I left out of here about 4pm and took a couple of shots but they were a tad to dark I think the only good one is the bus pulling out of Clairview station West:

It’s not a bad image. Weather wise it was holding about +5C out there but the wind was picking up. I get into the office and Rob is raging on me about credit card sales. I got 5 last night and he goes on about how great Severe is with his 17 today. (Actually 11) My counter was “All day. Is keeping my job predicated on credit card sales?” No he said but mentioned it’s just more money in my pocket. Then he asked about my Review (for all of 2007) and I said I wrote $122K and banked $83k. That’s about 70% bank. Anyway, I ended up getting 4 credit cards before break and about $420 by 5 credit cards by the end of the shift. So, that’s not bad. In the 2nd half Moe was saying how that they were listening to the Vancouver office calls and they aren’t saying the disclaimer. They are not asking for the credit card and they talk about mailing. Also, they are doing better campaigns then we are. Greg let me listen to some of Vancouver’s (not in real time however) calls. Holy shit, they’re getting off a lot better then we are. They are calling into Portland Oregon for MS and even Something to do with the Shriner’s Transportation club of Vancouver but that’s their business room. Pretty amazing in a shocking sort of way what they are getting away with. They have none of the restrictions as is imposed on us here in the Edmonton office.

I ended up with 5 credit cards and top total for $685. So that’s $25 bucks this week in bonuses. If I get them. Also, for every 30 credit card sales, you get $4 for every credit card sale and 50 credit card sales it goes up to $5/credit card sale. It’s basically to get staff to get credit cards and improve attendance.

Anyway, I let Moe know that I’m going to try a morning shift this morning to make up for me missing this evening. I won’t mind that. It’s just to make up for missing Lodge nights. We book off for the Summer so that’s not too bad. I’m really looking forward to the Lodge tonight. It’s going to be a simple meeting and I’ve got enough for the festive board. Anne’s got $10 for me for Friday night and that’s for my book for Saturday. In all the 6 years I’ve been a Mason I’ve never had the opportunity to “recruit” anyone. That's not my style. Moe brought up the fact that it seems every time he turns around I’ve got another Lodge meeting. He was only joking about it. I mentioned to him about becoming a Mason and he said he’d like to be one. He pointed out how it was the Masons involved in the underground railroad freeing blacks from slavery during the American Civil war years. So I’m going to ask at the Lodge tonight how do I facilitate interest from a friend that wants to be a Mason and what are the steps to go about doing this.

My alarm is all set up for 6:30am for the morning shift. This way I’ve got an hour to myself before I get ready to go to the 9am morning shift. I’m out the door shortly before 8am. First morning shift since June 30th 2004. The day I learned I was diabetic. So this means that the morning of every lodge night, I’ll substitute a morning shift for the evening one so I don’t lose hours. So then Anne asks me, "Is there not a Friday afternoon shift, why not do the afternoon shift to make up for Lodge night?" That's a good idea. Rob will know I've missed Thursday, Friday morning but I'll be there Friday afternoon. I lose an hour, no big deal and I have Thursday afternoon off.   

And of course this is the last Oiler game of the 2007-08 season. The last 6 weeks were fun to watch as the guys were beating everybody. They’ll be back in October. 

I decided to change my next 3 books to be the 2 Peter F. Hamilton novels "Pandora's Star" and then "Judas unchained." These are huge monsters. A total of 1,995 pages. Whew! Most likely I'll have these read around Labour Day! After that it's "Helix" by Eric Brown. I didn't want to get hooked onto a long series like David Weber's "Honor Harrington" books or even a trilogy or even something like "The Forgotten Realms" series right now. I'll most likely have "Undertow" completed by the weekend. After "Undertow" don't ecpect another "book review" from me until about Labour Day.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim