Last nights Lodge meeting went really well. The weather was nice. Nathan gave me a bit of instruction and I followed that just fine. Unfortunately Neil wasn’t able to make it out, what with Lodge being on a rare Friday night and all. We had about 12 guys out at the festive board. I had a bottle of Sleeman’s honey gold, nice beer but pricey. I was missing the Oiler game. I had a good time at the Lodge and we advanced a member. George gave me a ride home which was nice of him and I got in at about 10:15pm last night.

After I packed my suit up and got comfortable for Smackdown I checked the Oiler/Sharks game. Sharks 4 Oiler’s 1. JT won again. I’m going to stop betting with this guy. My problem isn’t him it’s the Oiler’s. They’re without Hemsky and they really miss him.

Anne came in about 11:30pm and made me a nice lunch for ECW. I hadn’t time to mention to her about my Doctor’s appointment for next week.

Some talk around the festive board of course is the economy, Here in Alberta as of December, we’re sitting at 4.1% leading the national average. Our City unemployment rate is sitting at under 3.8%. Most of the job losses is in housing/construction as things slow down. It seems we here in Canada feel the US economic ripple effects a few months latter. I’d say we’re going to be in the 6.5% unemployment range by Spring unless things turn around. If Oil continues to hover at around $40/barrel we’re going to be hurting but we’ll be ok. Federally their saying Canada should experience tough times for about 3-5 years. Canada on a whole has never had an unemployment rate like the City has enjoyed. I’m thinking we could go back to the days of the mid 1990’s by the summer if not earlier. Recession time. However our office isn’t anywhere near as full to reflect a recession. When our phone room is full and they’re sending tap shooters home because of sales then it’s recession time. They don’t send tap shooters home, they just move them to the back 20. Despite the economy people still make donations to charity.

Good news is the weather is improving a bit. At the moment we are sitting at about -2C with a -5C wind chill and it’s going to be nice gong in and coming back. Anne’s working tonight, I’m at home. I’m going to try and pay on that website bill today and get that out of the way. I’ll be doing this after work. Heading over to money mart Western Union. After that I’ll be having a nap for a few hours and then I can finally get to that short story I‘ve been wanting to write for a couple of weeks now. And also get some piano practicing in.

Apparently we have a Lodge of instruction night on the 15th and that’s next week. I got my times confused a little and I don’t think I can make this what with my Doctor’s appointment on Wednesday. I could push the Doctor’s appointment ahead for Thursday but I don’t know yet. I don’t even like to miss time from work but I need to, for the Doctors appointment. I need to have my Doctor changed to downtown, it’d make lifes way easier for these kinds of things. This way I can go right to the Doctor’s office and then into work without taking time off. I’ve had my Doctor in the West end because at the time in the 1980’s and 1990’s I lived out in the West end.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim