The Hilton Chronicle

Things have been a little quite in the Chronicle office lately as we have been out of town over the Christmas weekend and we are still away. I am writing this post from Dianne's sister Joan's place as we are here in Regina visiting and helping to care for Dianne's mom who has been in failing health recently. We arrived in Regina last Thursday after finding out that Mom had been admitted to the palliative care ward at the hospital and was not doing too well. She has been fighting cancer for some time. So we have been here for the Christmas weekend with most of Dianne's family and all of ours except Nicole. Mom seems to be doing a lot better now that her medication has been balanced out and she is pain free. On Christmas day she was able to leave the hospital for the afternoon and join her family in Sedley for Christmas dinner, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Today they are moving her to a palliative care hospice where she will be more comfortable.
So, needless to say, our Christmas has been a little different this year , in fact, we have yet to have our family gift opening as we left in such a hurry last week that the gifts are still sitting in a pile at home unwrapped. We will probably have a get together on New Years day if we are home, although it is hard to make plans as we are going from day to day and seeing how things progress.
Once home I will post the 2006 Hilton Chronicle Christmas edition for those who did not receive a hard copy in a Christmas card.
Nonetheless, a hearty Merry Christmas goes out to all from the Edmonton Hilton Clan and our wishes for a blessed and fruitful 2007.

Posted 11:30 AM by Jeff

Friday, December 08, 2006

"Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave..."

Now that Blogger is owned by Google there are more hoops to jump through to create posts on the blog. I had to transfer my account to my Gmail account and now have a longer and harder to remember login sequence. I'm wondering if there is any benefit to this other than the fact that Google can now plaster my website with Google ads. I haven't seen any so far but if I do I will be mightily ticked off. Blogger used to be such a nice easy thing to do. Trust Google to mess that up.
If you are looking for something to do to while away the hours between careers the best thing I have found is installing Christmas tree lights. Now, putting the lights on the tree is no problem, takes maybe half an hour at the most. No, the ultimate in enjoyment is when you take your two strands of twinkly little lights out of the box and unravel the rat's nest mess they are in, stretch them out on the floor and plug them in. Why plug them in, you ask. Well you have to see if they are all working. And that's where the danger lies because invariably all the lights will come on except that one little section in the middle of the strand. So now, the next hour and a half will be spent crouched down on your knees until blood flow to your legs stops entirely, testing each and every bulb in that section in a socket that you know works. And when they all check out OK you go through them all again because the section still will not light. You finally find the one bulb that has one of the leads torn off so that it won't work and after futilely looking around you find that you have no spares, which means a trip to Crappy Tire for a 5 cent bulb which you can only buy in a pack of 100's which will invariably be lost by the time you go through this whole episode again next Christmas. I actually found some spare bulbs yesterday as I was going through all this but they were not clear ones like the rest on the string so I replaced the duds with red ones, brilliantly concluding that I could still install them on the tree and the next time I'm at Crappy Tire, I can pick up the spares and I can tell exactly where they belong in that mess of twinkly lights on the tree. My bet is those red bulbs will still be in that rat's nest when I pull it out of the box for Christmas 2007.
Now I must go and finishing polishing up the 2006 Christmas edition of the Chronicle so that I can get the Christmas cards out in time for Christmas.

Posted 10:51 AM by Jeff

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Christmas Rolls Around The Corner

Well, another busy week has just whizzed by. We've had a bit more cold weather, a lot of snow and we have elected a new premiere. I spent the week finishing off a few video projects I had on the go and some other things as well. We had a couple of parties, one for our friend Renee who is celebrating her 49th year and who graciously gave up the celebration last week so that we could have Dianne's surprise party instead. So this Thursday we took her and a couple of other friends out for a yummy meal at the Keg. Then last night we had a little Christmas gathering of all the string players in the church orchestra, of which Dianne is one. It was a pot luck and there was some delicious dishes and desserts to be had there. Also yesterday we went to see a play that Sandi directed and is being marked on as one of her final marks for this semester. It went very well and got lots of applause. Tonight is a special Christmas banquet at the church for our Alpha group and I get to play a few Christmas tunes on the sax for entertainment. I think this coming week I am going to try and buckle down and start getting into some serious job hunting. I have an appointment on Tuesday with a career councilor to get a little direction and plan some strategies and hopefully get a few leads. Then it's off to scour the job boards and hopefully set up some interviews for the next few weeks. My goal is to have a job by January 1st so that I can have a nice leisurely Christmas off for a change, but if need be I can be available to start work immediately. It's nice not to have any pressure on to get working sooner. We are thinking we will head to Saskatchewan for Christmas or some time after as Dianne would like to see her mom & dad and we will both have the time off.
As was mentioned we have a new premiere in Alberta as we say good bye to King Ralph and say hello to "Honest Ed" Stelmach in a bit of an upset vote. Front runner Jim Dinning got ousted when Ted Morton supporters, using their second choice after Morton was dropped from the ballot, eased Stelmach in to win the Torie leadership. Now the fun begins as we get to know the "new guy".
As December descends on us it's time to put the Christmas rush machine into high gear. Time to get out and do the Christmas shopping, mail out the Christmas cards with this year's edition of the "Chronicle" (yet to be written), get the tree up and decorated and attend all the Christmas parties and functions that usually come with the season. All that and look for a job too!

Posted 3:12 PM by Jeff

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