haldeman “Old Twewntieth” Robert Charles Wilson “Spin” and Charles Stross: “Accelerado.” I modified my sidebar slightly to include Stross and Wilson because Hogan and Asher, wellI’ve already read “Two moons,” well at least the novels not that I won’t be getting back to the eventually and Asher because “Gridlinked”, “Brass man”, “Polity Agent” share the same “Universe”. Not a Trillogy but I’m going to read all three, probably Nov./Dec.

Anyway I got home to an empty house and decided to get right into my writing. I ended up with working on NW and I completed 1178 words on the day/49,205 for the story. I don’t consider NW to be a novel or a book until it get’s published. Then it’s a book/novel. After a few more hours sleep, I hope to get right back into it and maybe put in 3000 words on the day to 53k.

Last night after ECW I asked Anne if I should take “today off.” They sort of (I hope) know at work that I had lodge to go to, this weekemd. So Anne went out to Walmart/McDonalds to get me a McGrittle but this McDonalds doesn’t have them. But I settled for a sausage Mcmuffin combo. It was tastey and now I’m going to go back to bed and hopefully get some more sleep. It’s a nice rainy day here in Edmonton.

e.Jim

I went to
bed about 2:30am but slept from 3am-5am. I got up to watch Gold Trails’ from 5-6. Good stiff. Then back to bed from 6-12. I think I had 8 hours sleep. That meant 8hrs of giving my voice a break. My voice is a bit better and I hope it will improve over the weekend.

Not much going on today. It’s rainy out there. I had my first coffee and my voice feels a bit better but I don’t know how it can hold up for 3 hours tonight much less for 4 hours for Sat. It’s going to be another tough going for tonight.

Tonight, I’ve got to call Neil and let him know I won’t be able to make it to the lodge aftter all for Sat. I wanted to but we’ve got another plan to pay the lodge dues for the next Oct regular business meeting. That way , that week, I can put a few afternoons in to make up for missing Thursday Oct 5th.

Seems we’ve got some snow in the mountains and even in Edson. It’s coming our way. We could get some snow mixed in with rain here over night. But we’re getting teeming rain now. Not this light rain stuff. This is thre real thing.

Ford is laying off 75,000 workers in it’s North American operation. They say it’s due to fuel costs and the competitive Asian auto manufacturing market. Ten thousand jobs are to be lost here in Canada and that’s going to take a huge hit out of the Ontario economy. I think it’s because consumers are moving away from gas guzzling SUV’s and the emergent hybrid vehicals that are slowly making their way into consumer driving habits. I think Ford is reacting to that.

This cold is really taxing my energy for more work on NW but I’m going to get into it when I come home after work. Since I don’t watch Smackdown anymore. I like ECW after the news. I can utilize that hour and put more energy into NW.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

This is sort
of a good news bad news kind of a post. I got off the train and it was raining on my way to work. I got the cheque. Good news: I got my raise and my stat pay. Bad news I’m missing $30 worth of bonuses because Rob said we don’t give bonuses for those that miss days. The thing is I got enough for my lodge dues. But barely enough and nothing left for myself.

Suffice to say, I’m not going to the lodge on Sat with just $6 bucks to spend. We usually go out to dinner in between rounds durring emergent meetings. I could call Frank and ask him if he’s going to be at the lodge meeting Sat. If yes, then I’ll ask Neil if he’s going. If yes all the way around then I could ask Neil if he can take the lodge dues in for me and pay on my behalf. The other thing is, I can work next week and go into the October meeting and pay for my lodge dues there in October at the first regular business meeting when I know Frank will be there. If Anne agrees to that then she get’s $140 and I get $56. Then that way I can go in Oct 5th. I’ll miss the Oilers home game and the Mark Messier retirement sweater thing but at least the ’06 lodge dues would be paid off. Also, if I go in tomorrow afternoon, doubtfull then I’ll have 25.5hrs in for next week. But I don’t know what to do with my lodge dues this pay cheque. I don’t even know if Neil is going into the meeting on Saturday or even if Frank will show up. The intangible factor was the bonuses. If I didn’t take Thur night off then everything would be fine but I did have the cold.

Okay we came to an understanding Anne and I that I keep $56 and she keep the rest but she’s going to hold the difference for me. Good, I want to get Bickham, Gridlink (Neal Asher) and David Drake "Seas of Venus." That should come to about $23 bucks. Hopefully for tomorrow. That way, I can order, Chris Roberson’s “Panagea”, Charles Stross "A glass house". DiChario "A small and remarkable life." So, i'm going to order those for October. For October I'm reading, Joe Haldeman "Old Twentieth", "Spin" Robert Charles Wilson, and David Drake "Seas of Venus."

Also, I ended up doing 2076 words on NW yesterday. I'm at 48,071 on the story. Well on my way to 50K. Over the half way mark. I'm going to try and close out a day early and get to 50k by today and maybe even 3k for Saturday. 53k and maybe even 3k more for Sunday. 56k by Sunday night? Maybe 68k by Sat? Possible. I might even have the rough draft completed by the end of this month if I can do 2k/day. First rewrite in October, 2nd rewrite in November. I might have a finished product, maybe January/February '07.

e.Jim

I didn’t get much
sleep last night, so I ended up working on NW. I closed off with a word count of 1,363 words so far on the day. 47,267 words on the story. I tried to go back to bed. I had an hour snooze and it was something like 3:55am when I woke up again. So, I got up to watch Okanogan Pioneers and places. An hour of that and then an hour of Gold trails and Ghost towns, talking about Headly and Midway. Facinating places. Durring the last half hour show of Gold trails, I did the cbi thing and went to bed about 6am. I was tired and past out fairly quickly.

I woke up shortly after noon and found Anne had left. It being a payday for us she probably went out and about to do her banking and shopping. I get my pay cheque this afternoon and I want to see if Rob put my raise through and to see if the bank report is in for bonuses. I probably won’t go in for the afternoon shift today but I’ll have no choice if I want to go in for tomorrow afternoon to make up for missing Sat.

