last night I went into work business as usual. Tonight is the staff party and Anne and I are going to go. I don’t think we’re going to get the amount of people this year as we did last year. They had the menu posted on the board for the last 2 weeks and I didn’t know about it. Yeesh. I also don’t have a ticket. I never needed one last year. I don‘t know what we’re going to have for entertainment but last year we didn’t have the pool tournament. Also most of our people last year are missing. I think it’ll be ok though. I brought a $20 bill with me to mainly get a bag of cheesies at the drugstore and for change since Anne hadn’t made me a lunch into work like she normally does, there wasn’t time. So I got my dialer #13 I had one of Greg’s black friends sit with me. Nice enough fellow. I get along well with most of the “brothers.” Greg and I are avid hockey nuts and the Cw manager. It’s actually Robs baby. I did a lot of call backs this week on the Xl job and handed in x3 1 year subs. Not to badly. I go the $25 credit card commission this week and that got Anne and I the pizza. I’ll do more next week in the evening. I’m thinking about taking the night of the 18th off this week to watch the Dallas/Oiler game here at Rexall Pl. Maybe what I’ll do because we’re playing this OTH thing and Rob’s giving away some big money I may want to come in and work that morning. This way I can satisfy the requirements of that and have a night off and do some Cw as well that night. The goal for that as long as we have a tap source is to get one sales sheet in/week.

So, this weekend won’t be much of a weekend what with the staff party tonight. While on the job last night I went through our local Edmonton Sun paper and saw a 2 page flyer from The Source (Radio shack). One of our new tap shooters who sort of befriended me over the last couple of days, Diesel (last name-nice enough fellow. Really eager. Seems his father used to work at the old GWE office back in the day. Anyway, the add showed a keyboard for $199. A savings of $50. I kept the paper handy and I’d call at break to see if they had any of those keyboards there. But it seems that this Diesel fellow overheard me dialing directory assistance about the keyboard and was one step ahead of me. It seems he worked at Radio Shack before they changed the name to The Source a few years ago and was within the top 8 sales people here in Canada. But when Radio Shack changed to The Source in the midst’s of all that there was an employee shakedown and The Source let 2 of it’s top sales people go in an effort to save money. I don’t understand the logic of it either. Anyway faster then I could ask for the directory assistance number my new friend had the Edmonton Centre/City Centre mall location (his location) on the phone securing the skew number for me from the add and a copy of the product reserved for me and even confirmed if it was the EZ150 and apparently that was the one, he said relaying the info 2nd hand over his cell phone to me. So I’m going to save $50 off the product. Good stuff. So I had a chat about this with Anne when she called and for some reason got attitude all over it. The 2nd call was a bit better on her end. And today, I’m bringing in Anne’s reward points ($150) and $65 cash so I can get some breakfast and after work rush up to The Source pick up the keyboard and head home. There won’t be time to grab a nap or anything because the part is on at 6. I imagine. I want to get there early and scope us out a seat since I have yet to be in Lev’s fathers restaurant where the staff party is going to be held.

I had a good start to the job last night pulling in a $125 sale but sales were slow as most people weren’t home or had other plans that night (Weeknight’s are bad nights it seems to have the OTH event.) I ended up with $365 and a $30 credit card so it wasn’t a complete loss. After that I went over to Audrey’s and bought my 2nd “Honor Harrington” novel. I’ve got the 3rd one there. If I like the series, then I can order more but if the first one reads well and I like it then I’ve got the other 2 I can get into. I looked around after the pick up order desk and looked around. They’ve got a few Cory Doctorow books I’m interested in picking up in the new year. If there are any left in stock. I have one of his titles, “Down and out in the Magic Kingdom.” in trade. All the other 2 books there in stock including that one are in trade. I picked up “The Blue haired bombshell” by John Zakour. I like Bubblegum science fiction. This apparently is book #5 in the series. They are all stand-a-lones it seems. If I get the sgj in January I can read it in the new year. I might be able to read one book/week.

After Audrey’s I go the train home. A brief wait at Clairview station later and I was home. Anne was close behind but went to the Superstore for stuff and didn’t get in until about 11:30pm. She made me some of that nice deluxe macaroni from President’s choice and chicken nuggets. The Oil Kings were playing at Rexall Friday night. I had a pretty good day.

So then today, it’s into work and put my 4 hours in. The City is still recovering from the Darryl Katz fallout this week. He wants to put in $100 million towards building a new arena downtown Edmonton just North of City Hall in the old Postal lands area. Word on the street indicates that most Edmontonians are against utilizing tax dollars for the proposed arena especially if tax dollars are going towards it. I agree. Our roads are in bad shape here as they are and tax money on an arena would be better served on fixing the roads and or extending the LRT. It’s a nice idea if Katz ends up getting the Oilers and we’ll know more about that in January. The arena would be a nice showcase to revitalize downtown. The saga continues.

The only problem with the keyboard is, where to put it? I’d like it just underneath the long shelf here by the clock but there isn’t enough room for it. I’ll figure something out. But because of the party Anne and I might not be home until around 10pm and I’ll be unpacking the keyboard and figuring out a good place to set it up. I have a good 35 inches under the shelf here and that’s where I’d like to set it up once I get the cords and crap organized. See image>>.

Anyway that’s all for now.

e. Jim