Mainframe does another Gear-8 job

For years I have been keeping an eye out for the series Heavy Gear, and today, at a used media store at Westmount, I found it. Based on a video game that I have never played, it follows the battles and rivals of two teams of giant robots known as Gundam, sorry Battle Mechs, no wait... Gears! Been done before? Not quite. There are the futuristic elements such as the titluar Gears armed to the teeth (pun intended) with missiles, machine guns, and melee weapons, plus the fact that all the battles are televised with flying cameras propelled by superconductors, but it does not have a continuing storyline. It has more of the Saturday morning cartoon feel to it, much like the first season of Reboot, also made by Mainframe Entertainment.

That alone was one of the reasons I yoiked it off the shelf as soon as I saw it. I've found that Mainframe is for television what Pixar is for the film industry. When Toy Story came out, it was heralded as the longest production done completely in CGI to date. Not as widely noted was the fact that Mainframe had produced two 12 episode seasons of Reboot by the end of 1995, the same year Toy Story was released in theatres. About 500 minutes of material compared to the 75 minute feature film. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, I'm just saying that some other companies deserve the lime light too.

The other reason was that I had never seen it before since it was never televised in North America. For what reason, I have no idea. This show looks like it would have had a good home on The Zone (YTV), especially since Mainframe is a canadian company.

Nonetheless, it's a good little show, and I'm glad that I have Volume 1 added to my collection. I was releaved the show was pretty good, because the DVD features are crap. No special features, no additional languages, no captions, there is not even a Play All option. The main menu consists of the five episode titles, a shot of the Gears, and the series title. After an episode is done, you are returned to the menu. I guess they didn't think it would sell, so not much effort was put into the disc features. At least it has a menu though.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I recently got an email from my mom about a new blog that I started up about my wife's pregnancy. She was happy for us, yet was a little disconcerted that I was keeping a public record about these events. I was a little perplexed because I was thinking about writing and publishing a book about all this. Aside from the publication idea, I find it a better way to keep a personal record. I used to keep a private journal, but I've had problems with keeping track of the books, scribblers, and computer files that I've used over time. Also, I've heard time and time again that our journals are for our own records, but also for future posterity. Why let people wait until I'm dead to read about me?

Mind you there have been somethings that have been recorded, but are not available to the public. Sealed documents concerning the assination of JFK for instance. Some prophesies were written and not revealed to the people at that time. Such as the one by Alma the younger(?) where he foresaw that the Nephite empire would fall 400 years after the coming of Christ.

There were a few things that were starting to worry me about blogging though. First is that I was putting in a lot of time to do entries. Don't get me wrong, I love to write, but I also love to spend time with my wife. We don't have the computer in our bedroom, and I wind up spending quite a bit of time apart, even though we're under the same roof. Feels weird. That's not really a problem now, because I have my PDA keyboard, so I can type in the company of my wife. The other worry was that I get too absorbed with myself. I certainly hope not!

I heart eBay

My first purchase went as well as you can imagine. I paid using Paypal, and the vendor sent it out that day, and in about a week I got it. I was a little worried after I installed the driver, then I read the disk. "Keyboard driver for Compaq iPaq H3800 series" didn't really send a chill though me, but I thought I would try it anyway. BOOM! It works! Those other entries today were written on the bus and at the Agricom using the keyboard. You would think that it's easy to type on that thing. It's not the spring loaded laptop type of keyboard, it's the rubber keys with carbon contacts. I'm assuming, I don't want to take it apart!

After all this money that we spent, it made me realize that we still need to pay tithing. We're getting a little behind, so this Sunday I am going to do everything save staple the checkbook to my forehead.

At the fair

Just saw the Hoja show at Telus stage and now we're refreshing ourselves with some of the food that I brought. I knew that we would be spending some money today, because we both wanted to get some more baklava. That was just the beginning. We also got a vegetable shredder, some aromatherapy stuff, and some fudge. It is way too easy to spend a lot of money! And we haven't gone on any rides either. Funny thing is, I do not plan to, and I know Caitlin doesn't either.