The temperature certainly has dropped over the last few days. We’re down to about +9* C at the moment and my cold has come back again causing me some grief especially in my throat area. At least the coffee helps a bit. I just hope I can work okay with this thing tonight.

Okay, more details of that Montreal School shooting. The shooter’s name was Kimveer Gill and in front of the school where smokers stood he start shooting. It seems he ended up killing one student and injuring 20 others. This was about 12:40pm. Apparently Police on the street nearby were walking to another crime scene when they spotted this man with a gun and they traded shots with each other before Gill got to the steps of the school and shot at others. It’s a tragedy yes but not a Columbine style tragedy in terms of the amount of casualties killed. It could have been a lot worse then it did if the guy really did have others with him like the initial reports suggested. The guy was mentally unstable as it was anyway.

Coast had psychic Angela Moore on last night. Boring. Tonight’s show is a little better on Soviet UFO phenomenah with Philip Mantle. So this should be a good show. I got this from the Coast website. Another character claiming to be Jesus. Yeesh. Must be that time of year.

e.Jim

We went to
work uneventful. I got in as they were calling afternoon totals. We ended up doing HHF again and I did surprisingly well. I ended up doing $598. I sold 3 Upper gallery family passes. A couple of $50’s and a bunch of others. The bonuses were pitifull. $5 for things like first to $600, highest average sale, stuff like that but all for $5 each. Total of $20 bucks for the night. Anyway, I had fun. It was a good night. I got the Hsealth Sciences train or hs train and back to Clairview. It was a long wait and the train was late the driver said over the speakers because of some scavenger hunt going on tonight causing delays. They get off at certain stops and take pictures with their digital cameras. As my train pulled into Clairview this couple next to me were trying to take a photo of themselves in an awkward position. I offered to assist them and took their picture, being the nice guy I can be sometimes. My Northgate bus was waiting for me. There was a “brother” that befriended me that used to work at X a few months ago. I had a chat with him while waiting for the bus to pull out of the station and to my stop. Nice fellow. I got in at 10pm and fired up the computer. I had a nice evening out had some fun and made some money as well for me and for X. Everybody won tonight.

e.Jim

Yesterday afternoon we
went to work as usual. One of the trains heading to Clairview on the other track heading out of the tunnel was stuck. JT showed up and I sat next to me providing me with entertainment and I stayed at my dialer without moving to the front 20. Good. My first sale was a credit card sale as well. I knew I was going to have a great start to the night. I ended up with $383 and we did “Hockey Hall of Fame” all night. Most of which were semies. I was glad to get out of there and I stepped out to a rainy evening night with lightning and some thunder. Very nice. I got to the train platform a bit soaked and waited an unusually long time but all that came by was just one train car and it was packed! No room for me even for that. Cheap City. That’s the only thing I don’t like about Edmonton is it’s transit system and it’s so called services. Nickel and dimming people to death. I decided to wait for the next train (like I had a choice?) which had 2 cars on and plenty of seating space. I think next time if this is going to be a pattern from Sept-July, Except Friday’s, I’ll be catching the train to the Health Sciences Center and back.

And to add insult to injury the ticket police were out in full force. I got in and took out the trash washed up and answered my email and worked on NW.

After midnight until 2am when we finaly got to bed I had 1,371 words on for today. After work tonight I’m going to try and get up to 2K. Total words on the book so far 45,894. I’m already at the half way point of the rough draft. The story is rough and needs to be fleshed out but nothing short of a rewrite or 2 couldn’t fix. I’m a long way from a finished product though. I’m going to really work on this and make it the best novel it can be. I think I should have a finished product suitible for submission April 1st 2007.

The temperatures are really dropping just like the price of a barrel of crude oil. The news didn’t have time to show the markets this afternoon because of the shootings that occurred earlier this afternoon in Montreal. I don’t have all the details but it seems 4 gunman all white young males went into a lunchroom at Dawson School in the English quarter of Montreal and fired around 20 shots. I heard 4 are dead. I don’t know if this is a stand off or if all the gunmen shot themselves or what. Strange.

Anyway not a heck of a lot happening today. I haven’t broke the news to Will, that I’ll be off Sat but I want to do that tomorrow as I hope and I’ve been trying to get into the office early all week to do this. To work extra hours. If I can get in there tomorrow afternoon for the 1:30pm shift and then Friday, I’ll let Will know I’ll be off Sat. I want those lodge dues paid.

Anne earlier this afternoon went over to Wal Mart to cash in her reward points. She usually get’s around $50 every other month. They've been nickle and dimming her as well. That’s roughly $300 year in bonuses. I get a lot more then that. I’ve already received about $600 in bonuses. It's not a lot but I'll take it. At this rate I could hit up to $1,000 in bonuses by the ebd of the year.

e.Jim

I was sleeping
just fine until my snoring must have caused Anne to have had enough to shake the bed to wake me. It doesn’t take much to wake me when I’m sleeping. I knew she did it deliberately. I’m alright with it though. I was in bed by 1:30am and I passed out. I think I woke up at 3:45am as I notice Anne was still out in the living room watching a movie. I figured I’d fire up the computer and do some work in NW. Anne was in bed by 4:25am and I followed shortly after. I got 2 hours sleep and I was up again just after 6am. I went back to bed and other then using the bathroom several times I got 4 hours sleep. I guess I got around 8 hours sleep total but I don’t feel energetic and I still got myself a soar neck. But I don’t feel to badly at the moment.

I almost have the ambition to go into work for the afternoon shift. Almost but I’m up earlier then usual and I want to do some bloging and work on NW. As for now I’m enjoying a coffee and waking up slowly. I'll go in tomorrow afternoon.

Lone star and Dejuve went and shook up the television line up. Owned by the same company. So "Hogan’s Heroe’s" that had been on from 3pm while we had supper, is now on at 3:30pm. That’s the time we’re rushing out of here to go to work. But Lone star has “Bat Masterson” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” on but HGWT seems to be the only thing available to fill that half hour 3pm supper time slot. At least Lone stat kept “Gold trails and Ghost towns” and “Okanogan people and places.” Next year they’ll shake things up again.

