Tuesday, October 31, 2006

My wife must
have gone out earlier for groceries or something. She was gone when I got up around noon. Since it’s Toney Tuesday for KFC, she’s probably going to treat herself to that today.

Last night I didn’t get to bed because of al the sleep I had recently and all. So why not work on F? I put together an amazing 13 scenes in this mornings session and I came up with some pretty good stuff I think as well. I wanted to stay up longer but I was getting tired and around 4am I watched OPP but it was a repeat and I turned that off and went and did the cbi thing and went to bed.

So, Im having my first coffee trying to wake up.

Seems like a nice day out there. Currently -5 and sunny.

I’m considering a rants opinions page over there on my Geeklog website but I don’t want to get to caught up in that. But rather then long preambles, I can just direct people to a link, I wan to do some website stuff once I have a better handle on my vision woes,

Speaking about which yesterday just as I was starting my blog rounds I came across Robert J Sawyers blog (my opening blog rounds) and he had a post about his friend Howard Miller. What Mr. Miller did was inspiring and gives me some hope if indeed I go blind. A prospect I may be faced with if I have MD.

Anne is back from her excisions. Out feeding the birds.

Our staff Christmas party is Nov. 22nd. This year at the West Coast Terrace in. Anne says she’ll come along with me it’s on a Sunday. but we don’t know what the times yet and weather there’s tickets or not or other pertinent details

Tonight, there’s no wrestling even though I did enjoy Raw last night. They’re going to have their Cyber Sunday coming up this Sunday and I’m looking forward to that. Also, last night on Raw, they introduced something new, voting for their main event over text messaging on the cell phone. It was John Cena against big Show, King Booker, the Coach. So over a million votes just prior to the main event. Cene against Coach. As far as I know, this is the first time since the cell phone generation during a live event that people got to participate in the direction of the show. I think instant messaging is used in some of the other shows as well as part of the show outcome. It’s kind of like taking a poll. People use them in blogging as well (polls). See SF signal. Interesting stuff.

The Hubble Space telescope will get an extended life as a shuttle mission will be launched to upgrade the telescope but that wont be until 2008 sometime.

Some medical news recently about anesthesia awareness. This happens when anesthesia doesn’t work. There ws a case here on the news where a fellow was going through nasal surgery The anesthesia apparently didn’t work and he was awake for most of the operation and apparently blacked out from the pain. Anesthesia affects 1-3000 cases and is very rare. This one woman in London England had stomach surgery and anesthesia failed to work on her and she was aware of the whole 2.5 hour ordeal going through all the pain from the operation. Pretty scary stuff. My little Hollowe’en story for today.

Anyway, have a safe Hollowe’en everybody. See you later.

e.Jim


Raw was
pretty good last night. So it's off to bed in about 30 min and listen to Coast. The only good show on Coast this week is on Thursday. UFO's and the Military. Mainly because it's Halloween week.

Sigh.

e.Jim

Monday, October 30, 2006

Coming off
Carona station there it was very icy. Work was slow and hard the first half but I bounced back in a slow tough "Magic & Miracles" campaign. This new woman across from my dialer was racking up the totals left right and center as most of us were struggling. We think shes writing wood. Sending out “information.” She’s been asking everyone for money to borrow. Finally she asked me,. I said. “Do I know you?” and she was p'od at me. Like I got money t burn? Yeesh. Now I can see it for people I knowand if I have it to lend. But of all the nerve. At break I was $112 bucks, It wasn’t until after I did well, semi taping the semies. I was glad to get out of there when I did with $307 by the end of the night. I walked around the other side of Jasper Ave and came out that way back to Carona and home.

Earlier just before my shower I did some more work on the latest novel. “F” I don’t like to reveal the title until the rough draft is done or at least until when I’m there to send something out. When I break out as a pro, then it’s okay to reveal the title. But I improved the story a bit more. I try to make t stronger each time. But for now it’s time to unwind and watch wrestling. If it’s on.

e.Jim


I was in
bed by 1:40amish and listened to the rest of Coast. Good topic. I don’t know if I believe in alien abduction. Though there have been some suggestions that after abductees have been taken above average amounts of dust has been found in their house after the incident. Then I have to ask the question, why would an advanced civilization travel many thousands of light years to spend billions of ET bucks, just to abduct humans? Doesn’t make sense. Sure, I can appreciate an ET society that might want to make contact with earth to figure out how the human body works to be able to live on this planet so they can (ET) do it to, Or maybe they just need the information so they can make physical contact with us.

But there have been hundreds of cases over the many years of abduction. Is it the same alien race doing this or others? If abduction is real, then this is a National Security issue of immense scope and proportions. But the same race of ET’s that have the capacity to travel all these light years and to spend the money to get here must have the technology to perform scans without abducting? Or have the ways and means of finding what their looking for without these crude methods. To travel here these many light years these ET’s would have to be at least a type 2 Kaku civilization. So why employ type 0 (us) methods to gain information about us humans? Doesn’t add up.

Anyway, I was asleep by 3am and I got up at about 6am to do the cbi thing and I went right back to bed and to sleep. I got up at10 am when one of the cats jumped on me but I got 7 hours sleep and I can’t complain about that. Right now I’m enjoying my first coffee and my wife has the day off. I’d like to have the day off as well but I’m going to the lodge Thursday night.

I also added yesterday to my list of blog reading links “Dial B for Blog.” I love comic books and I wish I had more money to spend on them even as a middle aged adult, I still love the art and the stories are pretty good too. But the last time I bought a comic book was many years ago. Most likely in the early 1980’s. It’s not that I’ve outgrown them its just that I couldn’t keep up with the many titles that have flooded the market and other things in my life over the years have put comic books on the back burner. Also the expense has been a concern. I couldn’t keep up with the rising prices back then. A comic book here in Canada today is what,$2.50? I had about 50 titles when I was reading them in my early 30’s. I was spending $62/month back then I believe. Now if I bought 50 titles/month today, That’s about $125/month. That’s (if I had one) a car payment. And that’s not even counting the gst. So today, it’d be mainly the expense of keeping 50 titles going at any one time. Or even 30. Hard to justify picking up the hobby again but I like to keep that link with my comic book past and that’s why I included Dial B for Blog in my list of links.

Yesterday I was able to get another scene in for NW. Scene #50. I’m learning some good stuff about writing fiction in Bickham. He talks about a scene shouldn’t have anymore then 2 Viewpoint Characters (VC) at any given time. I don’t know about that. In some of my scenes I’ve got a lot of people that are in the scene but they’re not doing anything. They’re not involved in the main conflict just along for the ride. For example in one of my scenes I’ve got it where the main VC is behind a billboard sign and the lead character is in huge trouble on the wharf below. She’s the one talking but the main VC is just listening because of the sign, the main VC can’t see what’s going on because the sign is keeping her hidden. Of course that’s her main plan. Until she’s ready to expose herself to the lead character in the next scene. This a speculative fiction story. In the next scene the VC changes and the VC will become the lead character and so on. But there will be other decisions and changes to make when I do the rewriting.

So, that’s about it for now. I want to post this and make my blog rounds as I’ve got about another hour left here before work. See you later.

e.Jim

Sunday, October 29, 2006

I took
this image about ten minutes ago
showing the aftermath of the


snowfall we had over night. There's a good four inches of snow on the ground which is really unusual for this late in October before Halloween. This shot was taken right behind our place. To the left is our apartment building.
It was still snowing when I took this image.
e.Jim

I went to
bed about 1:30am ( after I fast blast Coast) about what I thought EVP’s are. Basically there’s nothing Supernatural about them. EVP’s are snippets of time. in the space time continuum. They are more or less restricted to their locale. What the guests of Art’s show were hearing were voices from the past in our own real time. Kind of like a bubble or portal I like the bubble concept. So even though the incident took place maybe 100 years ago we are experiencing it in real time with equipment we have to day they didn’t have. Since they (EVP’s) don’t have this equipment they are unaware their own time/EVP’s exist. Same thing with ghosts. I think ghosts are really blurred physical images in the space time continuum. Ghosys images could exist even long after their dead counterparts because the image is captured in the bubble of the space time continuum. Anyway, that’s my explanation behind EVP’s and to some extent ghosts. This isn’t anything new I thought up. One of Aleister Crowley’s contemporaries, Alice Bailey wrote extensively on this topic many years before me. A word about her work: Its deep stuff but very interesting if you can get past some of her “racial overtones.”

Anyway I didn’t listen to much of the show. Tonight is on alien/et evidence. Good stuff and there is a UFO show coming up this week. I slept from about 1:20-5am and I did the cbi thing, groggy I went back to bed and I slept until 11am.So, I had 3.5 hours and then another 8 hours after that plus the nap I had yesterday afternoon. I’m all slept out.

