Schools over

School has been out for 2 official full days, and still we have no idea if Michelle got the job at Lamont High.
The principal is not answering phone calls and so far has not replied to emails.

Tomorrow, Canada day, they are replacing the power lines into Andrew, so we will be without power for most of the day.

So far the plan is to cram stuff like the vet in Thursday morning and take off after that. I think this is foolish and we should leave rite after a good nights sleep. We will see how things work out.

I have cool new 'Seesmic' software which allows me to update my Facebook and Twitter accounts without opening the temperamental overloaded slow programs. Twitter is more of a focused group of Forex traders and internet marketers, but I will keep facebook updated at least daily on our trip to Toronto.

We will visit Florida wile we are out east. I hear they are hit as hard or harder than the rest of the states with financial weapon of mass destruction. I will try not to buy a place there, because I know it has to be at least half the price for an equal place in Mexico, and Mexico is way more fun than anywhere in the states. But when I am making millions of dollars every year I will have to get one of the huge mansions in Florida, from some poor bankrupt sod in foreclosure hell.

I have some cute puppy videos but dont have my camera usb cable handy, so I will try and add them later

New Mut

This is Gus, our new puppy. We rescued him from the neighbor Who's dogs had 5 puppies.

What I thought was a kennel that we bought in Edmonton for $10, Michelle knew was a large dog pen. I will call it the puppy prison. That works out great, cause Cosmo is not into sharing his little house yet.

Behind me in the picture is my new office section of the barn. The window I had just put in a few weeks ago, a nice used wood framed double pane window. It was exciting cutting a hole in the wall with the chain saw. Inside I still have lots of work to do, but I do have drywall up, and the 2 walls that my glorious corner desk are against are mudded and painted. The other walls and cieling need mud and paint. Wile the floor is a very uneven concrete, and I need to install a second door in the entrance/mud room I created. When we get back from Toronto I will install a fire place in my office, some tile around the fire and in the entrance way. The rest of the floor will get a heated mat, skim of concrete, and cheap laminate, after I finish the drywall and doorway. But even before that I am expected to frame up a sub wall in the house basement to insulate it all, and install heat down there. I need to go to the city and rent an insulation blower, and blow in a couple of truck loads of insulation into the house attic and office attic. There will be one Electrical job waiting for me when I get back from Toronto, retrofitting baseboards all through a customers house that has no furnace, similar to ours. The other two jobs I had lined up will have to be done by someone else wile I am gone. Toronto will be like a holiday for me.

I am working on several web sights, I am too spread out, I need to concentrate on one until it is finished. They will eventually make me more money than I made in Ft McMurray, but most of all I just love making them. They are going to be mostly education based, to teach and help people. That is so much fun because it forces me to explore the subjects much deeper, and justify that what I teach somewhat. Or just ask myself why. So that all makes me feel smarter.

When you start looking for product to sell there is really millions of possibilities. I will likely just see what sight readers want, and research the best options for them. One sight will be a fuel miser sight, with information and reviews of biodiesel, and hydrogen kits. I will convert my pickup to run on water/hydrogen. This process appears to be mostly electrical, buy not to be confused with hydrogen fuel cells, H2O is converted to HHO with electricity. Then the HHO is just injected into the throttle body of the truck, which has the effect of increasing octane and reducing the fuel needed, effectively doubling your fuel mileage.

Hydrogen fuel cells take hydrogen and run it through hydrogen batteries, essentially,then electricity is created. That electricity can be used to run an electric car. I might just have to make an electric car web sight now, as I think of all that.

I have put advertising up on this blog. Although it was more just for getting the accounts all set up, as there will be no traffic directed to this sight, besides the dozen or so people that read it. But I get paid just the same if you see something of interest advertised on my sight and you check it out. That amazes me. I have found many people online that make a fine living just from advertising on their web sights that were totally fun to create. Even if traffic was directed to this blog, there is no niche market, just random subjects, so advertising subjects are all over the map, and probably irrelevant. Exciting stuff.

Good Deals

We got our 2 twin electric beds that turn out to be worth $6000, for...
$100 today. We also got an electric fire place, dog kennel printer, scanner, rocking chair, and shelving unit for another $110. I am loving these people that are leaving the province.

Almost bought an 85 VW Van I don't need. I convinced myself I need it, cause I could run a rural taxi service driving the drunks home from the bar at 3am, and save them DUIs. We got some new RCs that have been pulling over the drunk drivers finally. They still don't do anything about the smokers in the bar. Guess its kinda like peeing in the pool, its a hard crime to catch people at. Went off on a tangent there. I didn't buy the VW van, cause when we got around to his place he didn't answer his phone or check his email, so I guess he went out.