Last night Raw had their 9/11 tribute, but it was a pretty good show. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it an 8. Coast had their 9/11 special on as well and I listened for a bit of this but I was too tired to listen to much of the whole thing. They had both sides of the issue come on to give their views. Both views from what little I did listen to had compelling arguments. Me? I go with the official version. No conspiracy nothing. Not to say I agree with Bush’s foreign policy and the war in Iraq etc but I don’t want to get too political or religious here so I'll leave it at that.

So next week is Oiler training Camp. They have that sought after Russian player what’s his name Makhnov? Something like that. The Oilers have gotten bigger on the wings and have signed Petr Sykora as well. That’s if these guys an make training camp, we should have a great team this year.

Anyhow, onto NW.

e.Jim

I’m drained out.
We went into work fine and well. I settled in and JT showed up. Good stuff. Hockey Hall of Fame, again, A mix of taps and semies. I had $270 by break. Bonus goal, $10 first to $300. I got that when a “select” few of us were asked to go over to the cheap seats. Uggh. I eneded up doing I think $122 over there. Let me tell you it was tough. I did a total of $398. Not to badly but again, it was tough going. I was really slugging it out in the trenches. Every call was China town and few spoke any English. I was glad to get out of there and I ended up with $398, I just wanted to go home.

But the air outside was very nice heading towards Carona station. Every time at that time of night when I get the train home, I get this old hag staring at me. She’s all crippled up but she’s got this ashen stare that just stares out at me. Really creeps me out. Very uncomfortable to ride the train home on. I normally would take the other car but because it’s back to school the lrt is crowded riding home. I sometimes can’t get a seat.

Anyway, I’m not going into work for the afternoon shift Tuesday. I will Wed, Thur, Fri. instead. In about half an hour I’m going to watch Raw.

That’s all for tonight.

e.Jim

What a disaster.
My sleep that is. I was in bed trying to sleep away and I decided well if I have to get up in 2hrs anyway I may as well stay up. So, I got some more writing done. I ended up with 1,483 on the day! I felt sufficiently tired around 5am and went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I kept coughing from this cold. I might have slept for an hour. I got up, back to bed up again. Kind of like that until 8:30am when I did get some sleep. I didn’t even hear Anne leave when she left to the Vegie mart. I got woken up out of a sound sleep when one of the cats jumped on me from the dresser and I just dozed off from there-and I got a full day ahead of me yet. Sure work is only 4 hrs but it’s all the rest in between.

Over the weekend we’ve had three homicides. That’s a record weekend for us, One of the murders took place in an apartment I used to live in. The apartment that I had my power cut off that Aug before I got to work at X Aug 2000. The murder that took place there was a young man native in the 2nd floor from across the hall from where I used to live. At that time that suite was occupied by this elderly fellow, I think in his mid 70’s. All he wanted to do was to play the organ. I never heard him play much.

But I recall how I used to take a power cord and run it outside my door to tap into the building powering the hallway. I had permission from Ernest who at the time owned the building. The news item showed the whole building but it’s a small walk up 12 suites, Two in the back and front. The news clip even showed my old place missing a balcony today, which it had then and today has an apartment name under the main window. It didn’t have one an apartment name at the time. I’m sure it’s that building because of the large longer building beside it. If not it’s the building (where the murder) took place right beside it. The other murder occurred not far from even here on Hermatige and 50th street. Two murders very close to home and the third occurred on the south side, a 20 year old woman in a Mercedes of all things. A Van pulled up some kids inside shot her from the passenger side window while a bullet grazed her front seat passenger. Another passenger in the back seat got shot in the throat and is uncritical condition.

Weird.

Anyway, I’m glad though I stayed up to do some more writing. I got a lot done and 43,201 and 3K done for the week. I want to get as much done before Saturday because I’ll be at the lodge Sat for both events including the festive board and to pay my lodge dues. Frank or no Frank. But I’d like to be at 50k Friday night. I also want to work 3 afternoons as well this week, so I don’t know how much writing on NW I’ll get done. But it shouldn’t hurt even if I put the extra hours in. So I want 31.5hrs in and Thur I’ll be saying to Will, I’m going to be at the emergent meeting for Saturday.

One thing about NW is it’s not broken. By that I mean the rewrite will be minor. I planned it enough where this is going to be a murky and not a dirty rewrite like the other attempts. But when they are done, I’m not sure how I’m going to approach the marketing aspect. Do I look for an agent? Do I submit to the big sci-fi three? Do I wait until S-O and D are also done? Lot’s of decisions. Speaking about S-O, I took a look at what I got and I have only a smattering of scenes. As for D. all I have is an inkling of an idea.

That’s about all for now.

e.Jim

I ended up
with 1,647 words on NW yesterday and I’ll be getting back to NW right off 41,177 on the novel.

So today is the 5th anniversary of 9/11. I was doing mornings when that thing went down riding the #120 into work. It was right on Jasper 101st I think I noticed a crowd gathering on the corner of A-Channel (now City tv) watching the monitors on the street. At that time I didn’t know what was going on as it was about 8:25am our time. It wasn’t until I got into the office I heard from Mark what was happening and even then I didn’t know the details. It wasn’t until the aftetrnoon when the Edmonton Journal brought out a special afternoon edition. Anne was working at the Legion at that time and I’d meet her there afer work and she’d drive us home when she had the car. We went to Smilies for Chinese and got all the details of the event. For the most part it was all rather anti climatic but not for the people that went through it. For the families of the victims and those that lived through that tragedy, the event may as well happened yesterday.

So guess what Coast will be about tonight? 9/11 most likely.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Who boy! It
was lights out for me about 1:30am. I woke up again about 4:45am to feed the cats and I went back to bed. I got up at 7:30am to do the cbi thing and back to bed where I slept until 12:30pm-ish. I think I got about 8-10hrs of sleep thanks to that travel pill. Anne says I was snoring away even a bit on the couch a few minutes ago while I was watching the Indy Race on ABC or what ever that was.

Coast had some guy talking about crop circles na dthen some guy called the calculator guy. What ever that was. I pased out around there. Anne’s making us a late Sunday brunch. I’ve got a bit if a stiff neck and still a rough voice from ;ast weeks cold. Other then trying to wake up here, I feel pretty good.