Good, my wife’s doing laundry brunch coming up soon. I’m having my first coffee trying to wake up here. So, I’ll post this and make my blog rounds and see what’s up in the blogsphere.

e.Jim


Saturday, October 28, 2006

I got
out to a snowy early winter morning and took the bus to Clairview lrt. Some sops and starts in the subway tunnel and I got to Tim’s and ordered the 3 dz donuts. It was kind of tough going across the parking lot but I slowly made my way to the office. Success.

Work went by just fine. Edgar was their even Carl. Carl and I got into talking music and he said he turned 55 in May. Someone my own age there at last.


Hey, hey. The Oilers won again tonight and have a 6-0 record at Rexall this season. Best start in 20 years. 4-0 as Roly got the shut out and Ryan Smith led the scoring. Not only that but Calgary lost. Hehehe. Other then the snow, a great weekend. I had a nap when I came home and slept for a few hours and I feel pretty good right now. Bedtime about 2am and Anne and I will be listening to Coast. A very nice way to round out a stressful week.

Also, I had a pretty good day on the job making line hour and just $25 away from $800. Not to badly. Other then the snow and my vision woes, this week was alright and this weekend looks okay well.

e.Jim

Didn’t think
we’d get our first real snow so early. I woke up 30 min ago as my wife was watching movies all night on the couch. That’s okay she doesn’t have to work for a couple of days. She’s a bit annoyed where she works. Nobody talks to her there. She needs a new job. Most of the people there are younger then her anyway and she understands that. So she went back to bed and I got up having had 9.5 hours yesterday and 5 hours of sleep over night Fri/Sat. So I figured I’d get up a bit early have a coffee and read Bickham for awhile.

My main project this weekend is to install Shaw secure. Once that’s up and running I should expect a flood of a weeks worth of backed up email due to issues I'm having since I installed NAV. Probably too many firewalls competing with each other is my guess.

Then I’ll be doing more work on TBC and fleshing that out. I might not be ready to write it until December 1st or even into the new Year. January first most likely or during the Christmas break. After that I’ll write S-O. I’ll be hard at work with NW anyway over the next few months. I’ll probably begin work on the third part of AV and add more to RB and work that for the remainder of the year.So no doubt I'll be writing TBP and S-O in the first half and AV and RB to round out the rest of the year.

As for today, I’ll be heading out of here in a few hours and into work to pick up the staff donuts and work out the 4 hours and home by about 3pm. If I’m up to it I’ll be installing Shaw secure and get that out of the way in the afternoon. I was going to save the last few scenes of NW for a long weekend but I think instead as I’m closing in on the finale leg of the novel, I’ll be writing the rest of the scenes for NW this weekend. Also there’s an Oiler hockey game on tonight.

Speaking of sports and stuff, I watched ECW just before bed. My wife had a big project cleaning out the aquarium tank and that’s when she decided to watch some movies all nigt/morning. When she was coming back to bed, I got up for my day.


If I end up with full MD then I probably won’t be able to watch much TV if all I have is my peripheral vision but if that’s clear then its better then nothing. I’ll be able to still go to lodge and even read out of the corner of my eye. But I don’t think it is MD as my vision is just blurred. I think its that scar tissue built up on the membrane is all. I'm not a Doctor, so I can't say for certain. But if it is MD, I’ll even be able to watch some TV out of the corner of my eye. Hockey will be hard to follow because it’s so fast paced. But if I can see the whole TV screen even though my central vision is gone I might even be able to see at least the edges of the picture and still get bits and pieces of what’s going on. It might be like watching a tennis match. Same with wrestling.

I recall back in 1989 when I was working at Rainbow productions before computers took over telephones in call centers. There was this woman, She was visually impaired as well. I can’t recall her name but she used this large over head magnification screen. Of course at that time Rainbow productions had all their files on index cards, nothing but scribbles and years and dates of a crossed out confirmation of a sale. I don’t know how long she continued to work there because I was over and done with Rainbow productions in the spring of 1990. I think I worked there for a year and most likely Mike is still running that campaign somewhere. That was the year I was trying to get out of call center work and on AISH. No such luck. Also too, I could still work on the phones, I’d just work hard copy and dial manually. But if I do get MD I’d rather be on AISH. AISH would even pay me more then CPP and cover all my diabetic expenses. Of course AISH is no substitute for losing my site. So, that's about it for now.

Anyhow, more latter

e.Jim

Friday, October 27, 2006

It was nice
going in. We did Alberta Easter Seals. I was training and ended up doing $435 on a slow Friday night. Anyway, I was glad to get out of there at 8:30pm and it was raining when I got out and through the parking lot. I waited for the train. Three cars on the train tonight, because of the last Eskimo football game of the season. First time in 34 years they failed to make the playoffs. When the train got out to Clairview just after 9pm the weather was a mix of rain and snow. To warm to keep on the ground.

I came in the door just after 9pm.

I was informed at work this year we could claim bus passes and bus tickets. I spend $60 month on a bus pass, That’s $720 year on taxes. I think we can still claim it as long as we’re not being audited. That also goes for bus tickets as well. My wife uses 2/day. Anne tells me she spends $9.month. This is $1200 year we can claim on our taxes. Plus I can claim out of pocket medical expenses. I spend $60/month on insulin, that’s another $720/year. That doesn’t mean we’ll get that back, it means we get a % back. But if it puts 2-300 back into our pocket in our tax return, then excellent. I’m all for getting an annual tax return.

That’s what I like about where I work we get to meet some interesting people. I met my wife this way.

Another thing I discovered are prepaid Visa credit cards. These are relatively new as well. I’ve never bought anything online before but this is a great way to do it. I’d only buy anything online if I trust the vender. Also, obtaining a prepaid Visa improves my own credit rating. Something to think about.

Anyway, that’s all for now.
e.Jim

We went to
bed this morning about 2 am. I fell asleep by 2:30am and woke up suddenly at 4am. I figured I might as well get up and put my feet up on the coffee table and watch OPP. Another repeat. I dozed in and out of sleep and I woke up to GT 2 minutes in progress. So I had an hour "sleep" on the couch did the cbi thing in between commercials. Topic today was on Grand Forks in the Kootenay’s. The town is still functioning with just over 4000 people today. I didn’t stay up for the 2nd show so I went to bed at 5:30am and slept until 12:30pm.That gave me a good 9.5 hours sleep. Wow. Now watch, tonight and over night I’ll be wide awake.

Anyway, I’m onto my first coffee

Looks like a nice day out there +6* We’ll be heading off into work at out usual time and I’m off work at 8:30pm (big deal) One things for sure, I’m staying away from those donuts Sat morning.

Also last night I worked on some more scenes for TBC. I was considering changing the title to Zyphrium Rising. That was the title of the first novel I ever tried to write on my little portable typewriter at Cobogo and home in 1986 I believe. So here’s a bit of a short history on me: That was when Chris and I were trying to become writing partners before she got mixed up with Rob Stevens (now dead since 1999.) In 1989 I wrote Meltdown and I still have about 250 pages of that lying around here somewhere on hard copy. I’d need a scanner to scan that back into the computer. “Meltdown” was a convoluted mess anyway that went nowhere. In 1990, I wrote another novel called “Gems at Oriels bridge.” But then I got distracted by Mary. Then in 1991 I got involved in submitting short stories to “Writers of the Future” contest and had a go at that for a couple of years until about 1993. My first story got accepted but never saw print was “Earth Tones.” The magazine was a black and white zine but if the story did appear in print and I had the capability to get it there would have at least if anything stroaked my fragile ego at the time. I was really turned off by the long convoluted contract. Anyway Chrisy and I never did get that writing partnership off the ground. I submitted a story to a market (can’t recall the name) but I got a short scribble from Orson Scott Card, on the rejection letter, which surprised me.

I got mixed up in Amway in 1996 and ruined the next 3 years of my life. My Amway sponsor kept telling me because she was brainwashed herself “You can write when you go diamond.” What a bunch of crap. I was unemployed and she abandoned me in the business in 1999 and I was left on my own. I continued on. In 1998 I got my picture taken and on the front page of the Edmonton Sun newspaper Dec 12th 1998 but that's another story. In 1999 it was more important for me to find work and I ended up with Alberta Job Corp. I put Amway on hold and subsequnetly my writing on hold as well. AJC was little more then a make work project for people on Welfare. My writing stalled. Everything stalled. After that I found employment working for a security guard firm that laid me off in Feb of 2000. This is when I should have migrated to where I am now.

I got hired on to where I am now and that was in Sept 16th 2000 and that’s where I met my lovely wife. The best thing that ever happened to me was marrying her. I officially quit Amway in 2001. In 2002 I got into Freemasonry and took my EA degree, 2003, FC, and 2004 MM. That’s when I had developed cataracts and diabetes.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Anne and I
went into work. I met her just coming off the bus and we went to catch the train into work, I got my pay cheque and had a pretty good night, doing $470. I got a $175 sale as well and last year it was on a credit card. No such luck this time. The Health Sciences train came bt and I caught that heading to the South side and I caught a glimpse of the train coming my way and it had two cars on the tracks. Mine had 4, So I think they alternate them, 2/4 kind of thing. I got home just before 10pm.