The Taxi service was a secondary idea that I think everyone would like. I initially wanted to sell water. The village water main has non stop traffic to it selling water for $0.02 a liter. There is often line ups of big 5 ton trucks carrying 10,000 gallon tanks plus. I thought I should be selling water. Some wells were run dry this winter through a bit of a dry spell that we had, but I still watered the garden and the grass, with no problems from our well. But I just know the Village would shut me down as soon as they found out I was getting their revenue. But a drunk taxi service, everyone should love that, less drunks on the road, less arrests for the RCs, Money for me, drunks get home safely at the end of the night. Everybody kicks a goal. :-)

resession

I am just learning, hopefully this attempt at embedding a utube vid worked. I know it didn't last time. I thought this video was funny, and it is somewhat related to today's post.

I searched Kijiji for "moving". Pages and pages just posted in the last 4 hours in the middle of the day. We need a new bed, there was a pair of twins, to make a king, for $400. Electric massage beds. I have to have em. I call, talkin like I might be able to come Sunday. He said it has to be gone before monday, cause his house goes on the market. I felt he would give me the beds if I just remove them for him. Turns out the good will is coming on Monday, and taking what ever is left.

Looking further. If only I needed a car, van, truck, camper, there are all kinds, "moving flying can't take it with me" I am going to look at some shaft drive cruiser bikes. I have had it w chain drive, I still love my sport bike, but its no good on strait AB roads. The distances I do on it out here require a pit stop to tighten the chain pretty much, as I have broken 2 chains in AB, and never before in my life have I broken a motorcycle chain.

Michelle STILL doesn't know if she has a job in Sept. There is only one week of school left. As it stands now it probably won't change our Toronto plans, but...

We have been invited and intend to go camping at West Shore, St Paul Area, next weekend, with the camper and freinds. That will keep us in AB (not in Toronto) for at least another 3 days, mwa ha ha ha.

Glad I didn't have to teach that drywall course. Only 2 people signed up. I was using some 'mud', that you have to mix, in the new 'man cave'. This mud came in powder form, from the collection of tools foreclosed on in lue of an electrical bill. I mixed some in the winter for the old man cave, and added enough water to it that it didn't go hard. But it went like black. I mixed it up well, to a grey color, but it would not spread nice. So I mixed a new batch, but not until I made a complete mess of all 4 walls, and let it dry. The new batch, wow was it better, for like 10 min, then it was hard. I have some chemical reaction fast drying mud, which is good, just wish someone told me. My point was... I had mixed up that mud in the winter thinking I would bring the rest of the mud to my class in May. Little did I know it had essentially 'kicked off', and was no good for anything.

Ron had told me about this great fast drying mud, he learned about it from Tom, and Tom had done the drywall at the bankrupt pub. I should have known. Ron is the renovation master. He was 'flat out' here in Andrew this year and last. But he learned quickly that the Ukrainians don't want to pay for anything. He won't tell me what he made last year, but he said he is throwing in the towel. He grossed 1.5 million in 2007, and this year he was stunned when he did his taxes. So he said no more. Just projects for himself, being flipping houses after renovations ect, building new houses. He offered me a bunch of left over deck material to build a deck in the front, I might just have to do that.

No news yet

Sorry, no pic today. Thursday night and we still havn't heard about Michelle's job for next year. She is a little more than 50% sure she got it.

I ventured out to Edmonton to get a desk today. WOW a lot more people are leaving the province and anxious to get rid of their furniture. I need to find a way to capitalize on this trend. Anyway, I had no problem finding three FREE desks for my new man cave. Now I can make a big U shaped work station. But I might just do an L shape and burn the extra desk if we can't find a use for it.

Cosmo's new cut

He went to the local groomer, and this is how he came back, little fatso.

I acctually had some little punks come over today to look at the Bronco, for the Andrew mud bogs. It was hidden away in the back yard, but they had seen it before wile I had it on the street for sale, and they talked to Michelle at the bar

Michelle is a little upset about her new job. She recently said she would take the office gig at Lamont High School next year, and they asked her to start a few weeks back. Leading her to believe she has a full time job. The principal really wants to see her there, but he posts the job to be professional. Another EA wants the office gig, and she has worked at Lamont for a number of years. The seniority is not a higher quallification for the job, but the principal is committed to keeping everyone happy. There is a good half dozen reasons Michelle should get the job and another opposing half dozen reasons the other EA should get the job. We find out as soon as next week, who gets to work at Lamont High.