At 2pm I’ll be watching Daniel Boone eating brunch and then beack to the computer. Just some odds and ends here: My story “Crosshairs” now has 35 views. Third entry on the page. Atlantis finaly went up yesterday. Last week was the 40th Aniversary of Star Trek original series. I’ll be at the half way mark of NW this week.

More later

e.Jim

I ended up
with 2.561 words on the day for yesterday and 4048 words into NW. Whew. The writing started out slow. I put some music on and I got a real creative flow going. I just finished scene #24. I had a great evening watched the news, Annie Oakly and some supper. I’ve got a gravel and I’m ready to pass out pretty soon.

e.Jim

Going into work
was better then coming back. But when I got in, Will wasn’t there and it was a bit of a “slamoshal” getting organized. For the most part we only had 3 tap shooters there. Andrew, Don, and me. We had the monitor technician installing the overhead monitors. First to $600 =$!0 bonus. I got that after the 2nd half and the last hour we moved over to the other side and I got my original dialer back. To do semies and I was semi taping the semies and pulling off $30, $25, etc. My last hour totals was more then most other’s whole shift totals. I had top total at $704 on the day.

I was really glad to get out of there and on the train home but heading back these clods, a couple maybe my age kept on hitting me accidentally while I was trying to pass out. Pain in the ass. So I was a bit annoyed by that but I was glad to get the bus home and pass out. I napped for about maybe 2,5hrs and I feel okay.

Enough to go again, which means it's time to get on to meeting my weekley word count goal. That's all for now.

e.Jim

We went into
work last night, fine. I got my pay cheque and the bank report was listed and I got another bonus for next week. So that means that not only will I have my star pay but my raise and $25 in bonuses in there. I should have a nice hefty pay cheque next week. And I’ll be working more hours next week because I’m going to the emergent meeting next weekend. It’ll be fun. So for the first hour we did HOR small semies. I got 2 sales out of it. Then over to the Tap promise land and I did a lot better. I would have had maybe $500 if it wasn’t for wasting that first hour but the taps are drying up for that campaign. Anyhow just before the break I wanted to check on a couple of author books because I brought $15 with me so I called Audrey’s and I wanted to see if they have the Hugo award winner from World Con, Robert Charles Wilson. I haven’t read him before either and he’s Canadian. I went to Fantastic Fiction before I left the house to get some details. The novel he won the award for is called Spin. So I asked if they had a paperback copy for me, and yes they did. I also wanted to find out as an alternative if they had anything by David Drake. I’m looking for his stand alone novels. They did. I worked out the rest of the shift and headed over to Audrey’s and it was at the counter for me. Spin that is. I looked at the DD novel and I asked them to hold it for me until next week.

After that I headed to the lrt. The air outside was very pleasant. I found a seat to myself and pulled out Mindscan and began reading that on the train. Passing Stadium station I saw the overhead outdoor lights revealing their fans high up in their seats. Looks like they had a pretty good crowd out there for the Labour day Classic split between Calgary and Edmonton. I was anxious to see how that was going to turn out. I find it difficult to read on the train especially with the eye floater and all but I read a good two pages on the short ten minute trip home.

The air smelled good and there was a full dark full orange moon hanging low in the Eastern sky

I got home to an empty house which meant Anne was still at work. I fired up the computer right away and tried to finish the last of those thousand words. I did a bit over. I should be at the half mark by tonight. This weekend I’m going to revisit S-O, so I can get that ready to start in just a little over 4 weeks. I should also be thinking about getting another replacement cartridge for my printer asap. And I wanted to get a cell phone? Prioritize James. I’ll get the printer cartridge on the 23rd of this month. Almost on the heals of finishing the rough draft of NW.

Anyway, I decided to watch some Smackdown after all. Anne came in and made me a nice lunch and right after Smackdown, ECW. That was great. Especially the part about DX coming into wrestle Bog Show in a handicapped match. That was excellent. That was their main event and on a scale from 1-10, Id rate that show a 7. Even Smackdown was good. I’d rate that a 6.

I had a break as well and I was in bed by 1:30am listening to some Coast.

I woke up about 3:45am and I fed the cats and did a bit of work in NW and I went to bed by 5am. I slept until 7:20am, so I had a good 5.5 hrs and I can always have a nap when I come home. I hope.

Oh another thing about Robert Charles Wilson, he’s a year younger then I am and living in Toronto. Robert J Sawyer and Mr. Wilson probably see each other on a regular basis living In the same city. Well, not always. Toronto is a big City.

When I got up I fired up the PC and made a coffee and that takes me right back to where I am now. I did a bsl earlier and I was at 9.4. Kind of high but I expect that. Anyway, it’s off for my shower and the other half of the cbi thing and I’ll blog this and get all my stuff packed up and ready for work. It’s a long entry.

Oh and the Esks won the Labour Day split. I think the score was 35-25 or something like that. The Esks were on a terrible losing streak and a win loss record of something like 3-8 on the season. So the Esks coach and the team probably felt pretty good about winning one. Finally. There is still hope they can get into the playoffs.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Anyway I
went to bed about 1:30am listening to Coast for awhile and by 2:30am I passed out. I woke up a few hours later to the cat waking me up to be fed to do the cbi thing. I stayed up a bit after that to do some writing. I completed scene 22 and I’m happy with what I got with 633 words on the day so far. Another 377 yet to go for the day plus a little bit. Total word count 37032. I might even close beyond 38k for this afternoon. I went back to bed around 7am. Sleep came harder and I was up a lot to the bathroom but I got some sleep. I had a couple of dreams as well, which is a good sign I’m getting sleep. I might have received maybe 7hrs all in all.

Last night whole taking a break from my writing I came across a curious entry in Gismodo. Seems Google wants to listen in on what’s going on in the background. This way they can custom adds to your computer and or Google tool bar. I passed the link onto Robert J Sawyer see if he’s heard anything about this. If it’s a hoax or the real thing. Google is hoping it can hear your television in the background, so they can hear what kind of advertising is going on. The thing is this advertising is unwanted advertising. Because Super sweeper or whatever is on my TV in commercials of The Rifleman, doesn’t mean I want one just because I like some of Blondie’s music. One way or another. So I don’t know if this is something that Google would like to do but because there are FCC regulations etc, I don’t know. Seems to me this is kind of like an invasion of privacy. I don’t know how they can eavesdrop in the first place. All I can do is just disable the soundcard. It’s going to be interesting to see how this is going to turn out.