So I’m going to watch the news have some lunch maybe uninstall NAV and get Shaw Secure up there instead. So that’s about all for tonight. Oh, I got my pay cheque tonight and a $20 bonus in there as well, I wasn’t expecting. At least all our bills are paid up and we have the rent covered for next month.

My vision at work hadn’t changed at all and that’s a good sign. Also, I can get stronger reading glasses as well in the meantime. The ones right now, aren’t too bad but my wife says they got stronger ones at the Dollar-Rama across the street.

e.Jim

This is interesting
MD is a long term (in most cases) effect over many years. It doesn’t happen over night. If indeed I’m diagnosed with MD. I still think it’s a Yag laser treatment and my Doctor is having trouble seeing back there because of the Yag thingy.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Sorry for any typos.

e.Jim

Last night
we got to bed about 1:20am, and I fell asleep about 2:30am listening to a bit of Coast. Good show. Now tonight we get ghosts stories and open lines. So I think I got a few hours sleep and I woke up just around 4:30am to watch some OPP and both shows of GT. I was in bed by 6am but I got a headache. I think partially this was due to the strong lights the Doctor flashed in my eyes and the eye drops etc from yesterday.

I worked some more on TBC last night before bed and my wife is right, that’s a lousy title. For the novel. After all, it's a working title only.

If worse comes to worse and I end up going blind, I can still write, I can get the program called Dragon Naturally Speaking. Lawyers and professional people have been using it for years. I’ll probably have to find a way how to convert that to Brail. But that’s the ultimate worse case scenario. I really think all I have is scar tissue built up on the membrane and a Yag laser treatment will take care of it. The best news yesterday is the Doctor said it that what I have wasn’t urgent, which accounts for why the appointment is Nov.20th.

Ahh, coffee time. My first coffee of the day.

Now it seems we’re going to be going back to daylight savings time after all. We set our clocks back Oct.29th. So instead of the Sun setting around 6:10pm here, it will set around 5:10pm. The Sun sets at its lowest point Dec 21st. After that we gains 2 min of light each day. That’s the way it should be. I’m used to that None of this late Nov stuff so all of North America is on the same page.

So Anne got her pay cheque today and her sisters money and I’ll get my cheque We got 3 cheques today. Woo Whoo. I love it when everything comes together. I just need to work more hours now that my future health wise is a little uncertain. If this is full MD then I’ll have some challenges ahead. As long as I have some vision left, I’ll still be able to go to lodge. But if I do have fill blown MD, I might get an AISH pension. So, I’m going to post this and try to find more information on MD.

More later.

e.Jim

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Okay, they're
tied at 1 each in Anaheim. The Oilers are looking pretty good. So in between hockey periods my wife has got the daily vacuum cleaner going.

I was thinking if worse comes to worse and I end up getting full macular degeneration, I'll at least have about 20% of my vision. I can still write even though it would be a huge hindrance to do so. It be like looking out at the corner of your eye all the time.

Another thing, as for my NAV woes, I'm going to let NAV 2006 run out its last 10 days here and then I'm going with Shaw's Secure. They have their own security services equal to Norton . I knew of it before but I didn't think my systems requirements (when I had my old W98 machine going) would support it. I didn't think I had enough Ram. I can certainly support it now. Not only that but it's a "free" service built right into the cost of my ISP bill.

The Oilers are in trouble, down by 2 in Anaheim. But never count the Oilers out.
That's all for now.

e.Jim

We went into
see my ophthalmologist and he said I might have early symptoms of macular degeneration. Maybe. He’s not sure but he’s sending me to a Retina specialist Nov.20th. It’s not urgent. Basically is an eye disease that blocks out central vision. So it’s like I would (assuming that’s the problem) have a blind spot in my central vision. Not good. But there are ways and means to treat it and even slow it down. It’s not a returning of a cataract because cataracts do not return. I think it’s that Yag laser treatment. It’s hard to say at this stage. But anything is possible.
Anyway, we came back from the office and got that taken care of. It’s really nice out there. I’m a little worried about my vision but I’ll know more details in a month from now. But whatever the Dr suggests I’ll have to do.


Okay I didn’t get much sleep. I went to bed about 2am and dozed off as I tried to get back to sleep but failed. Worried about the appointment didn’t’ help. I wanted to stay up and listen to Coast for the first hour about the Hubble Telescope. It seems Nasa has approved a mission to have it serviced with new cameras etc.

I was kind of hoping there would be an Oiler game on tonight but it’s not until Thursday night.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e.Jim

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

It was
really nice heading off into work Temps about +13C on the way in. So JT was there to keep me company. I had this Plem in my throat and nasal area all night bugging the hell out of me. I ended up doing $310. Most of us were really po’d with Rob raising the line hour up to $300 making any bonuses out of reach. So basically that’s $1200 on mostly semies all night. Even the front 20 had their line hour increased to $75 and that’s $300/night. So in other words no bonuses. JT made a good point to me in that he asks for credit cards because he takes some pride in his bank. I like that.

Anyway, I was glad to get out of there a bit. That place is really annoying me. I’m just glad I’m off tomorrow and I don’t have to put up with that bs anymore until Thurs. The only thing we get is bank bonus and I’m sure Robs trying to see how he can screw us out of that. Tomorrow is my Doctors appointment at 1pm. I’ll try and get some blogging in before I head out.

e.Jim

I took the
gravel pill just after wrestling and I was in bed at 2am. I fell asleep by 2:30am. I slept from there until 6:30am and I got up to do the cbi thing and I went right back to bed. But during those few minutes during the cbi thing the drowsiness from the pill wore off and when I climbed back to bed getting sleep after that was tough. I mostly rested and dozed off here and there. If I didn’t have to get up to do the cbi thing I would have slept right through. It’s that little extra change I do to get up in the morning to do the cbi thing that ruined my sleep. I think from now on, I’m going to take the pill after the cbi thing which I usually do about 5am.

Anyway I‘m still working on TBP (working title.) and I‘ve almost got the first 20 scenes more or less down. At the moment I’m having trouble with my NAV program. It says I have 12 days of use until I activate the program but it wont let me get beyond the activation screen where it says Next. I just get the mouse cursor hourglass on the dialogue box. The mouse cursor will let me close the dialoged box but when that happens I get another dialogue box that pops up saying to send a program not responding to Microsoft. The NAV box meanwhile is still “processing” the Next step. It lets me continue with my regular work on the computer but it won’t let me activate the program. And it’s not just me. Amazon reviews of this program are saying pretty well much the same thing. I’ve got their toll free number here (well I think it’s toll free) but since we don’t have a phone just my wife’s cell phone it would take up a lot of time to get their tech support ar Symantec to resolve the issue. Even then I’ve been reading about how people are having huge problems with this program. I’m trying to save up some money so I can get $ NAV 2007. A word of caution NAV fans. Don’t buy this product. I used NAV 2005 and it worked great. I don’t know much about 2007 but that’s the one I’m going to try and pick up. In the meantime I’m going to try and download “AVG Freeware.” It’s good for 30 days free but after that it gives very limited functionality. So at least in the next 30 days, I can try and save up the cash for the NAV 2007.

Raw last night was pretty good. They’re getting ready for Cyber Sunday. Kind of like a Taboo Tuesday where the fans make the matches. I liked the match against Spirit Squad and Rick Flare last night. Rick brought down Sgt Slaughter, Piper, and Dusty Rhodes of all people. There were many NWO signs in the front row and t-shirts. NWO coming back? JT at work thinks it’s going to happen from what he’s read. I think they will come back on Cyber Sunday next month.

Anyway, I’m going to Blog this and go back to work on TBP and see if I can put a couple of scenes together. Start date is still Nov.1st.

I hate this beta version of Blogger. When I try to bold my font in the non html compose window it reads it as html and rejects my atempt to publish. So I have to remove the html tags and go back to compse and it still rejects my blog. I think it's time to move over to a Live Journal acount. I understand they have lifetime membership Blogger really sucks now folks. It's a shame too because I was really beginning to enjoy it. Okay, to bold font you need to go to the edit mode. That works. I'll stick with Blogger until they get the bugs worked out. I like Blogger because of it's unlimited use of Blogs and photo's.

e.Jim

Monday, October 23, 2006

I went
to bed around 1:30amish slept until Anne came in and got up because I couldn’t sleep then. So I figured I ’d watch OPP and they were repeats. I did the cbi thing around 5am and went back to bed, but all I could do was lay there. I was wound up and couldn’t sleep. I almost feel like going into work this morning but that’s going to toss Anne’s ‘what she wants to do today’ off.

