Life in Calgary

Just drove by the SuperStore at Coventry Hills and noticed the sign indicating that they are hiring meat managers. Apply at the store or at loblaw.ca

Took some pictures during a walk around downtown Calgary yesterday.

Here is a picture that I took while we were walking the dog yesterday.

Quite a change in scenery from just a little over two weeks ago.

Happy Thanksgiving day to all of you!

Considering the temperature (80 year old record broken today) of -16 C and the Turkey in the owen, it’s feeling more like Christmas than really Thanksgiving.

It’s hard to believe than two or three weeks ago we were complaining that it was too hot (+30 C) and now we are complaining that it just got too cold too early in the year. We are never happy are we?

According to the weather forecast we will be back at a high of +19 on Saturday (October 17th).

Enjoy your dinner!

The MRI scan went well.

I got into the machine after 11:00 PM and they still had a patient scheduled after me.

The technician told me that they start at 6:30 AM and run until 11:30 PM.

It’s going to be 1 week until the results go back to ty doctor which sounds like not a lot of time at all as I waited for the test for 6 months.

Let’s see if the test reveals anything or not.

I am sitting at the hospital waiting for my MRI exam. Its 10:44 PM and there’s one gent ahead of me in the line.

It’s going to be a long night but i hope the MRI helps determine if there’s anything wrong with my shoulder or not.

The fellow who is ahead of me is taking a nap on his chair. I can’t sleep on this chair.

The technician just came to get the other fellow. I better go change into the fancy hospital outfit.

Every week somebody drops a whole bunch of flyers at my door and I always wonder why we don’t simply check flyers online instead of just killing trees and damaging the environment.

I am going to start posting some links to flyers in an effort to convince some of my readers to say no to their paper flyers:

-Here is the SuperStore flyer

-The Safeway flyer – just type your postal code at the top left box titled “View Weekly Specials”.

-Sobey’s flyer – just type your postal code and check the store closest to you.

-Coop flyer

-Flyerland.ca will point you to several flyers that are available online as well.

Post a comment if you know of other online flyers. Don’t waste your time with spam or trying to attract people to your own business as I check each comment before releasing it to the Blog.

We just moved to a new house after living in the same house for 9 years.

We took a week vacation mid july to help us rest and prepare for the move and spent the last week of July packing.

It’s amazing the amount of stuff that you keep that you do not need.

We donated tons of stuff and recycled an enormous amount of paper and plastic but we still brought stuff to the new house that we did not need.

I have developed the theory that human beings will completely fill a house with stuff no matter how big the house and how much space they have available.

We did a pretty good job packing and getting things ready for moving as much as possible and we hired a crew of three professional movers and had another 10 people (including the two of us) helping on the move. It took us a total of 9.5 hours to move from the old house to the new house.

As we open the boxes at the new house we are still finding items that we do not need and we are still donating and recycling.

It’s also amazing the human ability of keeping useless paper away.

My plan for the future is:
-Turn any paper that you want to keep into a digital file (i.e. scan if possible) and recycle the paper.

-Think 3 times minimum before you buy anything.

-Less is more.

I am hoping to go back to a less stable routine in a few weeks as the last 30 days of unpacking, assembling stuff, organizing items, etc have been extremely busy.

I will also prepare a post to describe the acquisition of the new house and the sale of the old house.

We just spent one week in Varadero, Cuba. This is probably one of the most beautiful beaches that I have ever seen. It looks like a swimming pool when there is no wind. I find Varadero very safe and it makes a great destination if you are looking for a vacation.

We stayed at the Barceló MArina Palace Hotel but I would not recommend it as their services were way below what we have seen in other similar hotels in Mexico and Cuba.

I started to experience a sharp pain on my left shoulder early in 2008 and after a little while I decided to see my doctor.

The Dr prescribed some anti-inflamatory and I have to confess that I did not take them as my stomach does not tolerate that well and I thought the pain woulg go away if left alone.

The bad news is that the pain did not go away. I decided them to go see a chiropractor (had never tried one before) who after running me through some tests prescribed eighteen sessions.

Well, after 18 chiropractor sessions and two massages the pain was pretty much the same and the chiropractor told me I sgould try physiotherapy.

I decided to go to the Dr first and after confessing my sins he prescribed anti-inflamatory once more which I took.

Well, after finishing the anti-inflamatory box and seeing no improvement at alI I went back to the Dr and he told me to go do some physiotherapy.

The folks from the physiotherapy office tried everything from exercises to acupuncture and after 6 sessions they told me that they could not figure out what the problem was and sent me back to my Dr who then prescribed X-ray and ultrasound.

The X-ray and ultrasound could not detect anything wrong and I went back to the Dr office once more.

The Dr requested a MRI and I am booked for end of September.

In the meantime I spoke with my health and safety advisor at the office who arranged for an ergonomic assessment.

I have sinced then changed chairs, moved the monitor poistion, etc.

The pain has improved dramatically but I am looking forward to go through the MRI to hopefully find ou what’s the root cause.