It seems space shuttle Atlantis on again off again episodes has reached the 5th installment of this little soap opera. Nasa is hoping for a 6th try for a launch on Saturday. I’m predicting a major disaster with this one folks.

Yikes, oil dropped by $1,09 today bringing the cost down to $66/barrel. I think this also reflected in the unemployment rate here increasing from something like 3% to 4%. The National average is 6%. I believe oil will drop to $55/barrel before it climbs back up again. Alberta claims only 1% of the workforce but is producing 40% of the jobs in Canada right now. I’m watching for an influx of positions at our office to fill up soon.

Anyhow, I’m going in at my regular time and I’ll pick up my cheque and settle into the job thing. Tomorrow I’m going to go out to Chapters and get myself a book or two. Just some stand alone novels. Nothing major.

But that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Anne came back
and bought us Dairy Queen double bacon cheese burgers. Very nice, I elected to stay home tonight. Anne left out of here shortly around 4pm. I did some Blogging stuff and called Neil but his wife answered saying he’s having supper and I asked if she could relay a message for me that I wouldn’t be able to make it in tonight at the meeting and to ask him if he could tell Fran our lodge secretary that I’ll be at the emergent meeting and I’ll have my lodge dues. So about 5:30pm I ended up having a nap. I decided to just leave the computer on. Anne had the AC on and the place was cool, dark and quiet. Just the way I like it. I think I napped about maybe 40 winks. Still I got up feeling good and worked on NW. Actually I got 1,356 words done on the night. Not too badly. I got some good stuff as well.

That's all for now.


e.Jim

Okay lets see.
I went to sleep at 3am and p by 4:30am. It was 5am after I went and done the cbi thing and I was in bed by 5am but having episodes of coughing and runny nose. I didn’t want to wake Anne up so I slept on the couch and woke up an hour later. I tried to sleep in bed but still coughing and I ended up back on the couch and slept until about 11:40am. The idea was to let Anne know when I’d be leaving to come in and pick up my cheque. So I did that and she says “Are you sure you want to go in today?” She was making reference to next Saturday’s emergent meeting to pay my lodge dues. I said yes, “I want to go down to the lodge tonight.” Then she jumps in and says. “well okay but I want to come down with you.” So we walk down in the hot sun to Clairview train station. I was sweating buckets. So Anne is nagging on me all the way down to Carona and she doesn’t have any cash. I had about $2bucks on me to give to her. I said earlier she can wait for me at Tim’s. I walked over that hot parking lot just a sweating away. Inside the building. Upstairs. It was just 12:55pm and most of the staff had left. Brian said I better talk to Rob. I went in his office and said I wouldn’t be here tonight and that I worked the whole shift last night. He was quite surprised by that in my condition at the time. And I’m thinking about going in when Anne leaves anyway. Let her think I’m home. I can do that. Then when she comes in tonight and if I’m in earlier, then great. I can still get my 1000 words done tonight. Or I can just go into the afternoon shift tomorrow. And that’s what I’m going to do instead.

Anyway, I didn’t get my cheque this afternoon and I walked back to Tim’s/Carona and Anne was coming out of Tim’s to meet me. I explained Rob wasn’t going to give out the cheques until later this afternoon. She got all pissed off and I explained how nobody got their pay cheques at all so far and they won’t be dishing them out until this afternoon. And I’m not going back there today. I’m going in for the afternoon shift though tomorrow, against my wife’s constipation. So because I was in Robs office I had everybody in there. Will, Tony, Brian even Andrew. He wasn’t very happy with me. So my plan backfired. I kept reminding Anne that she was the one that earlier said to me “Are you sure you want to go in there today?”

Yeesh. What I don’t go through with.

So Anne went out to get us burgers. Probably Dairy Queen. She’s going to work, I’m going to place a quick call to Neil asking him if he would pay my respects to the lodge that I won’t be in tonight but I’ll be a the emergent meeting next week to pay my lodge dues at the time. Type thing. And by working, Mon 4hrs, Tues 7hrs, Wed 7hrs, Thurs 7hrs, Fri 6.5hrs, that will give me 31,5hrs for the week. This week, 22.5hrs. After I pay Anne my share of the basics around here, I should be left with about $80 bucks just for me. And the next week, I’ll have $120 just for me. That’s if I work all those hours next week.

Don’t know if I can do all the hours but I’m sure going to give it a good try. I want a cell phone. Nothing fancy, Every cell phone has alarm, calculator and calendar. I think I like text messaging but Anne’s cell phone is an older phone and doesn’t have that capability.

e.Jim

I went into
work with Anne and feeling as ill as I was I went in and met Bart (The Big Boss) coming into the elevator. I said a few words and went to find someone about taking the night off. My voice was tight and I felt bad. “Ok.” So I went to give Rob the news but he was on the phone. So I left the building out side was Will having a smoke. “Ok.” So I was in the parking lot heading for the lrt and I heard this “James. James.” It was Rob in his SUV heading home and I went over and he pleaded for me to try and tough it out for at least the first half. “Sure, no worries.” I went backing the office and we did “Halloween O’ Rama” again and I did $500 by break. I said to will I’d stick around and work the shift as bad as my voice was. I didn’t want to let Rob down.

At break I was the 2nd highest total and Pat declined to take the off of going down to the front 20 to help the out. He asked me. “No thanks.” Five tap shooters late, Andrew agreed. The 2nd half was a bit slower as the taps ran out about 7:30pm. I had Greg sitting beside me and that made it easier and I came in at #2 total and a $30 credit card. Nice. I had a great evening all around and I’m glad I stayed for the whole shift. Everything is set up for me to go in and pay my lodge dues. For tomorrow and I’ll have enough for a beer on the side. Good stuff.