Anyway, I got into listening some more tunes from You Tube before bed. I discovered they even have Television. Was a New Wave band that played at CBGB’s. But I got some good video especially what blew me away was their Marquee Moon live. Tom Varlain and Richard Lloyd. Awesome. The drummer was excellent as well, Billy Ficca. This guy ranks right p there with Topper Headon and Clem Burke

So I went back to bed about 8amish and same thing all I s=did was toss and turn but I think I got a bit of sleep. Maybe 3 hours at best. I felt terrible. I remember Anne getting up saying something about going to the market or something like that. I think she left about 10am. So I got up and went to the front room. It was noon. I still had that too much sleep over the weekend hangover. I sat on the couch with my feet on the coffee table to watch the news. I opened my eyes here and there and before I knew it, The news was over and local network was back into the soaps. I slept for an hour. I feel somewhat better right now.

I’ve had since yesterday afternoon a little tickle in my throat. I hope I’m not coming down with another cold. I just had one last month. Anyway, it looks like another really nice day out there. That’s all for now.

e.Jim


Sunday, October 22, 2006

I've been
doing research all afternoon on the location of my next novel. TBP. SO will be after that. I'm going to try and write TBP Nov. 1st.

Other then research, and some scene notes, I didn't get a lot accomplished today. I've been having problems with my NAV 2006 program. The Amazon reviews seem to support the same problems I'm having with this program. I don't want to tell my wife this because she'll have a fit. Next time I have some cash at my disposable I'm going to by the 2--5 NAV program instead and renew my subscription. NAV 2005 was a beautiful piece of work.

The other thing I want to do soon is to buy some more Ram for my computer. It came with 256k making it slow as political campaign promises. A local establishment has my kind of Ram on sale for $65 for 512k. I'd ideally like to have maybe $250 and then go get the Ram and maybe a couple of books all on the same day. JT might give me a loft as it could be on his way on a Saturday.

I'm seriously considering getting a game console. All work and no play makes Jim a dull boy. But the only games I'd really like to play are D&D/Everquest type games. World of Warcraft is apparently coming to the Xbox 360 and add that to Oblivion, that might make it worth while to get an Xbox. Maybe. I wouldn't mind getting a souped up video card but I don't thin my little PC can support it. For all the trouble of obtaining a video card which I may or may not support, I may as well get a console.

e.Jim

I was in
bed by 1am and I listened to a bit of Coast, "Life after Death" or something like that. At least the guest had some substance to a dull topic. I got up at 4am to see what was on OPP but they had their Prairie farm report on instead. i don't mind watching that but even that was a repeat. SO I went back to bed and slept another 2 hours and got up at 6am to do a quick cbi (feed Cats, Breakfast, Insulin--cbi) thing and I went back to bed and slept periodically after that. But I think I got about 8hours and I feel alright.

Anne went across the street to Superstore for some things and I'm having my first coffee. I don't know what I'm going to do today. Last night I was doing some research for my next novel project. TBC. I don't know if I'm going to do SO, I'll do that latter. Also, I'll be doing more gender changes on AV etc. and clean that up but I can't really do much without a printer. It's hard to make changes other then small editing ones on the screen.

Also this week (Wednesday) I've got that appointment with my optomologist. So that's going to be interesting. See what comes out of that. i just want my vision restored so I can read clearly without these reading glasses. they do the job but I can't wear them for long.

Looks like a nice day out there. +5* the Sun is finally out and temps should climb to double digits. If the weather can stay like this until the end of the year, I won't complain. We had it that way last year right up until January 1st. Maybe this year would be a repeat of last year. Except without the prosperity cheaques of course.

e.Jim




Saturday, October 21, 2006

Those Oilers
never cease to amaze me. They won 4 strait at home.
Anyhow I got my lodge dues covered and my security covered. $150 gone in 3 days. One more major obstacle to overcome on Wednesday and I hoe I an get my vision cleared up, but that's all for now.

e.Jim

I went into
work and picked p the donuts and had a pretty good shift. Not spectacular or anything like that but I did $750. I had the credit card bonus within my grasp but the calls were coming in really slow. I ended p $50 away from the $800 LH and failed. I was just glad to get out of there 20 min early. A train ride to the South end of the line and then out to Clairview and a bus home.

When I got in, Anne wasn’t sure if she had the right Norton program for me. So I checked it was 2006 version. I wanted the 07 version but I figured 2006 would expire Jan 31st, I went all the way up to Walmart after Anne left out of here all mad and upset with me and they said it’s still good as it’s just a Version of the previous program. I got home and installed the program. Works fine. Almost. Anyway, I’m back online. At last.

e.Jim

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Feeling sluggish
this afternoon. I got up early anyway and watched my two episodes of Gold trails and ghost towns. Or just GT as I call The first episode was about the K&S railroad line. The 2nd show was about Rock creek. Most of these places are not even on the map any more. New Denver is of course and so is Kaslo.

I’m having my first coffee this afternoon.

Doesn’t look like to bad of a day out there. At 5:20pm I’ll be calling Neil to see if I can get a ride. Otherwise its just a train ride to Coliseum Station and to catch the #8 there. Splendid. I can wear my old outer street jacket there over my suit and tie. No worries if I cant get a hold of Neil for a ride. It cuts into my festive board money. Not by much though. FB is still $5 and all I need is a couple of pops. The FB when I first got to the lodge was $2. But like everything these days prices go up. Lodge dues stay about the same.

Greg brought that nice little laptop of his son’s to work yesterday. I should have bought a laptop and I think I will eventually. But I need one with a memory card reader built in. I think Future shop has them for about $1200. Probably next January. I’ll save my vacation pay

Basically if I can just 28.5 hours or even 31 hours, I could say even put in 29.5 hours xmy hourly rate, In one year that should be about $830 add a couple of good pay checks onto that. Nov Dec and I’ve got the money. Best time is the first week in January. Trouble with this machine is it came preloaded with a min of 256 Ram and Wxp. When I get the laptop I want to make sure it has plenty of features. The computer is mostly used for writing but I’ll want to use it for other things as well. My current PC isn’t bad. It’s just slow and I think that’s mainly because of lack of Ram and the way I have Norton initially set up. Also, a laptop is easy to carry in case Anne and I get a chance to move out of here. Hopefully within 3 years.

Right now the economy is hot here. Or bad depending on your point of view. On one hand there are a lot of jobs here but on the other hand it’s tough to find a place to live here in the city. Rents are through the rough. Some folks have to move back from where they came from because they can’t find places to live here. Apartment units are going up all the time. People are employed and in some cases living in tents in empty lots, basically out on the street. We see the homeless all the time on the way into work. They’ve got tents in the bushes in empty lots all over the place. I’ve never seen it this bad before. Hostels are full up. It’s bad. The thing is though the price of a barrel of oil is dropping and that reflects on our local economy here. If oil drops to below say $40 bucks then we may see some changes. It’s a good thing to have of course.

I'll be offline tomorrow but back Saturday as I'm doing some systems house cleaning. Sorry about that.

e.Jim

Tonight was
slow going, But around 2pm Anne had made an appointment to Dr. M for me for next Wednesday. So I ended up with an $887 total and $140 bucks worth of credit cards on the night. Rob and his rising expectations. $300 tonight for a line hour. Crazy. Edgar was the only one that did it. I walked out shortly when Pat did after they called my totals. That was enough. Anyway other then that, it was a pretty good evening. I caught the train home and found the front door key was jammed so a note on the door to use the back door. Rather a nice evening out there.


Still working on AV gender changes for the opposition character. Its going not to badly. I’m about half way through the initial changes before I rip the thing apart by scenes. In some places I have 2 scenes meshed into one Chapter. But since AV is going to be a trilogy so is RB. But I have book 1 done and book 3 done. It's going to take some creative jujuggling to get book 2 in there for each series. A lot of work ahead of me. But I work on it everyday a bit at a time.

e.Jim

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

So we
went into work and we did MM again. I had a great night doing $1,350. That got me a $10 bonus. The vest total I had in months. I had a couple of credit cards as well. I got home and walking across the street as I tried to get my keys, I couldn’t find them being lost in the tearing of my pocket lining. I buzzed Anne but she wasn’t answering. I found them. Whew. When I got upstairs her shoes were there on the floor and her backpack. She had popped in home and out again.

I worked on AV and really getting into it. About 200 pages. More later.

Some 6 hours later. I was sleeping until Anne screamed at the cat for scratching the walls. That woke me up. I'm not very happy but I'll get over it.

So later today this afternoon I’m going to get my wife to call Dr, M's office and make an appointment for me. For Thursday afternoon. If this is indeed scar tissue that is built up on the inside of the lens and can be removed with lasers like that fellow said then great. But I won’t know until I go into Dr. M's office. I hope to know this week what’s going on. I hope nothing fatal.