I have to say that it's a lot easier to use this keyboard when it's on a flat surface. I need to get myself used to this thing if i want to use it for school. I know I would have to get my typing speed up to at least 35 wpm if I want to be somwhat productive. It's not just enough to know where all the keys are, I have to press them at the right angle to get the connection secure. It's also too small for me to use my thumbs for the space bar, so I use my index finger. As I said, I have to learn how to type all over again!

New toys, and we need to check mail more often

First thing written with new keyboard, and written on the bus to boot! Really handy, although I need to learn how to type all over again. It's also a little difficult since I don't have the keyboard on a completely flat surface. My typing speed also suffers because you have to press the buttons a little harder than I'm used to.

But it's here, and might have arrived a couple of days ago. Caitlin and I are not in the habit of checking the mail very often. If I buy more stuff on eBay that will most definitely change.

A spiritually resonating story

A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on
it were able to swim to a small, desert like island. The two survivors, not
knowing what else to do, agree that they had no other recourse but to pray
to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to
divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man
saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land, and he was able to eat its
fruit. The other man's parcel of land remained barren.

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife.
The next day, another ship was wrecked, and the only survivor was a woman
who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, there was
nothing.

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. The next day,
like magic, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still
had nothing.

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could
leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the
island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave
the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to
receive God's blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven
booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

"My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the
first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not
deserve anything."

"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I
answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."

"Tell me," the first man asked the voice, "what did he pray for that I
should owe him anything?"

"He prayed that all your prayers be answered."

For all we know, our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone, but
those of another praying for us.

Christ died for the sins of the world, not only because of His great love
for us all, but because he knew that through his scarifice we can come to
understand and attain Eternal Life.

A friend of mine emailed that story to me. I cleaned up all the forwarding arrows and I took out the forward-this-to-everyone-on-the-internet-or-you-are-a-heathen-with-no-soul guilt trip. If I'm going to send a story, I want to share it with people that I care about. If they want to forward it, good for them. If they don't, at least they know I care about them.

This story made me realize that even though Caitlin and I make it a priority to pray on a daily basis, and that God does hear and answer prayers, praying for the welfare of others is just as important as praying for our own well being. "When you are in the service of your fellow being, you are only in the service of your God." - Mosiah 2:17 Prayer is a type a work and is also a form of service to others. I would recommend going beyond just praying for people, but praying for family and friends, church and political leaders, and even co-workers is something we should all do. Myself included.

Commonality between my job and a bakery

TURNOVERS! Ha ha ha ha.. ha... Hmmm. Kind of sad actually. Another store is in peril and my manager is sending off some of his own to help. By sending off, I mean going to Westmount for the rest of the week, and possibly some of the next. By some of his own, I mean me. There was a new person hired on, but he's going to be working at Westmount with me for the next few days. I am a little spooked, but only because Westmount is a lower volume store. Everyday at Kingsway, I'm surprised by the amount of people who come down from the Territories. We also get people who are staying at the Ramada Inn, or are in town for the first time, yet I wonder why other malls don't get traffic near the level as Kingsway? Kingsway still has the highest foot traffic of all the malls in the city. The Kingsway transit center is also a major hub for two of the busiest bus routes. NAIT is also very close by, so we get students looking for computer stuff, or alarm clocks, or stereos, or DVD players.

Westmount, not so much. It has a transit station, a skating rink, the cheapest first run theatre in the city, and ... oh yeah, my workplace! Telus World of Science, or Odyssium (or Telussium as I know some people call it), is also next door, as is Ross Shepard High School. The important thing is that I have the correct attitude, and who knows what can happen. A bit of a longer commute for me, but I know that it will help out the store in Westmount immensely. Nathan, the manager, has been keeping the place up himself for the past week. I've only been with the company for about two months, but I hold my own in sales, and Ryan (Kingsway manager) left me in charge for a few hours while he went home to get some rest. I goofed on giving his cell phone an unnecessary call, but that was it. Whew. Time for bed I think.

And then there were three

Now the other Assistant manager is leaving. Alright, she's actually being transferred, and promoted. You can't blame her for wanting to make progress in her career possibilities. But now, we don't have an AM! We have a new guy coming in tomorrow from Ontario, who is "AM Material", but he's not an AM. Yet. My manager will have to make the call on that one.

