Category: Miscellaneous

I purchased my roommates Jeep this morning. I’m extremely excited about it and would like to post more but…

Anna-Maria is Flying Back From Montreal Today!

Anna is flying in to Calgary today at around 2:30pm. I am driving up to Calgary to pick her up and will probably go to visit Gary and Tracie tonight as well, perhaps take in that movie about the guy with the “underground” comics. I’m so excited to see her.

It’s the first day of classes. I just got out of Drama 1000. There are some interesting people in my class. There was a guy whom came dressed in black, had a terrible lisp and he tells us he’s a fashion designer by trade and a cross-dresser by profession. What I want to know is where do you work as a cross dresser in Lethbridge? Seems like you wouldn’t have much of a market for something like that here.

I have a break until 2:00 this afternoon. In the meantime I think I’ll find a class to “audit”. Checking out classes you are not enrolled in can be very educational. You can meet new people, decide whether you want to take that class at a later time or decide that you never want to take a class with certain professors. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I better go find one quickly.

I’ll make this brief and right to the point. Some books can be purchased only at the University bookstore. Those ones you just have to buy. To buy some of the required books, that are available elsewhere, from the University bookstore would cost me $261.84. To buy the same books from Chapters Bookstore will cost $183.27. That is a savings of $78.57. Wow.

Update on Book Buying Strategies:
The thing about ordering my books online is that I’ll have to wait for them to arrive. Now what I plan to do is buy the books that I absolutely need from the bookstore and return them before the end of the 15 day grace period. That is all.

When I woke up this morning and looked out the window I wondered what was wrong with the world. Smoke from forest fires nearby made everything tinted Matrix green. The radio announcer said it reminded them of the movie Red Dawn – like somebody dropped a bomb on us. Apparently the fires are getting worse and 3200 more people have been evacuated in Kelowna. The smoke we have here is from Cranbrook and probably won’t clear until Friday.

I came to Medicine Hat yesterday to drop off my computer at Memory Lane. It’s been acting up lately – dropping to the blue screen of death for no apparent reason (like there is ever a reason). So while I’m here I’ve also been consulting Mom and Dad about buying that Jeep. I think I’m going to do it. I need to get going now though. I have to get back to Lethbridge for work and it looks like my computer will have to stay and be fixed without me. Oh well – hopefully it will be done before school starts on Wednesday.

Today is the big “Mars Day”. Yes, the day when Mars will come its closest to Earth for 60,000 years – a mere 35 million miles away. Who cares if it still looks like a marble through the telescope – just like always. Apparently we are supposed to be able to see Mars with the “naked eye”. I can’t even see the Sun here in Lethbridge because of all the clouds and nasty smoke from the forest fires. I guess I’ll just have to wait another 60,000 years for this opportunity to pass again – hopefully there won’t be any forest fires nearby.

I visited my cousin Lydia on Sunday. While I was there Lydia and I went over to her Grandma’s house and got to talking with her Grandmother’s sister. She is from the Crowsnest Pass area. (I guess we visited with them when we went motorcycle riding there years ago). Anyway they have been asked to evacuate and that’s why they were there visiting in Welling. I can only imagine the fear that would overcome you knowing your house may burn down – of course they said that no houses were burning where they are from. The only houses that were burning are in B.C.

The Mormon Missionaries are coming over to my house today. I told them that Wednesday at 1:00pm would be fine for me. One of them called me last night to ask if 1:30 would work. I explained (again) that I had to work at 2:00 and that I didn’t care when they came. He seemed slightly embarrassed but explained they had a lunch appointment and didn’t want to have to rush. I felt like telling him, “Don’t rush, take your time; in fact I don’t even care if you come over!” But I didn’t. I guess I’m a sucker for being a nice guy. I wonder what they are even going to say to me. I’m sure I’ll have something to say to them. This should be interesting.

The roommate – another one that didn’t even really live here (he moved in halfway through July then he was in Japan for half of August) has decided to go back to Japan. Of course he wants to stay for 8 days in September. I told him that I would only charge him for half a month. I try not to feel bad for being a nice guy. I mean he has hardly even been here and making him pay an entire month for 8 days isn’t really the fair thing to do. I suppose being fair won’t make me rich but at least I’ll be able to sleep at night (or maybe I won’t with all the stress of paying the bills).

He is selling his Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s runs in 4×4 mode all the time. It has a powerful V8 engine and shiny dark green paint. He even installed an MP3 CD player. Buying it would mean no more worries about my Cavalier and it would give me the opportunity to go kayaking in style – whenever I wanted. I haven’t really been able to go kayaking at all this year because I don’t have a way to get my kayaks to the river.

It seems like buying it is a great idea, except of course for the fact that I don’t really have any money to buy it. He’s selling it so cheaply compared to what it is worth that I feel like I need to buy it. He needs to sell it by September 8th (12 days) or else he’ll have to “give it away” to the dealer. I’m sure the dealer won’t give him anything near what it’s worth. How will I get the money to pay for it? Also I think he is closing his bank account, so I think that means he’ll want the money in cold hard cash. Probably won’t find a dealer willing to pay cash. Maybe I’ll be able to talk him down more if I use bills as a bargaining tool.

I’ve decided to set up the old computers around the house as servers. Perhaps I’ll even start a home business selling webspace hosting. Having a supplementary income while I am in school would be very nice. Whether I make money or not is beside the point. At least I won’t have to pay for unreliable hosting anymore. (One2Host = Worst service ever!) I’m going to the Lethbridge Linux Users Group monthly meeting on Tuesday. LLUG, as they like to be called, will help me set up my old computers and probably have free donuts too. Mmmmm, donuts. I should probably bring donuts just in case they don’t have any because, hey you never know when having a box of donuts is going to come in really handy. Actually having a box of donuts anytime comes in pretty handy.