I was reading about cataract surgery and something about YAG laser treatment. It seams that 3 out of 4 people develop a 2nd cataract months or years. It’s where scar tissue builds up inside the membrane. It’s like a 2nd cataract operation. So I hope I can go in and maybe it just consists of an office visit. He’s probably done this thousands of times. I never did go for the original follow up operation I should have gone in for back in August 2004. So a year later, no problems. Six months later last Feb I began experiencing small blots but nothing serious. It only began to get serious about a month ago. Basically the retina needs more light in the lens. It’s a procedure that is easily correctable.

Okay, I’m going to watch a bit of OPP and maybe some GT later as well but were starting to get into the repeats now.

There’s a good chance I’ll be going off line Friday until I get my Norton subscription renewed. Anne saw the program at Walmart for about $48 so about $50 after GST. We budget the thing for the $50 range. She’ll pick that up for me Saturday while I’m at work and I can install the program and get back online.

Also, management at knows I’m off Thursday night I have $100 bucks. Enough for my dues and a bit left for me for the festive board. So Thursday evening should be all fine and well, in other words, a good time.

Good stuff.

e.Jim

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

We went
into work a bit stressed out and all but I had a good night at work as we began “Magic and Miracles.” Mostly small taps. I got a credit card and $559 top room total. Not that I got anything to show for it. But it was snowing when I left the building which was kind of nice in the evening.

Greg at work brought his son’s lap top pc with him to play around with. I like this unit. It’s a Compaq, same brand as mine and running Wxp but man is this thing ever fast. My PC takes me 20 min to warm up after Norton is checking for everything. Some 10K files later. Of course I only have 256Ram. His machine probably has 2Gb of Ram. I was really impressed with it but my vision is so blurry these days its hard to see clearly all the features in the brief time I had with it.

Anyway, I got home to watch the 3rd period of the Oilers at Vancouver and the Canuks beat the Oilers 2-1. Both teams will meat each other tonight at Rexall place. The Canucks clearly outplayed the Oilers all night and it showed more so in the last period I was watching. That’s when Anne came in and she made me some lunch and I watched Raw. It was good tonight. I would rat it a 7/10. So in about an hour I’m heading off to bed.

The above I tried to post about 1am but Blogger was down. I got lots of dead links lately. So the above is posted now. Anyway, it's back to bed for me. I just did the cbi thing and I watched GT.

AV is going well. I' m over 100 pages in the gender change part of the story. I tried doing this once before but failed. All I'm doing here is getting the story where the villain's gender needs to be changed. At least I had the good sense to separate the # scenes in each chapter. That's all for now.

I should have done this a long time ago. I decided to place a link to my story "Crosshairs" in Sciencefictional. As more stories get published I'll be placing links so you can go read some of my fiction. Crosshairs isn't a bad story it suffers mainly from poor formating choices I made initialy in its submission. On a scale from 1-10 I'd say it's a 5. Good but not great. I submited the story because it was the only story I had cyber ready on this machine. I've got a bunch of other stories I sent over the other day and I might get some more out there yet. Stay tuned.

More later.


e.Jim






Monday, October 16, 2006

I went to
bed about 2:00am and listened to a bit of Coast and went to sleep. I woke up at 5am and did the cbi thing and went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. My wife was coughing keeping me awake so I got up and worked a bit more on AV.

I’m in the process of trying to change the gender of the antagonist because the antagonist sounds too much like an English actor. Or in other words stereotyping. I’m trying to make the villain go from male to female so a lot of changing around she and his. There are a lot of scenes of course where I don’t really need to do that due to the scene pov character. Trouble with AV is there are to many characters. Anyway, back to bed.

Up again some 5 hours later. We got our first snowfall here in the City. Its not much on the ground either. So technically its our first snow of the season. Oct-April. It wont stay on the ground for very long either. If its still here by later this afternoon I’d be surprised. I really don’t mind winter. I like winter actually. I just don’t like sever winter like -20. I like anything -10 to +20, anything in there. The worst part of winter is the wind. But we seldom ever get any big snow these days. I think the worst winter I’ve seen here in all my 28 years here in Edmonton has been 1995. I remember some days we had ice crystals in the middle of the day. -30’s at 1pm. Snow midway to the knee. We’re “lucky “ we get snow up to the ankle that stays. Most winters when I'm out and about since 1999 I’ve been wearing running shoes all winter! Except lodge nights of course. Last winter we got maybe one or two days where the temps have been -18 in the afternoon. Most evenings in the winter are in the -20 range anyway but that’s standard.

Anyway, still working on AV. It’s not going to be as bad as I think. The villain is only in 3-6 stand alone scenes anyway. I’m going to have to rewrite these scenes but there’s two full length novels here. I'm still ready to rewrite the last of NW Most likely this weekend and work on AV. I began AV 2 years ago and the 171k story has been sitting in my files since that time. I don't have it in hard copy yet and it's going to be a few more weeks before I can get some ink for my printer. But I'm also at a crossroads because the printe I'm currently using is crap and I'd rather spend the $100 towards a better printer.

I'm considering getting one of those all in one modles, that can scan and print and maybe do color. But the thing with the all in one printers is the scanning is ususally pretty slow as to a stnd alone scanner. So the reviews of these all in ones tell me. I can get a good laser printer for just under $200 and that's half the cost of an ink cartridge. Color isn't really important to me anyway and scanning is a low priority item. So I guess I made up my mind on printers.

Anyway, that’s all for now

e.Jim

Sunday, October 15, 2006

I went to
bed about 2am and passed out until about 5:40am, I fed the cats and went back to bed. I slept from there until 9am and took my insulin and was in bed by 9am and I slept until around 12:30pm I think I got 9.5 hrs of sleep.

So I figured I’d try and clean up that AV novel and I realized I had the whole document on my other W98 machine plus other stories. So I had the energy and I hooked up the old computer and emailed the whole AV book which sat around 171k I need maybe another 30K and I’ll have book #1 and #2. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the story though. I also emailed RB and a lot of stories still in the rough draft. I had some trouble getting the copy of the email over to my current word processor and Open Office doesn’t have a word count feature in it--that I could find. So I tried Abi word and that wouldn’t accept a long document like that. I tried Jarte and then into MS Works and it took the whole thing. Even RB is 145K. With a little work I could make RB into 2 books.

Other then that it’s been raining all day. I haven’t been out at all just in the apartment here relaxing and working on my fiction. At least I got the other stuff over from my other computer to this one and I’ve been wanting to do that for quite awhile now so I acomplished something today.

e.Jim

Saturday, October 14, 2006

My wife
went out on one of her afternoon shopping excursions and left me there to sleep. I got 3 solid hours in and I feel pretty good right now. I don't know if I want to work on NW right away. I'll get into it more tomorrow instead.

I went and fixed up my blog links and I added Locus Online and Fantastic Fiction. Two websites I go to on a regular basis and I took out Joe Haldeman and inserted Neal Asher Amazon links. Sorry Joe. I'm sure Camouflage is a better read.

I don't know if I'm going to watch that Oiler game on TV. I would like to work on SO instead and go back and forth to check on the progress.

It's tied at one in the 1st intermission in Colorado. Also, Calgary lost so that's good. On the other hand Toronto beat out the Eskies, 28-25. That broke the longest playoff qualifier run in Professional sports. The Edmonton Eskimos have made the playoffs for 34 consecutive outings since 1972. That all came to a halt today. Also In Hockey, Mats Sundine (Toronto) scored his 500th goal. It's been a great day for Toronto sports fans. The only saving grace for us today here in Edmonton is that Calgary Flames have lost and the Oilers have a chance to beat Colorado tonight. But it's in the 2nd and the Avs are leading 2-1.

e.Jim




I woke up

at 3am when my wife climbed into bed. That wasn’t so much the problem as the humidifier she put on that turns the room into a sauna instead of cool, the atmosphere I need to sleep in. I tried to sleep but it got so hot in there I couldn’t continue sleeping but I’m up with a bit of energy and I think I’m going to sleep in the living room the rest of the morning because of that damn humidifier.

Anyway, I had to put down Joe Haldeman’s Old Twentieth. There’s no dialogue in the novel and it jumps around all over the place. Well very little dialouge. I picked up his Camouflage after looking in it for dialogue and it’s a different kind of a book but Joe Haldeman seems to write military fiction. Nothing really wrong with that but I can't get into something like that right now. So I’ve opted out for Neal Asher Gridlinked. I’ll change the link in my blog as well later.I don't like to abandon a book. I gave it a chance.

Feeling like death warmed over right now. I figured I’d go back to bed maybe she had that humidifier off by now. No way. So I dozed off here and there on the couch. I got maybe 2 hours sleep. If that. So, I’m onto my first cup of coffee right now. Anyhow off to work. Uggh.