We're also getting another guy transferred in to our store from Millwoods. This works out better for him because he lives on the north side, and Kingsway is half the distance for him to commute. I think that I got the best deal out of everyone. Just a quick 10 minute bike ride and I'm at work!

Mind you I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to do that commute anymore. Yesterday, we were in a bit of a rush to get out to Millwoods, and I quickly, but securely, locked my bike to the beams surrounding a power transformer. It was the closest place to the Transit Center, and the bus that Caitlin and I needed to take was there and about to leave. It was a very fast lock up, but I had the lock around the guard rail, the bike frame, and through the front tire. I was hoping that we would get back into town that night, and I wouldn't have to leave it there overnight. I was wrong. But I was also wrong in thinking that someone would steal my bike. When we came back into Edmonton today, it was still there. Tires were fine, brakes were good, and the gears were still in the same position I left them. I didn't worry about it for the most part while we were at the dance last night.

Ma-me-o Beach dance was a lot of fun. I bought some spilters at work to create a third RCA stereo input for my PDA. I also recently aquired a 1Gb SD card so to store more music on there too. I had to experiment a little bit before I figured out how to get the system balanced right. In the end, I used the splitters to support both CD players on the left input, and iPAQ had sole use of the right input. Since the CD players were the same make and model, they had the same signal output, and thus they were able to perform with the spilters. However, both had to be on, or else the volume was cut in half, which I learned when we were shutting down. I managed to get a good elcetic mix out there for people, but I know for a fact there were a few teenagers who weren't completely satisfied with my offerings. I was played "My name is" by Eminem, but I didn't even get a minute into the song before someone bigger than my father-in-law came up and suggested that we turn it off, since there are little kids in attendance. I like some of Marshall Mathers stuff, but this guy was right, there were little kids there, and no one was dancing to it anyway. So I nixed it and didn't play much hip hop for the rest of the night. Some kids complained, but they didn't hire us, so I could care less of what they thought of me. The compliments outnumbered the complaints too.

Always read the fine print

I was hoping that I would be writing a review about a fabulous keyboard that I got for my iPAQ 3950. Silly me did not remember what the model number, and therefore model series, of my PDA was. I knew that it was a part of the Compaq iPAQ series and it was somewhere in the 3000 series. After I bought it, brought it home, installed the software, had the device set up and ready to go, nothing happened. I thought that maybe the battery that came with the device was a dud, so I put in some of my own that I knew had a charge. Still nothing. Possibly the infrared part was not matching up with the transmitter, so I searched for, and found, the box. The solution to my problem was printed right on the box. My PDA is a Compaq iPAQ 3950, part of the 3900 series, not supported by the keyboard. At least I still have the receipt, and there is a 30-day exchange policy.

I have not lost faith though. I simply searched thought the online catalog for the Source. I found a Bluetooth keyboard, but that was all. My PDA doesn't have Bluetooth connector, so there was nothing else for iPAQ that I could get at work. So I tried something a bit more daring. Something I have never tried before. I went to eBay. Boom. I am currently the highest bidder, but I do hope that this will solve my situation. I had the hope that I could get the keyboard so that I would be able to take notes easier when school starts up again. That and make blog entries on the go.

And then there were four

I knew that there's a staffing shortage in the city. Everywhere I go I see help wanted signs. A couple weeks ago, the Journal had an article in which the writer went to a series of places throughout the city applying for jobs, just to see how desperate the market is right now. Some places he was offered a job on the spot, and was told that he could start that day. Other places, like McDonald's, had a bit more of a process, but offered him jobs as well.

Within my own employment organization, I had no idea how bad it was until today. There was a change of management at one of the stores, and subsequently all the employees quit. As of yesterday, the manager was the only person working at that particular store. Now there are two people in that store because head office pulled one of our assistant managers to help there. A bit of a shock to the system since we had a good team atmosphere, and another person quit last week taking the total staff down to five.