I’m getting up at 11am and I’m going to watch my shows and then head into work, pick up my cheque and come home. Anne might have a treat waiting for me and I can work on my writing and get maybe 2000 words done on today.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I went to bed
around 1:40am after sharing half a beer with Anne. I listened to some Coast but couldn’t sleep. Coast was really good last night, on UFO’s Richard Dolan. Good show. I was reading an article from the Coast website about abiotic oil and it seems that one of the huge advocates of this theory is that Jerome Corsi has discovered a large oil field 7 miles under the bedrock in the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t know if they have gathered samples to verify this but apparently if this theory holds could be bad news for Alberta down the road. But with the price of crude oil dropping down to $67 barrel US, it gives me pause for concern.

Anyway, the show itself was interesting but at 2:45am, I needed to watch HGWT and The Rifleman. But The Rifleman was a repeat. I found a rerun of Mash and watched that until 4am and went back to bed.

I got up at 5am and did the cbi thing and went back to bed again. Sleep didn’t come easy but I might have got maybe 6hrs. So I can’t complain. But even before this just around the news last night Anne offered me a break because she wanted to watch a movie on Space Channel.

Okay, So, that’s when I got to work instead on NW. I ended up doing 1,172 words on the day. Very productive. I’m at 35,014 words on the story and it’s only Wednesday. 40K by the end of this week is within easy grasp. I really should be looking at building a scene synopsis for my next novel "SO". After a week off, I’ll be hard at work on the heals of NW and that’s just 7 weeks away. I’ve got a rough idea by Chapter but I don’t write by chapter anymore. I write by scenes now, so "SO" needs to be fleshed out by the Thanksgiving weekend ready to go. Then I can work on the rewrite of NW. I think I'd like to always have a rough draft work in progress and a rewrite work in progress so I'm always writing new stuff. Two things going on at the same time. Well in theory that is.

I went into Audrey’s and picked up my James p. Hogan book "The Two moons" before work yesterday late afternoon. But because this is book #1 and #2 of the Giants series I’m going to read Joe Haldeman first because it’s a stand alone novel. I didn’t know Brass Man was a series until I went to Fantastic fiction. Right now, I don’t want to get bogged down in reading a trilogy. I prefer stand alone novels. So, I’m going to keep my sidebar as is for now but I’m going to get two other stand alone novels and augment the sidebar for latter. Neal Asher has one stand alone book “Cowl” and I might find that instead. As for James P. Hogan, I’m looking at his “The legend that was Earth“ So, If I get some cash next week, then I’ll go to Chapters or Indigo over here and pick them up if they have them then augment my sidebar. I will still read Neal Asher’s Brass Man trilogy once I have the other 2 in the series. Don't get me wrong. I like trilogies I'm just not in the mood these days to read one.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Yuck. Feeling
sluggish this afternoon. Still a bit blurry eyed but I think it’s clearing up. My left eye has been secreting some of this paste like substance, causing the blurring. And when I tub my eye it gets a bit pink. Now the only thing is, my voice is all rough and hoarse. So, working the phones tonight should be fun.

Anyway, I got up to watch HGWT. I saw The Rifleman from earlier but I ended up passing out on the couch for about an hour. I went to feed the cars and the rest of the cbi thing and by 5am I crawled back into bed. I slept okay after that, except for getting up to use the bathroom three or
four times.

Not much going on with Coast. Last night’s show was another soft topic: Reincarnation and Ghosts. I kind of sour on reincarnation. Here’s why: Every reincarnation tale or past lives tale, all the stories are, “Oh, I was a Princes to the King of Egypt.” Or “I was,” insert famous person here> Not once have I heard, “I was a truck driver hauling fruit in the imperial Valley in 1922.” “I was a farmer on a ranch in German in the 1800.’s etc.” “I was janitor pushing a broom in a store in 1960.” No almost all so called “Past lives” stories are about famous people. Or grandiose fantasies. I think I heard one reincarnation story where this caller said she was the daughter of this woman. I can’t recall the whole story but it seemed genuine. I know reincarnation is the process and past lives is after reincarnation. Where the soul (if we have one) supposedly finds a new host. Now I’m not too up to speed on this soul business and everyone has an opinion. Including mine. I heard it said that the human body is a few pounds lighter after death that may be true but there is no evidence that the soul even exists. If the soul exists at all, I’d say it is one of the properties of consciousness. Since this is a favorite topic of mine, I believe consciousness goes back to the Universal well called nonlocality. Is there any evidence for this? Bell’s Theorem seems to think so and Plato talks about this in his theory of perception. But I’m getting to deep here and I can go on and on. Maybe I'l write an essay on this whole soul thing. I'm kind of skeptical the soul ecven exists at all.

Yesterday I managed to do my 1000 words/day and I’m well on pace for that today. I already have 375 words in the bank and I’ll be doing more tonight when I come home after work.

e.Jim

Well Anne
went and waited for me at the bus stop bench. Very warm out there today. +30 for this time of year. I went in not feeling very well and I met Will saying I’m not well, obviously that I’ll try and stay for the full shift but don’t be surprised if I need to leave, if my voice doesn’t hold up. “Okay.” We had a short crew. More tap shooters then front 20 but I stayed after the 7pm break. I need the hours. JT was there and always a pleasure having him ride shotgun with me. We even had a go home early goal. $2,800 and we got just a bit over that. Rob came in. John was saying something like, he probably got kicked out of the house. LOL. But he posted the bank report temporarily and everybody ran to it but he hadn’t a chance to highlight the bonus earners. So I haven’t seen Rob on an evening shift for a long time and I wanted to see if I made bonus and say hi. “You got your raise.” That made my week. Great stuff. I don’t know when it will come into effect. So I’m glad I came in. Also I cleared it with Will to come in just for the 3 hours afternoon shift soI can get my pay cheque

RAW in one word tonight. Boring. On a scale from 1-10, I’d rate it about a 4.5. Sorry guys but tonight’s main event was boring too. Next week promises to be better what with Vince against Triple H.

Because of this cold I have a watery eye along with my floater causing me some blurriness. It’ll pass.