I don't take a very good photo and this one isn't very good anyway but it's a rare photo of all of us together. My threee buddies. The family. Pledges is the orange guy and Silky is the dark angora. Pledges doesn't get along with Silky at all but in this shot they are co existing. This shot was taken yesterday afternoon at 3pm they are. Anyway, more later.

e.Jim

Friday, October 13, 2006

Kind of a hazy
afternoon on the way out to work earlier. Anne apparently wanted to get off at The Bay and go into work saying that her voice was going. So I went in and I had a pretty decent night doing cancer recovery foundation. CRF. I did $350 in a 3.5 hour shift which is line hour. That’s a $100 line hour. All they wanted was $65/li. Anyway I got out of there at my 8:30 ish or so and it was kind of smoky in the air but I still had to wait almost 20 min for the train so it wasn’t getting out early for me at all. More cars on the train tonight. Maybe they had something going on at Rexall.

When I got into the apartment here half expecting Anne home she wasn’t here. But she talked about getting a Pizza but I can’t recall if this was for tomorrow night or this evening or even Monday. I don’t remember. Oh well. Coast tonight is open lines but Richard Hoagland will be on talking about artifacts on the moon around 3am. Might be too late for me.

So Friday the 13th 2006 is almost over. We had 2 Friday the 13th’s this year.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Well I ended
up lat night discovering the joys of YouTube. I stayed up until 2:45am watching The Clash videos. There were tracks in there from 1982 Tokyo where they did Armageddon Time and that was an awesome number. Many more great numbers as well. I’ve barely scratched the surface if this YouTube. I’ll probably explore more of it after I complete NW. If I can.

Anyway, I got up about 5:20am. I had about 2.5 hours sleep I got up to do the cbi thing and watched only one show on GY and I was back in bed by 6am. Anne got up at 8am and went to get me some McDonalds breakfast. I love their sausage egg McMuffin combo’s. She had to go back out and I finished breakfast and went back to bed. 2 more hours. After I got back to bed again, I slept until 12:20pm. I slept from about 9:20am until 12:30am so I had 7.5 hours sleep. Maybe 8 and I’m still tired. Getting up all those times. Since I became diabetic I haven’t had a good sleep strait through.

I’m onto my first coffee here. Trying to wake up. While waiting for Anne to come back as I thought she’d be maybe half an hour at best so I began to read more out of Old Twentieth and Anne came in with my breakfast. I think I read a whole Chapter of the book.

So last night I’m on a nice train ride home and at the news on sports I want to hear the Oiler/Sharks results. Cheechoo got a hat trick and the Oilers looked like they were going to lose 4-1 at Rexall Place. Then in the third Ryan Smyth scores 3 goals late in the 3rd period of the game beating Wayne Gretzky’s record of 3 goals in 2:11 min. Ryan did it in 2:01 min. Incredible. Never say never. The Oilers won 6-4. Next up they’re in Colorado. I just have to give my head a shake. What a game.

This weekend I’m going to try and finish NW and work some more on SO.I don’t know what I’m going to do with D. I don’t think D is even a story. Maybe there is one in there someplace but I might have to put it on the shelf for another time. Im considering AV next. Hard to say.

Anyhow, time to blog this and do my blog rounds before work.

e.Jim

Labels:


Thursday, October 12, 2006

Heading into
work was a bit stressful but after the dust settled I had a nice walk to work and met Greg in the parking lot. I got my pay cheque. No bonuses but that’s alright. I ended up doing $330 by the end of the night. We had 7 tap shooters but were left with 2. One got sent home two left early and dropped out. Just Edgar and myself to carry the shift and I closed on money at the end of the shift I got a sale. $330 for the night on a TD multi file.

That's all for now.

e.Jim

Those people
above us have their kid running over our heads. It sounds like we’re living underneath a bowling alley. It’s not being considerate to any body else. You don’t yell in a library, or tap on an aquarium tank.

I was going to go over to use the pay phone to call Dr. Morgan’s office but I’ll do that instead for tomorrow and make the appointment for Monday. I think I got maybe an hour sleep and up again about 4:20am too watch OPP. And both shows on GT. I’ve seen these ones before but I still stayed up for it as I couldn’t sleep anyway.

The kid stops for a bit then runs again. Right now it’s quiet.

If I get enough sleep this weekend I’ll finish NW and get that out of the way and hopefully work on more of SO. I’m looking at beginning the rough draft of SO Nov.1st

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I had a
much better evening then last night. I think I ended up with $432 and the top total for the room. I had a much better night then last night. But after I got off the train I ended up heading up to the 7th floor to Dr. Morgan’s office. He’s still there. So tomorrow I want to leave out of here at 1pm so I can get there by say 1:30pm and maybe he can see me right away but I doubt it. If he can do it Friday okay. Then I’ll go to work and get on a dialer and work the afternoon shift. From 3pm-9pm. I want to try and get 21.5 hours in this week,

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

I tried to
sleep listening to a bit of Coast but couldn't. I got up for a bit later and stayed with my wife for a bit and then we went to bed and I think I got an hour and a half sleep. It was a bit after 4am. Maybe 4:20am. So I watched an episode of OPP and both episodes of GT. I liked the first one when they were at a creek actually demonstrating how to pan for gold. The nuggets if any remain lay under the bedrock. They got a few flecks of gold. Not an ounce or anything like that. A shot glass of whisky is an ounce and youv'e got to do an awful lot of gold panning to get an ounce of gold. Not to mention that it’s back breaking work. They got a few flecks with the first attempt. Maybe a thousand panning attempts later they might have earned an ounce of gold. And that segment took five minutes. And you’ll rarely find that ounce in the same spot. So maybe in about 8 hours of back breaking work you might be able to get an ounce. Maybe. Here’s the other kicker: Most of these creeks is on privately owned land. The natives own the land they were demonstrating on how prospectors mined for gold. But I believe there are gold panning excursions you can take offered by touring companies, There are gold mining concerns left but these are huge operations by big companies and most of the land is staked out and even then miners and prospectors went over this land more then a hundred years ago.

I went to bed after that but I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned about. I might have dozed off here and there but I stayed in bed trying to get some sleep. But surprisingly I don’t feel to badly.

It’s a cooler kind of a day out there and for those that went into work this morning it was about -2. I was thinking about mornings but it seems they have HHF in the mornings. So the same people we are trying to reach in the evenings the morning staff go over the same thing. Before I do any mornings there, I want to get out of this current campaignwe doing right now. No matter how cold it is. If management puts me on Taps mornings, I’ll do a mix of mornings/evenings. No matter how cold it is. I wouldn't mind doing a few mornings/week.

e.Jim

It was raining
when I left this afternoon. I got the front of the train to go to Audrey’s I had three selections and everything I wanted was a series. Book 2 of this, Book 4 of that. I’m very particular in what I read. I read very little if any Fantasy. I don’t read series. I don’t read Post Apocalyptic fiction, Historical science fiction, or military science fiction. Maybe David Drake or (Joe Haldeman) nor do I like spy/sci-fi cross-overs as well. What’s left? Strait up Science fiction/speculative fiction, hard or soft. Good old Space opera fits in there as well. Add to that, that Audrey’s doesn’t have that great of a selection to begin with. Anyhow, I had a lousy night on the job I got one sale and that was within the first half hour, Then I got the other sale as my last sale. $75! LOL and I didn’t feel to badly leaving. Well just a little bit. Anyway, I’m about to have a bit of lunch and watch the news and work some more on SO. One of these weekends, I’m going to wrap up NW just to get it out of the way. When I get some printers ink I’ll crank out a hard copy and begin the initial edit and then B/S the book. I’m going to make several paces at it.

Since I haven't been to bed yet, it's still Tuesday for me. Otherwise, I had an okay kind of day. I got a new book to read for another time. I don't know when I'll get to it as I want to read Charles Stross next after "Old Twentieth." Very little dialouge in this book.

e.Jim

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I was in
bed by 1am. My wife already dozing off so we listened to a bit of Coast. Not bad. Talking about myths and legends and big birds. I was asleep by about 1:40am. I got up about 2:am when Anne got up suddenly and crashed the touch lamp on her way to the bathroom. I tried to sleep after that when she came back to bed but at 3:30am I decided to get up and do some reading until my show came on. OPP and eventually GT. I read “Old Twentieth” until 4:20am or so and decided I’d had enough and went to watch a a bit of OPP. “Okanogan People and places.” I watched one show of GT on Sandon. I believe. And I enjoyed that. I did the cbi thing and only took 8units instead of 18 because I’m not sure I have enough to last me the end of the week. I think if I can conserve today and tomorrow, then I should have enough insulin to last me until Friday. I hope. After Wednesday, I’ll go back to full units.

I’m having my first coffee, waking up slowly.