I am secretly happy about the whole deal, and hopping she doesn't get the gig in Sept. Then I would work my evil genius plot to postpone the Toronto trip a month or two into Sept. Michelle could run her summer program here if that was still offered to her. We could go strait from Toronto to Mexico in the end of Ocotober, for Day Of The Dead, and do the Eastern tour on the way down. Then we could return to Alberta around March/April and hope the snow is melted. Good times.

I had to go back to the church in Minburn and finish up a couple of things yesterday. I installed a door bell, range hood, dishwasher and added one receptacle. They actually have the new owner moving in today. That is Ludicrous. This home is beautiful, but the area is 2 hours from anything. The reason it sold so quick, its lease to own. I believe I will do that with this place when we are really ready to sell it. For now it is a place to live and a cheap storage locker the rest of the time. I have decided not to sell it until we own another place to move into. It is just not worth randomly moving stuff to who knows which province.

I was a bit pissed with computer techs at Staples, and they made me feel a bit smart at the same time. I got a Trojan virus in one computer, in the system32/logon file, and let the antivirus delete it. Mistake, don't let the antivirus do anything about any widows/system32 files. The computer was then destined to never log another user on again. I would log on, and it logs me out as fast as I logged on. I spent a day trying to fix it and failed. Thought the hard drive is 3 years old, destined for the junker soon anyway, I will buy a new one and start again, Then all my data is still there in the old drive, should I chose to recover it. But the computer wouldn't recognize the hard drive, so I took it to staples. They couldn't get it to recognize the drive either, so I felt good about that. At the same time my other computer hard drive had packed it in, so I haven't been trading or anything the last month or 2, dealing with all the computer drama. I haven't finished my new office yet either. It would be nice to have another 3 weeks here to get the office built.

I just started work today on a blade for the back of the dune buggy, to plow the drive way. But I will put that on hold until I know whether or not we will be here in the winter. I had also put an add on kijiji for a tired old snow blower wanted for electric conversion. I got an email rite away, but when it came to give away time I guess the guy had second thoughts.

I have found 2 places mice, and potentially bigger critters dug under the foundation of the house. All I really needed to do is look. I have those holes filled with rocks, and I do want to put rocks all around the house, but that might not happen quickly. However we might have the pleasure of coming home to a mouse free house after our next trips.

Camping trip fun

A picture of Michelle and a few other daring individuals jumping in the lake at the Bellis camp sight. Keep in mind that the ice just melted off the lake about 2 weeks prior, the water is still really cold.

Last fall I was never really concerned with the trailer brakes, with no real plans to go over any major hills with the camper. I had forgotten that I had hooked up one trailer brake on the old camper with still one connection to make for the left wheel. But wow even one wheel really brings things to a stop, just touching the brake pedal, it is quite a sensation.

The camper was great, Michelle put the bunk mattress under the seat cushion/mattress, which made it very comfortable, not like sleeping on plywood. The threeway fridge only seems to work on 120v, I expect the propane and 12v aren't even hooked up, as the fridge appears to be an upgrade from the original.

We have a bottle depot that opened up in town a few months ago, finally. I towed the trailer behind the dune buggy the first visit there, as they are right on my personal dune buggy trail that cuts through my back yard and rite through town. Yesterday I was on my way there w the dune buggy and a garbage bag full of empties from the camping trip. Well I left out the front yard, and through the ditch cross the front of two houses, stopped at the trail to cross the road and go down the trail. Well wouldn't you know it a Piece Officer pulls up w his lights on and sends me back home. The funny thing was he knew where I lived, perhaps there has been complaints, or less likely but possibly he saw me leave my drive way. He made out like I can drive the thing anywhere, outside of the "city limits", which just means leaving out the back yard instead of the front, in my interpretation. The properties behind us are farm where it seems 'anything goes'.

My new rototiller/mole repeller has brought composting to the next level. I just dump the house hold compost in the tines of the tiller and it grinds stuff up for 2 hours a night until there is no recognizable vegetable waste. I almost want to turn it off and let the moles come, so I can turn it on and witness them vacating the place. That will prolly be what happens the last week of August when we return from Toronto.

All is looking good for the Toronto trip, except for a minor disagreement, Michelle wants to drive, and I want to fly. That will work its way out I am sure.