Now, our total store staff numbers at four people. That's the minimum amount of people you need to run the store daily. Sundays you can get by with three, but for the most part, you need four people. Since we received notice of the transfer just today, the schedule for the remainder of the week had to be adjusted to compensate for the lack of people. In short, I'm working more hours. I was already at 48 this week, and it has now increased to 52. Nice overtime, but I really hope that I'm not going to burn out. I don't mind working overtime, so long as I get my Sundays off. Thankfully, we have a transfer of our own that was previously in the works, and has now been expedited. The only downside is that he is going back to school in the fall. Funny that, so am I. I plan to do some part-time work in the fall though. Plan to. Once fall hits, and I realize what a foolish error that was, I might change my mind.

I have to go back to school though. I would like to continue working retail. It's a decent job, but I doubt that it would be sufficient to raise a family with. True, two of my co-workers have families, but their spouses are also working. An engineering position would pay better than retail would. I would suppose.

Not inexpensive merchendise, just cheap junk

Now I remember why I never got a scooter before Thursday. It's not because I did not have the money available, and not because I had rollerblades and my bicycle already, but rather the words of warning from a friend of mine. He told me of when he worked in the San Fransisco (novelty store) warehouse in Edmonton. There was always a pile of returned scooters. Very cheap, very unreliable scooters piled as a monument to the incompetent design of them. I was told that it was a very bad idea to ever purchase one.

This is something I learned the hard way. I did notice that the wheels got quite warm when used for a certain period of time, like 20 minutes.
To the left we see what the wheel should look like, more or less, and to the right we see what happened to the wheel after I was riding it for 21 minutes today. I do not know exactly how long I was riding for, but it was from our apartment to downtown, which took about 20 minutes, and it resulted in failure of the rear wheel. The reason I came downtown was to pick up Caitlin from work, which I was early for. So I sat down and decided to read the information that was on the bottom of the scooter, to see if there was some kind of warning about the wheels. No such luck, but there were warnings about using it for stunting and taking it into traffic. And a weight limit of 80 kg/ 175 lbs. Uh oh. Should have read that before I bought it, since I balance the scales at 190 lbs. Did that contribute to the failure? Probably. All the same I'm going to dig up the receipt and return it. Finding the receipt might be a bit of a chore though.

On a happy note, Caitlin and I used our gift certificate that we got from the LDSSA for our help with Friday Forum last semester. I know that it was Sunday, and you are not supposed to do shopping or the like on the sabbath day. When you have to work on Sunday, it really skews things in your head. So after I picked up Caitlin, we went to Second Cup and redeemed the $10 certificate for a strawberry smoothie and a piece of Hugs and Kisses cake. The cake was layered with chocolate brownie and vanilla cheesecake. One word, tasty!

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

There it is, and for a bit less than I anticipated. I thought that the scooter was going to cost about $40, but turns out that it was only $30. That was the good news. The not so good news was the fact that it look a bit more time and a lot more effort that I anticipated to get from downtown to home and back again. For one thing, I was working muscles that I had not used before, and they didn't really like it. I could stay on one leg for about two blocks until I had to switch. Also, there were not many gliding parts. The pavement in Edmonton, espically on sidewalks, tends to be a bit bumpy. In Churchill Square and around downtown it was great! It would be even better if I could use it inside the mall, but security would be on me quicker than a squirrel on caffeine. Caitlin used it to get home today, but she drew the same conclusion as me. Nice to have, like our in-line skates, but a casual thing. She doesn't see herself taking that to work every day. Back to getting her a new handlebar post and better handlebars.

But I have one more crazy idea. What if I took the scooter to work, and she took my bike to work? I would have to see if I could make it to work myself on the scooter, but I think the pavement it worse the route I take. Maybe not the best idea. Another idea Caitlin had was to borrow her brother's electronically self-propelled scooter. Just plug it in and, "WHOO!", after a couple hours of charging of course. We would have to borrow, because I don't think we would buy one of those, since they cost in the neighbourhood of a new bicycle.

