Thursday wasn’t as productive as I had hoped. I went down to AHC hoping I could take care of our health care subsidy but the clerk asked if I had brought the form we filled out and signed. Form? Oops. The clerk handed me one to fill out, which means another trip. Anne fills out her side and I fill out mine. With a bit of time on my hands I went to take a look at Telus mobility’s Blackberry’s to see one in progress. What does a web page look like? That sort of thing. They couldn’t get my webpage up which is strange but they got Google and “Fantastic Fiction.” The latter I was not impressed with at all. They want $550 bucks without a contract. Contract is another way of saying credit check. I didn’t go to the City Center mall food court. I just went straight home. I explained this to Anne and we’ll sign the form tonight and I can take it down Monday afternoon.

I did some internet stuff, researching on biodiesel fuel. People that use biodiesel are scumbags. They have little ethics or are to stupid to know better. Let me explain why: Apparently 40% of all agricultural land in the US is being used for biodiesel fuel. This trend is also occurring in 3rd world countries. More farmers are producing less food in favor of biodiesel production, which is why there are more food shortages now. In the Philippines and Indonesia they’re clearing out large areas of rain forest for biodiesel crops such as palm-oil. Loss of habitat on such a scale could endanger numerous species of plants and animals. The very same endangered species that the IPPC say are a result of “global AGW warming.” Hypocritical or what? Meanwhile the worst CO2 offender (China) is exempt from Kyoto because Kyoto in it’s “infinite wisdom” think that China is a poor nation. That may have been true 20 or even 10 years ago. Meanwhile these AGW alarmists are saying “I’m reducing my carbon footprint by using biodiesel fuels.” Yeah at the expense of starving people in the 3rd world. Meanwhile food prices are going up around the world because of these AGW freaks. And these environmental AGW alarmists like Greenpeace are curiously silent. Meanwhile the head of the UN World Food Programme has warned that the rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010. “But we got to continue using land that used to grow crops for biodiesel.” Yeah, how ethical is that? Never mind the carbon-credit shell game, which does nothing to reduce CO2. As for this carbon-credit bs, I haven’t seen anything this hokey coming out of America since the Warren Commission’s report and the JFK Single bullet theory. I could go on and on but I think that’s enough AGW crap for today.

When I left out of here Wednesday afternoon at 4pm, I had no idea of the drama that was about to unfold out in an Edmonton West end shopping Center. Jasper Gates. When I lived out in the West end, I used to go by there all the time. Thousands of people do every day. This was top story on the news at 11: A 75 year old senior and his wife were out celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary having dinner at the “Royal fork buffet.” I’ve eaten there many times myself. It’s a nice place. Apparently the wife of the senior was by the car I guess getting in and her husband was fending off against a panhandler. Heated words were exchanged. People nearby heard the commotion going on and watched what looked like the panhandler pulling a knife and stabbing the senior. The woman frantic checking her husband fended the panhandler off with her purse. By this time witnesses came forward to help the stabbing victim as the panhandler ran off. Sure, we know this stuff happens all the time right? What was surprising the first night as sketchy details emerged on the news, one of the witnesses looked like Robert M. Yeah, he looks like the same guy back in 1980 he would have been about 14 years old back then. He’d be at lest 40 and he looked a lot older, even with grey receding hair. Robert was a big guy back then and this witness was just as big. It had to be the same person. The next day on the news more details of this awful event began to emerge. Another witness spoke out, font under her image, Bridget B. Anne stood in front of the TV off to the side and we both looked at each other with lit up eyes. “That’s Bridget.” She was our witness at our wedding 8 years ago. We haven’t spoke to her in about 8 years. At least she’s still in the area. This tragic event brought some closure to me as well. Robert M is still in the area. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. And of course Bridget. The name of the victim has not been released yet. Sadly the senior died on the way to the hospital. What that poor woman was going through is unimaginable. The worst of it is, they’ll never catch the panhandler that did this. There’s a moral message in all of this. Don’t make eye contact with panhandlers and don’t ever speak to them, no matter how you feel about them.

Anne had left to go get me a bag of chips at the Dollarama across the street and she left right after that. This was just about 3:30pm. A window of ten minutes when she returned. Over the past year now Anne has been noticing small food items missing from our freezer. Meat pies hamburger patties and other items (I thought it was just her imagination.) including cat food. And lately $20. These incidents have been causing us a lot of grief lately and threats of moving out of here. At first she suspected the caretakers. I humored Anne as we thought about a wireless webcam to monitor the inside door and that’s still something to think about. So I’m in the office here working away and I hear the front door close maybe five minutes after Anne had left. WTF? “Honey?” I put on a pair of pants and ran to the door opened the door looked left and right and I saw the back of someone entering the suite beside us. So Anne wasn’t imagining things after all. That had to be them. I couldn’t wait to tell this to Anne.

I called Nathan and explained how I was just to wiped out to go to Lodge as I wanted to just stay home and watch hockey. To just vegetate in front of the TV. I didn’t exactly put it that way to him but that’s the gist of it.

When Anne came home last night we had a good talk about the atempted break in.

As for me, I called ETS last night about the best way to apply for in the call center. The jobs are posted online daily and also at City Hall and yes they are unionized. I even called Stats Canada as well maybe they are unionized. Hard to say but it’s usually difficult for me to get to a phone this time of day even though we have pay as you go cell phones.

This afternoon it’s into work. Anne gave me $20 for my allowance and I’ve got $10 on me. I might go over to Audrey’s and place another book order and pick something up there as well we’ll see.

 Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now

e. Jim