well I had a nice afternoon learning a bit more from Star Wars. There’s an odd part in the piece after the first 2 chords where the G chord has the E in it followed by a B/A. This is tricky because he the chord isn’t complete piece it’s the chord but the notes are played individually and he tucks the thumb over to the B. Weird.

Anyway after that Anne got to talking with her father so I figured it was my turn to call my family. I called and Mike answered. Last time Mike and I spoke was when mom had passsed away. Doris was sleeping. Anyway they were about to go over to the kids for a New Year dinner. Apparently Mike and Doris were here in Edmonton last April looking me up while they were here. The Big shocker: My brother 2nd in age out of us 5 kids died last year. Rick and I were never really that close. He died of Hepatitis A. Apparently he was diagnosed about this back in 1998 and was told what to do in order to treat it. But Rick liked his beer and the lifestyle he led. I guess Mike and Doris got the call about Ricks condition when he was in the Honduras. He died there. They had all kinds of trouble trying to get the body back. The Honduras is a Catholic country and they don’t believe in cremation. They had a hell of a time trying to get the body back. Apparently mom knew about Ricks condition and took this secret to the grave with her. Out of the family, there is me (Jim, the oldest) Rick, Mike, Martha and Jeff. I don’t know a lot of the details. We didn’t have much time on the phone. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Martha moved up to Campbell River.

I updated Mike about my diabetes and how I’m not under a medical plan at work and we got to talking about the Federal disability CPP. CPP is the Canada Pension Plan. I tried applying for it before. The thing is I did it while trying to apply for AISH. Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped. Mike never did that. He went directly to CPP. The thing is Mike said we have the same dissability. Our disability is obvious, it’s an automatic rubber stamp and worth about $900/month to me plus I can earn an extra $5k/year. The thing is Xl will never pay me $12 hour. I have trouble sitting to a long time and trouble standing for a long time as well. Getting a security guard job is almost out of the question and wishful thinking on my part. Between the pension and working part time, I could pull in $325/week. To get that where I’m working now, I’d have to put in over 40 hours a week. It’s not practical in my condition and certainly not gainfaul employment. One of the conditions of the dissability. If I get it and Rob lets me work say 3 days/week, I’d still do Cw. The last time I app;oed was 10 years ago and Mike said I might get a lot of retroactive back pension. The other thing is, Anne and I might still be eligible for rental subsidy. Even more so now because I’d be on a fixed income. I’m not going to get my hopes up over this and or get all worked up over it.

After the phone call I got Anne to take a couple of photo’s of me at the table. I’m with a mug of coffee and she got the whole thing in there. I like the shot. I’m trying to have it uploaded so I emailed it to Markus instead as an attachment. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll post it here.

Anyway, that’s all for now

e. Jim