the train was on time for a change. I got the 2nd car and at 4:25pm I was in Audrey’s shopping for books. They’ve got some new ones in and I bought Julie E. Czerneda “A thousand words for a stranger” her debut novel. From the blurb it's been out for at least 10 years now.

I was hoping Rob had the bank report there but apparently it wasn’t posted because of the day off Monday and the bank would be to small but the bank will be bigger next Friday. I hope. The office was buzzing about Severe’s $1,000 sale for the Canadian Burn foundation. I had an exceptional evening. By break I was at $900 and I thought, great tonight, I’m the top total again. Then because of Severe’s big total this new tap shooter decides he’s going to ask as well and he gets one blowing my hard work out of the water. I think he ended up with $2,100 which was exceptional for a new guy. I began asking for the high amounts a well but best I could do was the $100 sales but I got a $50 credit card. I could have bumped several of those many $50’s to $100’s. We’re almost done the SP1’s but we got lots of SP2’s. What surprises me is that this is the 3rd day with totals over $900. Most likely we’ll be doing the same for Saturday and we haven’t even done CBF for BC yet. For ever SA I see from now on, I’m asking for the 3 levels of support. “Our annual gold supporter is $1,000. Is that in your budget to do this quarter?” Most people will turn me down then I drop to $500, then $300. I’ll get a lot of $300’s.

Anyway we got shut down at just after 8pm. I could have went to Chapters we were out that early but I didn’t know it at the time when I went to Audrey’s earlier. I’m glad I’m home though. The only thing is, my website is misbehaving. I don’t know what’s going on.

Before bed:

There are other call center opportunities going around. But they don’t pay much better then what I’m doing now. I still think the security guard job idea is the way to go and that might be a go by the end of the year. If we can get subsidy for where we are now, I’d be happy with that and get $12/hr. I’d stay at Xl. The thing is with working at another company I can get health benefits. To get health benefits I need to work there a full year at Xl full time. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. And I’m damn sure I am not going to use Anne’s pension money for rent or toys for me. This is her rainy day money.

Speaking about health benefits and all I’m taking responsibility for my own health by paying for my insulin out f pocket. I’m getting help from Alberta monitoring for test strips and that’s $550/year their giving me. My Doctor wants me to test 4 times/day. Test strips are $90/100. I need $1460 test strips/year to do it right. That’s 14.6 packages of 100 tests strips. Or 14.5. That’s $1,500. I’d still have to fork out ($950) out of my own pocket. Alberta Health and Wellness won’t cover type 2 diabetes. Next Insulin. I haven’t approached Aids to daily living yet and I think they help cover the cost of some diabetic supplies. I need to investigate what they do cover. Insulin is $60/month or ($720/year) out of pocket. Needles. Needles are a box of 100 for $32/box. 6 gauge. I give myself two doses of 18 units/day. 1 needle/one does. That equals out to be 730 needles/year> 700 = ($224/year) out of pocket. Lancets. The less expensive component to my diabetic arsenal. One test = 1 lancet. That’s 2 lancets day = 730/year. A box of 50 costs $9. This rounds off to ($135/year) out of pocket and I’m not even taking Metforin at all and I hate to think what that costs. All together excluding the $550 that Alberta monitoring gives me, I’d need to spend $2,030 on diabetic supplies. Now there are some advantages. If I buy all my supplies at Shoppers Drug mart they put medical supplies on their “Rewards card.” $2,000 (not to be carried over) might buy myself maybe the needles at the end of the year. That’s be possibly 8 boxes of needles. Also, we here in Canada can claim medical expenses on our income tax but the return is very miniscule. A new job with a better medical plan would help me a lot. Better pay even more. And if I get the ideal security guard job, like I would like and I can bring my laptop into work, then I can write a lot. If we can’t get rental assistance and Rob at the end of the year won’t give me $12/hr then I’ll have no choice but to move on. If he says something like, “I’ll give you $12/hr if you come over to business.” I might have no choice there either. The medical plan is available for full time people.

I was hoping to blog this for this morning but the server is down. Markus said earlier that they are down for maintenance but so far I’ve yet to get on. I’ll try throughout the night and hopefully post this before bed. It’s now 2:05am and the website is still down.

Okay, this weekend I’m putting my time to good use and I’m working on TS. Hopefully it will be ready for by Halloween. I’d like to ship it out to paying markets for a change. But that’s what I’m going to do this weekend.