So, I finally got my raise. The official word from the boss tonight. So for the next little while, I can’t miss any of my shifts and I asked Will if I can come in for just Thursday afternoon 1:30pm-4:30pm. That way, Anne can come in at the office, pick up my cheque and cash it and I can go home and get a quick bite to eat and get ready and call Neil and see if I can get a ride in. If I can’t then I’m going to see about getting a lift from within the lodge. But I’ll call tonight just to make sure.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

I couldn’t sleep
so I decided to read. Reading makes me drowsy. So it was 3:50am and I decided, I’d only have to get up in an hour to do the cbi thing anyway. In my reading lately, I’m finding a lot of big name authors still use “Was.” but mostly in speach not in narative.

I came across this website last night on writing tips out of Vancouver and it talked a lot about the passive voice. It confirmed what I suspected all along about using “was” in speech only. But I think it's okay for non published writing like my Blog and my diary as well as email, that sort of thing but I can’t get to the site this morning but my internet is still up and running. The site also explained what narrative summary is and that if you have more then five of these would, could, had and a lot of others on a page your in trouble. Could be one of the things a Tor editor intern looks for right off. In reading the site further it also suggested until I can do it myself, to pay for editorial services. Waves to J if he's reading :-)

Good news today, my soar neck is gone. Bad news is I still have this cold. Anne encouraged me to stay home today but I have lodge this week and I want to atend that as well as the emergent meeting on the 16th which is next Saturday.

But as far as work goes today, I’m going to go in and try and make the effort. If I’m struggling then I’ll book off around 7pm and come home.

I stayed up reading late until 4am and went online for an hour. That’s when I found that site and I thought I “Saved As”. Guess not. If I like something I usually “Save As” right away. I’m sure it will be up latter today. The site also talked about avoiding gerunds words that end in “ing” and use verbs instead.

Wow, 67 page loads yesterday including 8 returning visitors. That's got to be a stat record.

About 5am I ended up doing the cbi thing and going to bed. I woke up just a little after 10am to where I am now. Getting my first coffee that sort of thing. So, now that I’m up a bit early, feeling fairly good, its time to Blog this and back into my writing. RAW on tonight.

e.Jim

Yikes,
I didn't realize I had so many typos in the photo Blog. I try and clean up typos when I can. Sorry folks.

I had a bit of ice cream earlier and went to my stat page. Wow, 7 returning visitors today to compare with returning visitors yesterday. It's like night and day.

At least so far it's been quiet around here this afternoon. My last bsl reading for the day and I'm at 11.8. Thanks to the ice cream.

e.Jim

I just came
off of a 2 hour power snooze there with the AC on it was very pleasant. I think it did a lot for my neck which is still soar there on my left. Anne’s going to give me an ice pack to sleep on tonight and that should help a lot.

I ended up completing scene #19 as well, and my 1000 word goal count. I’m on pace for 31K to be completed for Saturday.

But tomorrow it’s back to work with an unwanted guest called a cold. Sigh, I know. I can’t win for trying. Story of my life. It’s going to be a challenge on the phones tomorrow.

e.Jim

It’s like living under
a track and field course around here since July 1st, those people upstairs are nuts. Natives. Now don’t get me wrong. I like all kinds of people. One’s skin color does not determine weather I like somebody but natives out in this part the country carry a stigma. Because they earned it, perhaps unfairly. Natives (as we call them here in Alberta) don’t last very long at jobs and are mostly found on the street as street people, like in the US, so I’ve heard it said, that the prison population down there is mostly black. Here it’s mostly Native. Now back in 1997 with the Alberta Job Corp, I worked doing some work experience as a jack of all trades person at the Metis Association. These were very nice people and I got along with most of them. My first girlfriend here in Edmonton after Ellen was Kree and I lived with Theresa for two years. But by and large most crime in the City here is Native crime and that’s a shame because they’re nice people. Except for them upstairs.

Anyway I went to bed with a soar neck and that beer helped me to sleep. I laid on this small pillow a certain way and I believed it helped my neck. I still have limited neck movement.

My bsl reading for this hour, 10.0. Very high but it’ll drop down as the day goes on.
Having my first coffee here right now and brunch coming soon. Daniel Boone and more writing.

Right now I’ve got a scratchy throat and a runny nose. I’ve got this annoying eye floater in my left eye, Still dealing from the affects of cataract eye surgery as few years ago. Scoliosis with two metal rods in my spine, my lower back hurts like hell, diabetes where I have to take two injections of 18 units MPH/Toronto (30/70. My teeth are all rotting away. My front teeth have more holes in them then some of my plot threads. But, I’m grateful I live in such a great City like Edmonton. I have a beautiful wife, a lousy job, an internet connection that for the most part is always on. I get a pay cheque every Thursday, I have a roof over my head that my wife and I have been here for six years, I have 4 beautiful kitty-cats, I have a Masonic Lodge I go to once/twice month and even though I’m 55, I got a dream. So with all the above in mind, I’m a lot better off then most people. Lot’s of people at work for instance are jealous of me because I only need to work four hours/day but at the same time, I don’t have a lot of money. I think cash on hand I have some small change in front of Buddha and $100 for my lodge dues which I am really behind on. Stored away in a safe place.









And the lodge dues get paid this week. Thursday. Next week I'll have a bit more money thanks to the stat pay. But as bad as my life is, I wouldn't change a thing. All the money in the world couldn't buy what I have now.

e.Jim

Wow,
one of my lowest page loads/stats days in recent memory. Good news is I have 21 views on Crosshairs so far.

e.Jim

I’m revamping
most of the scenes in the book. I kept most of the beginning and the end. It’s the middle that’s going to cause me some trouble.

Before I get on with that, man what a lousy night. I intended to go to bed right after ECW.

I turned in around 2am and soon 3am. I was up heading into the front room to take over Anne’s spot on the couch to watch HGWT and The Rifleman. I figured I’d stay up until 5am to do the cbi thing. I hit the pillow, bedtime at last but I couldn’t sleep again. 5am, 6am, 7am So I decided to go ahead and see about resting on the couch and I did get some sleep. I went back to bed figuring I could get back to sleep from here. No such luck. I went back to the couch and got a few hours and a stiff neck on top of that. I tried to go back to bed but the people upstairs making too much noise and Anne was (okay to use here) making noise etc. She’s doing laundry now and went out to the vegie mart.

