Monday, November 6, 2023

Sunday November 5, 2023 Darkness

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******

Sunday November 5, 2023

 My Ancestry quest continued Friday with the addition of the family connections to Adrienne Barbeau (starred on "Maude") and Jack Kerouac (writer).  I gave up trying to find connections to another relative...  Now I had 4,122 people on our tree!

In the evening a surprise knock at my door revealed my friend Brenda with an offering of my favourite lemon meringue pie!  People are feeding me stuff virtually every day now, led by Bob and Don...  I reciprocate where I can.

Saturday, I arose late and gave myself a needed haircut.  Letting my sparse hair grow for winter is a good thing for extra warmth, to a point,,,, but it also means instant hat hair whenever I go out....  It is what it is, folks...

My latest, and last for a while, Ancestry quest resumed and I finally found our family connection to Prince Charles of Luxembourg after a lot of digging.  Upcoming mandatory two-step verification BS will significantly curtail my use of it if I have to bother my dear sister-in-law every time....  Now we have 4,249 relatives on the family tree with so many more possibilities......

Bob cooked a delicious beef supper for myself and Don out of boredom and we wolfed it down greedily!  It was such a nostalgic reminder of the wonderful home-cooked meals from our youth.  We ate a lot of beef growing up.

Sunday morning I awoke at 3am and immediately set about to change the clocks to reflect the loss of Daylight Saving Time and the loss of an hour at the end of the day.  This takes some getting used to, as the morning light came around 7:45am and the sunset came way too soon at 4:56pm!

Don came over to watch Formula One racing at 10am.  He has no TV hooked up, so I invite him whenever something exciting is on.  He enjoys most sports, like me, including UFC, curling, football, hockey, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc. 

Afternoon naps are a must now, regardless of the amount of sleep overnight.

Bob and I were traveling to Whyte Avenue as darkness and fog descended already, and caught 3 sets of music at Blues On Whyte by our buddy Leo Martinez.  A musical guest sang for the middle set, and he was like a coffee house singer, singing his own, or obscure, songs that bored the crowd to tears.  Once Leo returned with familiar classics, the crowd retuned to life and the dance floor re-filled again.  Musicians must consciously cater to the crowd or interest wanes quickly.....

We returned to my suite and we ordered an extra-large meat-lovers-plus pizza from Grandma Pizza and it again did not disappoint.  Mega amounts of meat delighted our palates, reminiscent of the great pizza we enjoyed for years at Hawaiian Pizza in Calgary.  And the pizza joint is just around the corner, so it is delivered to us in 20 minutes flat! 

We watched some hockey for a bit and I showed him some of my downloaded new Perry Mason series, Season 2, which I finished alone.  I was not yet quite tired enough so I switched to my downloaded movies and started Cast A Giant Shadow, one of my favourites, intending to maybe watch half, but ended up watching the whole movie, getting to bed at 1:36am Monday morning...  Hey, we are retired and can nap almost any time we want, so the odd late night is not  harmful.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.  That was the day’s excitement.

Al

******

© All my work is COPYRIGHT protected and may not be used in any way without purchase, or without my permission. 

If you want to borrow a picture to share with family and friends, Facebook or whatever, at least PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE  that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.


Gee!  Sun is already setting!

Unusual amount of late day fog!

It is almost dark at 5pm!

Dark enough for lights everywhere as we arrived.

Leo Martinez, one-man band

Special boring guest

Leo came back to the delight of everyone

The dance floor filled again

Very foggy over downtown as we returned.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Thursday November 2, 2023 Ancestry

PLEASE bookmark this page and check daily.

Older Blog:  https://cuencaupdates.blogspot.com/

Please see my best artworks for sale at my websites:  http://souvenirphotostudio.neocities.org/ or

al-bourassa.pixels.com

******

Thursday November 2, 2023

Gee, the days slide by so quickly when you keep your self busy!

Monday, I got back onto Acestry.ca and finally found the right links from us to actor Ryan Gosling.  The write-ups on Wikipedia are eye-opening about the lives of famous relatives.  Between the Gagnon, Gagne, and Guyon relatives, we are connected to lots os important folks!

I also delved a little to the time of arrival of Francois Bourassa (1659-1708) and family in Canada and the coureur-de-bois son, Rene, ("Chief Topinabee"), and grandson Rene who apparently inherited the name and position and married a Chippewa Metis, another native connection.  


and his son


Fascinating stuff!

Tuesday, I went crazy, even though the connections are arduous and time-consuming, and added Kelsey Grammer (Frasier Crane), erek & Julianne Hough (Danding With The Stars), and Jean Chretien (former Prime Minister).

Wednesday, I added Shania Twain (Country singer), and the Dionne Quintuplets (1934).  I now have 3,869 people in my tree and growing...

I went to go for wings at Leopold's and could not find my long-johns for love nor money.  It is a good thing that it was warm enough at 6C to ride anyway with Bob.  I tried the boneless wings for the first time which are basically just white meat chicken nuggets.  I did not like them at all!

We returned to watch the final World Series game with Don which ended as I predicted, with the Texas Rangers taking home the hardware.  Congrats.

I checked the pants I wore when I went out Sunday and found my long-johns sitting inside....  Mystery solved....

This morning, at 12:48am, the fire alarms were going off here and I debated whether to go out or not, no smoke smell, but finally decided that discretion .......  Someone said they thought they smelled gas, which was a faint smell in the stairway, but that made no sense....  It turned out that the problem was with a faulty detector on our floor at the end of my hall....  They promised to get it replaced this morning.

There was also a notice on my door that our bathroom water will be shut off from 10 to noon this morning...

I had got a notice from Service Canada apparently promising me over 4 times the expected Guaranteed Income Supplement that my accounted had estimated, and now want tax income information for myself and Cristina for 2022, but the forms they sent are confusing in that that they ask for mid-year info from July 2023 to June 2024...??????  WTF............  I am having my accountant guide my with this as it makes no sense to me...

I am not sure yet who I will tackle today for ancestry, with 4 reasonable choices on my desk...

I hope you enjoy the pictures.  That was the day’s excitement.

Al

******

© All my work is COPYRIGHT protected and may not be used in any way without purchase, or without my permission. 

If you want to borrow a picture to share with family and friends, Facebook or whatever, at least PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE  that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.


4:45pm and the sun is low...

Finally opened 103 St!

Leopold's Tavern



Edmonton downtown at dusk

Close-up

Fun outside at 1am today

Faulty alarm on our floor was the culprit