Speaking about my insulin and all, I took a bsl reading and sitting at 10.3. That was at 20 min ago. My blood sugar levels will come down over the next hour or so. Since I’m not on a medical plan, other then Alberta Health Care, I have to pay for my insulin out of pocket. Same with my needles and lancets. To break it down insulin is $720/year , Needles are $329/year and lancets are the cheapest of items at $38/year, I use the sane needle/vile of insulin. Probably not a good idea but I don’t share the needle so that’s a plus. Another plus is the test strips. I’m supposed to test 4 times/day. Now The Alberta Monitoring (AM) pays for only monitoring diabetes nothing else. A package of test strips x2 50 containers cost $100. At shoppers I get club points towards other merchandise at Shoppers drug mart. But I don’t test myself 4 times/day. Like I should be doing. I barely test my blood sugar once every other day. My Alberta monitoring account is from April 1st to April first. So far out of my pocket I’m paying about $1,130 year. Now if I was ro test myself 4 times daily like my Doctor suggested I do, If I tested my bsl 4 times/day my $550 AM fund would exhaust itself in six months. So add another $550 onto that., is $1,270/year. And I’m supposed to be taking something called Metforin (MF) and I have no idea what it does. MF is another expense. I should ask Pat who’s diabetic at work and ask him how much he pays Lets round it up to $1500/year. Out of my pocket.

Now before you go off saying I’m complaining, I’m not. I cut corners. I don’t take MF and I use the same needle for one container of insulin and I use the same lancet. Now I have no idea what these cost saving measures are doing to my health but for now, I don’t feel to badly. I know over time the effects will tell but for now being a relatively young diabetic as of July 2004, it’s too early to tell. Okay did I ask to become diabetic? Yes. I drank Coca-Cola like it was water in my 20’s and 30’s heading against advice. You get what you pay for. I drink diet Coke now and even then I try to monitor how much of that I drink. I’m not into alcohol but I’ll have a beer maybe once a month. If I’m lucky, But Alberta Health Care doesn’t cover this stuff and I’m working just a bit over 20 hours/week.

Still with Anne’s job and my job and the bit of black sheep money she gets once a month since we’ve been married over the last 6 years life has been comfortable. Working part time like this allows me the time to write. To read and sleep. I don’t do much of that now. Now I could work full time at the job. But I have other issues as well besides being diabetic. My scoliosis, which seems to be all right. Thank god there’s no medication for that. In BC they give you a (or used to ) an AISH pension for that. Until you turn 65 that is. I think it’s ASIH Assured income for the severely handicapped. I tried going on it here in Edmonton back in 1990. They paid back then $800/month and covered all of your medical needs. You were also able to work and earn $200 pt time over and above your AISH income. My brother is on it for his scoliosis in BC but he has 2 children (they don’t have it) and Stephanie and Patrick are in their 20’s. I would have loved AISH back in 1990, My rent was something like $250/month for a cute bachelor apartment. 9710 156th St. Here in Edmonton.

You can do a Google Earth search and it’s still there. The building beside the house with the white picket fence but in the Google earth shot you can’t see the fence but the building beside it was where I lived from 1985-1995.. I moved to the L shaped building right across the street in 1995 when I got kicked out of my nice little bachelor. But that’s another story. I wish I could attach a URL to the Google earth shot. Speaking about the GE shot of my little bachelor apartment. I faced the street. The apartment is still there obviously and it’s the one just right of the sidewalk leading into the building. Closest to the corner house.

But getting back to Alberta Health Care, I’m subsidized for that. So it’s not out of pocket. If you can get your T4s in early enough. It’s a headache to go through every spring. The other alternative is to work full time. I can work those hours 1:30pm-9pm and work Friday morning. Ideally that’s what I’d like to do. But My wife likes me home because she doesn’t like being alone here in this place. She can’t work full time as she has issues of her own. So for now, we’re stuck in this situation. For now,

The other thing I don’t like working for time although, afternoon/evening full time is a lot better then working morning/afternoon full time because that’s when Rob the boss is around giving people stress. The afternoon evening is easier. Less Rob, little stress except during those 3 hours in the afternoon. But the afternoon shift is harder then the evening shift to get sales. But since I’m a tap shooter now (the “elite” of the company) I get certain advantages. It's not that Rob is a bad guy or anything but he has his days.

Anyway, more on that later. This has been a huge blog entry to say the least and I want to go off and make my blog rounds.

I was able to catch a bit of Raw last night and it wasn't bad. On a scale from 1-10 I'd say it was a 7. Nice to see the "Million Dollar man" and "IRS" The 4 horsemen. it was their season opener and their family reunion. Sorry for the extra long post. Oh well. I'll check for typos later.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Monday, October 09, 2006

A pretty
good day today. I got 13 scenes done and most of the middle of SO more or less accomplished. It’s still rough around the edges but this is just the big picture not the details. I’ve still got to get the main characters done as well.

Raw was apparently a 3 hour show and I thought it began at 8pm but it was also their “family reunion” show. I saw “The 4 Horsemen” and it was nice to see The Million Dollar man and IRS. But I missed two hours of the show.

I miss my evenings off. And I think I’d like to do a few morning shifts. Many times I get enough sleep and I’m up early so for those times I’d like to get up early and go into work and have the evening off. I might even do that Wed/Thur because I want to go into see Dr.Morgan and see if there is any way I can get rid of that scar tissue on the inside of my eye lens. If indeed this is the problem. Firstly lets see if he can do something for me.

The people upstairs have had their kid running around up there all day. If the caretakers were in our position, you bet that wouldn’t last long. Yeesgh, what a weekend.

e.Jim

I was in
bed around 3am and maybe I got an hours sleep but I woke up from there and watched 34min of OPP and the 2 GT. I did the cbi thing and went to bed around 6am and slept until noon. Anne had got up earlier and I’m here onto my first coffee.

Right now I’m just getting into Joe Haldeman’s “Old Twentieth.” At least the weather is good. We’re supposed to gt up to 10 degrees today for this time of year isn’t bad.

So for the rest of the afternoon/evening until Raw, I’ll be working on SO right after I post this.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

e.Jim

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Vision is a
bit blurry today because of the floater. If that’s what they are. I think it’s what the customer over the phone said, scar tissue built up inside the lese. But the lens is plastic. This is why I need to see Doctor Morgan this week and find out what’s going on here. So I think Tuesday I’ll go in for the afternoon shift leaving out of here at 12pm so I can go in and make the appointment. If anything I can see if I can start at 3pm. I get an hour and a half in. Hopefully I can get this corrected this week.

I had a nice lunch before bed last night and I took that travel pill and we listened to Coast for a bit. Anne got up and did her thing and I just passed out after that. But I kept on getting up every hour or so to use the bathroom. I think I’ve got to program myself not to drink anything after 9pm, except for something during lunch but after that nothing.

I’m well into working on the scenes for SO and so far 1-28 is ready to go but it’s the middle I’m concerned about.

I’ve been working on SO all afternoon and I got ,ore background story and 10 scenes more or less roughed out. I’m at scene 34 and the 2nd crisis point. I’m about half way there.

Seeing as how I’m not a Turkey fan my wife made me a meat loaf instead and I’m happy with that. Not a overly special kind of supper. We watched “It came from Outer Space” Nice to see some of Russell Johnson’s earlier work. Anyhow I’m going to work on some more SO and play out the rest of the night, watching the news at 11pm and more SO and then bed around 2am.

Wow. It takes 6 steps to get from desktop icon to the posting window in this new beta version of Blogger.

e.Jim



Saturday, October 07, 2006

I should
have laid money on tonight's game. Sports select picks would have favoured the Flames to win of course and I knew this when the Oiler won their season opener Thursday night. The Flames lost though 3-1.

I did some more work on SO and I have a valid premise. At last. 64 scenes. 85K. But the middle is left too wide open and I fear that the novel will read too much like my last one. D Will be a lot different in terms of it's overall plot. On theory.

e.Jim

I didn’t get
much sleep last night. Anne and I had a a bit of a blow out last night but that quickly blew over. We were both pretty tired. Because of that I didn’t get much sleep. Maybe 4hours if that. I got my train out of here at the usual Saturday time and bought donuts for the staff meeting Will there at Tim’s. Work went well. I ended up doing great the first hour. Then it slowed down after that doing HHF. I got a $24 credit card. No bonus though or even bank bonus from last time.


Doing some more work in my SO work book. I’ve got the big picture sorted out.

I got home and I tried to have a bit of a nap but no such luck. Anne came in and I got my allowance. That helps. Other then that not much going on. I’m going to watch the Oiler game at 8pm tonight and that’s about it for today.


e.Jim

Friday, October 06, 2006

Light rain
leaving the place for work and Anne and I caught the train okay into work. I got my cheque and I’m happy with what I got. Good stuff. I had a slow start to the night. JT beside me got a $380 sale something like that and was the man of the hour. I was struggling to get over $100 and ended up with $137. I wasn’t the lowest but I was low. The best part was talking with a customer that had his cataract operation from the same doctor. HE mentioned that I might not have an eye floater but what it could be is scar tissue build up on the inside of the lens, It can be removed with lasers. It’s covered under the Alberta Health care I believe. So then I’m going to on Tuesday go into Doctor Morgan’s office in the afternoon and book an appointment to see if I can get this done next week. Mike gave me $20 to buy the donuts and I’ve got that for tomorrow.