Just prior to that the neighbors kid was a running around and track jumping all over the place driving me crazy. So I slammed the door hard and fast. Since then nothing.

That was a productive day despite I had a soar throat and a stiff neck. I revamped all my scenes for NW. I also completed 1228 words on the day and 30,008 words on the week. Not to shabby. I think the whole novel should be about 85k. The rough draft should be completed October 9th of the Thanksgiving day (Canada) day weekend.

I hope

e.Jim

I went into
work with Anne feeling a little worn and a bitof a scratchy throat. I was almost half expecting to meet Rob in the office but he wasn’t there. I met Will trying to get my chair and I mentioned because we’re not in this morning Saturday (Yeaaaa) we’re not going to have our talk. So the small tap shooter crew we had moved over to the front 20 to do CCSD. Just around the break I mentioned this to Will and asked me to pause my dialer and join him for a talk in some of the other offices. So we had a chat. I told him Mark offered me a raise a year ago but I didn’t know what my bank was like. As I know now and I turned him down. Now that I know better and what other companies are paying and what’s out there, I’d settle for a dollar more then what I’m getting. He agreed to that but said I’m worth at least $2 more then what I‘m currently getting but I said I don’t want to push it. I also mentioned about the first Thursday of each month and I’ll work some afternoons. He wrote up a salary increase request for Rob and he said I might ot see it this week but the week after. Anyway, soar throat and all I ended up pulling in $220 for the night.

I left feeling good about having a nice weekend even though it is only two days I went home feeling good. Anne was waiting me at home and she was told how they canceled her shifts as well at CC and they tried to call her here at home but we didn’t answer the phone because we knew it was them calling to cancel her shift. So the Supervisor on her shift said they would pay her for three hours for making the effort to at least come down. That was nice.

I opted out of Smackdown this evening for doing my writing. And to have a talk with Anne. She bought us some beer as well for the weekend, Very nice. Audrey’s books called me and no doubt reminding me of the James p Hogan book and I’m going to pick that up around noon. I wish Anne would have given me the money earlier so I could save me a trip going back downtown.

Anyway, more latter.

e.Jim

I managed to
get some sleep after all from about 7:30am-12:15pm. I think I got 7hrs total. Well at least the rent is paid and hopefully Anne will get the bus pass.

I’m not sure what’s going on for my Labour Day weekend. Are we working Saturday and taking Sunday/Monday off? Or having Saturday/Sunday off and working Monday? I heard the later.

Anyway having my first coffee and about to do a bsl reading. 8.9 Not bad but it should ideally be around 5.5.It’ll drop between now and lunch.

I think Anne is doubly worried not just about our small increase but also the fact that her place of employment is cutting back hours. My place wants me too work more but we get these crappy campaigns. Last night I got a caller that hadn’t given since 1999 and it was $100 back then. So I got lucky and he gave $100. This was near the end of the night. I’m not breaking any stellar totals or anything like that, last night between BOB and St.Mikes, $658. Nobody broke a G.

Next week is lodge night and hopefully Anne will let me hold onto that $100. Watch because of the rental increase she’ll find a way to worm it out of me. If I can hold onto it between now and next Thur my lodge dues are paid up. Keeping fingers crossed.

Also manufacturers of big screen TV's will be loweing their prices sometime next year as much as 30%. Reason for this is the technolgy gap narrowing and over production. I'd like to see what the prices are going to be say in Feb after the Boxing day blitz. Most of these big screen TV's such as the HD LCD screens are hovering around the $2,200 mark for a 42" screen. Future shop has a Labour Day sale going on reducing the price by $300 to $1999. Still to pricey. Before I buy I'd like to see the price drop for around $1,000 for a 50" screen. Maybe by this time next year. Sorry for any typos taday.

e.Jim

Anne made me
a nice lunch and I watched the rest of the news. Okay, at work that punk kid Lance brags to me about my hourly rate. “Do you want to compare pay cheques at the end of the shift. I’ll embarrass you.” kind of talk. I shot back saying, “It’s not me that will get embarrassed but the Company.” So will was on the other side of the isle and I made my point to him and he said something like “We’ll talk about this on Sat if your going to be here etc.” and I think I could expect my hourly wage to increase. Since I haven’t had a wage increase since Glen was the manager. What was that 2002?

I went to Sciencefictional again and Crosshairs now has 15 views! I like that. Once I complete my weekly word count goal I’m going to go over the story again this weekend and take out all of the was/wasn’t in there and rewrite the whole story.

Seems like Scientology has something new called Super Power. Thanks to Coast to Coast for the link. Is this a scam or the real thing? I don’t know. My first encounter with Scientology came about with Richard Lord who in 1980 offered to be my unofficial “Occult” handler. Richard had been flirting with Scientology as well in the spring of 1980 and when I was recovering from breaking up with Ellen he suggested Scientology for me as an Occult primer. He might have thought I may be mentally unstable for working in the “Occult” because when he met me I was unofficially hanging out with Ellen. I became obsessed with her at the time. Richard during the 80’s, invested a lot of time into Aleister Crowley and since Ellen followed him, I followed her. But when Ellen got married in 1981 to Charles I continued flirting with Order Templi Orientis. Or commonly referred to as the OTO. So Richard even before I received my Minerval initiation in September 1981. But in August 1980, I took a Scientology free “stress” test. Then I went on to take one of their introductory courses. I believe the cost of the course to be $50 but I lost interest in the course after I found out how much the next courses were. I came in contact with Scientology again in 1985 when I contacted Reg Taylor. Reg at the time ended up being a big time Scientology fan and into Amway. That’s how I got into Amway through Scientology. Reg bought the tapes and the books and really got into the whole Scientology thing. Today he is one of Scientology’s local critics. When I came upon the Scientology link it brought back memories. Does Scientology have any value? I think so but be prepared like Amway to spend a lot of money to find out.


e.Jim