Jeff Milner

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.

Anna-Maria has announced that she is actually coming home! I guess I had nothing to worry about “losing” Anna by not convincing her to stay. Who would have thought there could be a chance she might not be brainwashed into staying there forever? Who would ever have guessed that she would come back alive? She is flying out a week from Friday in the morning and will arrive in Calgary in the early afternoon. Not to give away any surprises but I’m going to be waiting for her because when I set up my school schedule I put almost all my classes on Monday to Thursday with only one morning class on Friday. Who knows, I may even have time for a part time job peddling internet hosting to the kids on the swim team every Friday. Speaking of the swim team, yes I do plan on continuing swimming for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns, my goal is to drop my 50 free time under 24 seconds by the end of the year. (Here is my current ranking in Canada — I was ranked 79th at time of publishing). Also I would like to work on my Butterfly skills — I can’t possibly do any worse than I did last year.

A little while ago I read an article in the Medicine Hat News about a weapons inspector that had been found dead somewhere in England. I made the offhand remark that I felt foul play had been involved and Dad was pretty mad that I would insinuate that the British Government would ever do such a thing. Well Dad this article isn’t proof of my suspicions, but it does add fuel to the proverbial fire. Now do you think I was so wrong to question the circumstance of his death?

It turns out I don’t have to work on the 23rd at all and although I was scheduled for the 24th it looks like I’ll be able to trade with someone and have the weekend completely off. So plan for me to be coming on Saturday, August 23rd. Until then I have my own house to look after.

Speaking of looking after my house, I have been letting Anna and her room mate stay here this last week. Zee has a cat that doesn’t realize what the purpose of screens are and has ruined at least two of my screens so far. Zee says she’ll pay for them which is nice, but it’s just giving me a bit of stress. The cat got locked out last night and then jumped up into the house through the bathroom window. I woke up after what seemed like hours of the sound of cat pawing away at my door. I got up and thought who locked the cat in the bathroom, well when I let him out I saw the ripped open screen blowing in the wind. GRRRR. Well that’s it for my story and I’m wanted on the phone. Take care and keep blogging.

I’m back in Lethbridge with Anna-Maria. Zee did a great job putting the place in order while I was gone. It turns out that Zee’s ride to Vancouver seems to have decided not to actually go, leaving her stranded at my house looking for another way to move out to BC. Her mother did offer to take her out there before and it looks like she might just have to take her up on the deal, well, I’m not sure what she’ll do but I’m sure she think of something and be out of here soon – not that I minded her here cleaning up the place… :) But I’m sure she’ll love it out on the coast.

Anna-Maria is up in the air about whether to go with her family to New Mexico for the next week or so. She is going to miss seeing me again until after her Montreal trip if she does in fact go with them. I’ll probably go see her at the airport in between trips, if I can swing it with work and everything, but still it would be really nice to hang out with her until she leaves for that long stint in Quebec.

So for tomorrow I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do. I would like to go Kayaking in Calgary with Corry but me being here in Lethbridge and he being in Medicine Hat and me not having anyway to get my boat from here to Calgary presents kind of a problem. I feel somewhat guilty about the lack of kayaking overall this summer and I know I’m going to regret not having gone much once school starts and the snow begins to fall. Alright not much else to say right now, so I’ll post again if anything interesting happens.