I was glad to get home I had a nice ride in had a chat with a nice young fellow that befriended me. Shook hands with me when he got off the train at Stadium. I got home at 9pm it’s still lightly raining out there. Rather nice out there.

I worked in my work book earlier and came up with some pretty good stuff for SO. I like what I got as well.

e.Jim

I’m developing
a SO workbook here and I’ve got most of my early scenes on computer but I like writing in the workbook as it helps me think differently. I’ve got a great premise for SO as well out of this.

I ended up not watching GT earlier and went to bed. I passed out immediately and woke up about 5:40am and to late to watch any of the last show so I just did the CBI thing and went right to bed. I slept until noon and up to get a coffee and work on SO.

I think I’m going to work on SO this weekend. I can finish of the last couple of scenes of NW off at any time. That’ll be done this month. I should have the rough draft of SO completed by the end of the year. Then I work on D for Jan. I hope to start D Feb 1st and finish D up March 31st I haven’t got anything planned for beyond D yet. Although I’m considering the AV trilogy. But planning for the AV trilogy after D might take me 3 months to plan for the whole thing, in which case I can revise and work on D.

That’s the overall game plan of course, for 2007, D and the AV trilogy. Also, I’m going to work on my website some more as well with Markus help.

Today thought it’s go into work and pick up my cheque and see if there’s a bank bonus for next week, it’s a 3.5 hour short shift and that means Saturday. But lots of people might want to take a long weekend off. Sat Sun Mon. They’ll lose their state pay. I took Thur off in lieu of Sat. So I work Sat and Tues and I get my stat pay. Works good.

Last night the Oilers got off to a good start. They won their season opener, 3-1 over Calgary. I liked that. The new guy Sykora got 2 goals. Roly didn’t get his shut out but they won the first of 8 of the Battle of Alberta. Both teams play each other again on Saturday. Calgary should take that one. I’ll be watching the game too of course.

e.Jim

Thursday, October 05, 2006

No lodge tonight
since I can’t get a ride. Neil had a tooth pulled today and is suffering with that. So I have a night off. Just as well because the Oiler/Flames game is on tonight and the Oilers are going to retire Mark Messier’s #11 sweater as well as raise the Stanley Cup conference banner as well. So I’ll watch that at 8pm. Neil will be heading out to the lodge on the emergent meeting on the Thursday which is two weeks from tonight. I’ll have my lodge dues then.


This is great because it works out nicely for the long weekend I should be getting. We’re taking Sunday and Monday off and working Saturday. The only fly in the ointment is my cheque obtaining that for Thursday. I hope I’ll have the lodge dues, regardless of when I get my cheque.

But the thing tonight is, Anne did not make me any sandwiches for tonight. But I took my bsl reading earlier and it was 8.7 and that was at noon. Now, some 6 hours later I’m at 6.5 and that’s going to drop by 8pm.

BTW, Crosshairs is still up at Sciencefictional if anyone wants to read it. It’s got 86 views so far since it's been up Aug 27th. Good stuff. To bad the comments section is week. I’d like to read some comments. Good bad or indifferent.

e.Jim

I'm attempting to
edit my last post and fix up spelling that sort of thing but the new Blogger Beta won't let me publish edited material today. Sorry about that. I like the new spelling features though in beta.

There is a discussion on lack of women in the gaming community over there at CE Murphy's blog. My comment is rather lengthy as anomynus on I think comment #21. I'm going to see the reaction when I come back from lodge tonight. If I can get out there.


e.Jim

Most likely
going to the lodge tonight is in the cards. I tried calling Neil last night but got the answering machine instead. Also I found an interesting story about Freemasonry, thanks to Elizabeth Bear's blog. Has some good stuff in the story.

I should have NW done up this long weekend and then work out the story synopsis for SO completed by the end of the month. The synopsis that is not the story. The first part of story synopsis of SO is more or less roughed out. The whole idea of the synopsis is just a few words about the events in the story.

Looks like another nice autumn day out there. We got the jet stream slightly working above the City. Afternoon temperatures about 16,

I had another break last night and I was asleep by 2:20pm something like that. I got up about 4:30am to watch some of OPP and that was a repeat, so I read some more on Bickham and watched GT about Klondike Kate. Very interesting.. She was a show girl during the gold rush days and one with a solid reputation. She wasn’t a hooker or anything like that. I think she died in the mid 1950’s. Then I watched another one about Joseph Oliva Patenaude the jeweler that stamped JOP on the Canadian Silver Dollars in 1935. This would have been illegal back then and even today but the Government turned a blind eye at it. Beware of counterfeit strikings that have JOP on them, It seems the real silver dollars are going anywhere from $300/coin to $500.

Coast wasn’t bad from what little I listened to. Again about Politics. Mostly about Iran and Iraq. Better then the paranormal shows Coast is known to have several times/week. But it is Halloween month after all. Tonight should be a good show about “little people” and treasure hunting.

Some stories today from the Coast website. It seems that researchers have found a way to store information in a laser beam. Isn’t that interesting. I thought this was achieved already, old news but apparently not. It's not quite "Beam me up Scotty" just yet but it's getting there. Maybe in a hundred years or so. I think this would be more useful in computing applications then anything else. Also, at New Scientest a story about Hubble finding planets that orbit their parent stars at incredible speeds. Of course most of these "planets" are little more then gas giants like Jupiter. Astronomers haven't found any earth like planets yet. I think they're out there though.

That's all for now.

e.Jim

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

I caught the
bus to Clairview and the escalator was down. So I’m taking the stairs up huffing out of breath and there’s Anne holding the train open for me. I thought she left already. So now I get on at the front end and I have to walk all the way over to the back end by Carona instead. Sigh. I got out back there of First Edmonton Place, and through the parking lot. Very nice out there. It’s a nice autumn day. I ended up with $460 as we had a small tap crew. We lost Doug because he had a lousy night and they put him doing Cancer and Pat left just after the break and Smitty left at 8:20pm so we went and had just 3 tap shooters. First Doug is gone at 6pm, then Greg at 7pm, then Pat shortly after that, and then Smitty. By 8:20pm half our tap crew was gone. I ended up also getting a $20 credit card as well. I had a pretty good night. I got a seat to myself on the train and home by 9:30pm.

A bit of a scare as I almost got ran over there halfway through the other part of the 2nd lane when the cars were waiting at the light. I thought I had enough time. It’s not like I was crossing against traffic or anything like that.

The Shaw tech guy came by and we got a set box replacement as our unit was 5 days away from warranty. They honored a refurbished model for us and so far, out cable works great.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim

Labels:


So, I think
after I went to bed tossing and turning for awhile there I finally got to sleep and other then to do about 3-4 bathroom breaks I might have had maybe 5 hours sleep and 2 hours before that. 7 hours maybe.

That the guy should be coming over sooner or later today. Probably later then sooner. If I can hear the buzzer ring thanks to my wife and her hamster shop vac going on blarring out our apartment buzzer.

Anyway, I'm going to try and do some more work on SO.


e.Jim

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Next time she
wants to get up early on her day off don’t set the alarm when I need my sleep. It’s always harder for me to get back to sleep after I’m forced up or otherwise. Anne had to go on a bottle run and left just now which is why she got up a tad early.

Anyhow Raw was great last night. It had a new intercontinental belt change hands, Great off scene material as Dx ran the show, Their main event as well was awesome. I’d have to give this Raw a 10. I stayed up a n hour after that to do some blogging and we were in bed by 2am. I was asleep by 3am. I woke up at 5:35am to miss my Gold Trails’ due to the problem were having in our cable reception. It could be anything from a lose wire to a replacement of the set box itself.

When Anne called last night she got Shaw to give us credit on this ill because of the interruption in our service. For all we know the wind jarred lose the cable wire outside on a pole some place.

When I’m ready to send out a professional manuscript not only will I be tightening up the grammar but also spelling. Natch. I’m going to need a recent copy of Word and I’ll probably by Student Teacher ed. This MS Works word processor isn’t bad and I like the layout but I can copy and paste text into a new document and the new document would flag words misspelled and even corrected in the old document. Plus this eye floater is causing me some vision obstructions.

I don’t like to use reading glasses on the screen because the reading glasses hurt my eyes and can cause me light headaches. The eye floater isn’t much of a problem and I can live with that. I ’m typing this in Comic Sans 12. When I write, I use Courier New 12 and it’s a lot fainter then this and I have few problems. I might have to bold the font or got to 14 and reformat later. I definitely need prescription glasses though anyway.

That’s all for now.

e.Jim