One of my assistant managers noticed that I am working 48 hours next week. This is greatly due to the fact that we are short staffed, and we need to make ends meet. This is a great plus for me, because then I can sensibly take the last week of August off to go to Banff, and not worry about missing a week of work, because with all the overtime that I would have accumulated at that point, I would have worked that week anyway. This is assuming that I'm going to be putting in 48 hours a week for the next five weeks. Plus I told my manager when I was hired that I would work six days a week if he needed me to, so long as I had Sunday off, and he has done that for me next week. |Smiles|

Creativity comes to ploy

No, that's not a typo. My wife is now pregnant, and resorted to taking the bus because her bicycle is a bit too uncomfortable to ride now. She's only a couple months along, but until we get new handlebars, she's not going to ride. Getting a new handlebar post might be simple, it might not. Getting her new handlebars might be simple, it might not. Either way, I think it might be pricer than I'm expecting. I'll have to check out EBC and see if I can harvest an old bike and get something for Karpoozi (her bike's name). The reason behind the bike's name is because when we bought it, she thought of calling it "Watermelon" because of its green colour. I thought that was kinda weird calling it that, so I suggested the Greek work for watermelon, karpoozi, because I thought it sounded better. She went along with it and to this day we refer to it as Karpoozi.

Back to the ploy, since Caitlin doesn't want to be hunched over on her bike, and she doesn't want to walk, and it would be far too dangerous for her to rollerblade, I thought of a clever idea to get something I've had my eye on for a couple weeks. A scooter! They've come down in price considerably, she doesn't have to hunch over, it's easier to stop, and they are much easier to take on the bus if she can't ride home. The idea is that we'll get one right now for her, and then one for me later on. Maybe for my birthday. Eh, we'll have to see.

Plans have changed

This is Bob the balloon dragon. Caitlin had him custom made at the street performers festival. He's losing air, so I took a picture of him the night we brought him home. It's hard to get a good picture with our camera. But I'm looking into getting a new camera, but we might get one for Christmas. Right now I just have to worry about getting money for my tuition.

I like working retail, but I'm just wondering if it's enough to support a family, which has recently taken a very high priority. Thoughts and plans about family have changed considerably. Then again, you can get a job that pays more money than you can charge to an American Express corporate expense account, and dread going to bed, since it would mean that you would have to get up the next day and go to work.

Time for rest, and not a moment too soon. I've worked nine days straight. But I don't mind. Much.

June Review

Don't let anyone ever have you believe that public displays of affection are a bad thing. Unless you think that getting your picture in the paper is a bad thing. :) June 17, 2006 Ed Magazine, Edmonton Journal. We had it taken while we were at the Pancake Breakfast sponsered by the EBC. At first the photographer caught us off guard, and then we held it for him. It was interesting having the camera take seven pictures of us kissing over the course of 10 seconds, just to make sure he had the shot.

I also have a new job working at The Source by Circuit City at Kingsway Mall. I've been doing quite well, but I don't think that it's something that I want to do for the rest of my life. It does help me apply my engineering knowledge, but at one point I was using the knowledge I accrued from a $400 course to try to sell a $100 radio with a low pass filter (LPF) option. It would have been a better story had I actually sold the radio, or if the guy came back to buy it. That was one of those "Is this what my life has become?" moments. Spending thousands of dollars in debt all so I can sell shortwave radios in a retail setting. There are some people who just have high school and that's it. It's a little discouraging since those people often sell more than I. If I want to do sales engineering, then I would have to sharpen the selling skills.

Today Dad, Grandma, Caitlin and I did a road trip to Calgary for Benjamin Arthur Orr's blessing. The biggest surprise was when I saw John and Linda Mack there, and further surprised when I saw they were eight months pregnant. I thought that there were some medical difficulties, but I guess I was mistaken. Caitlin felt a little left out since we don't have any children, nor do we have plans to have children for a little while. Basically until I have my mid-pass filter operating sufficiently so that my mental capaticities don't hit resonant levels like they did over a year ago. But it was a good turn out at the blessing, and the lunch at the Orr's home afterwards. I just wish we had got Caitlin to see the house while we were there. Instead, Caitlin had some food and fell asleep on the couch.

I think I must be on a down cycle right now. Focusing on the negative and comparing myself to others and their accomplishments seems to bring out the worst in me.

I suppose this wouldn't be the best time to mention that the Oilers lost to Carolina, although anyone involved in hockey would have known that weeks ago. That or they are so caught up with the World Cup that they've forgotten all about hockey. :)

I'm going to end this with a happy thought. Caitlin still loves me, and told me that even if I wind up in the hospital again she will always love me. That and we have money for rent, and my dad told me that he would pitch in to help pay for my tutition if I need it.