Pumpkin Carving Continued

I've noticed that we've been getting a lot of hits from people looking for free pumpkin carving stencils. If you are looking for information aobut how to carve a pumpkin, or how to make a pumpking carving stencil or template, a good place to look would be the sponsered links on the left hand side of the page. If you are looking for the Darth Vader Stencil follow the link. There are two really great links further on down the page.

While I don't have any free stencils or templates for pumpkin carving, I have done a little carving in the past. My favorite was a self portrait. Here is a little hint for making your own template. In a photo editing program, turn your photo into a greyscale image, and then adjust the contrast alot until the photo loses all it's shades of grey and has only black and white. Then you can decide if it looks enough like what you want to carve, if it doesn't pick another photo. You'll have to decide if you want to cut out the black or the white, inverting the picture will help you decide which part to cut out. I've found that it works best if you use an easily recognizable photo. There are tips about how to transfer the stencil to the pumpkin. I've found that using a needle to poke holes around the outside of the parts you want to cut helps. You can also use a felt tipped pen to shade the areas that you are going to cut.

Traffic is Killing Me Slowly

The winter traffic is making me want to die... somewhere warm like Arizona. It took us an hour to go the 10 blocks to Deerfoot trail and then only 10 minutes to go the other 200 blocks to the University. I don't know what the problem was, there were no accidents or any other problems. I get the feeling that there are 2 or 3 really stupid people who can't drive and who should lose their licenses, that are causing serious problems. They back the traffic up so much by driving 10km/h, that it takes 3 hours for the normal, smart people to be able to clear the roads. It's like driving in a parade.

-Gary Milner, guy who hates traffic but loves carving pumpkins.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE

I see that a couple of the contributors to this blog are unhappy with the cold and the snow. The Dennis Douglases probably weren't fussy about the weather either . It was the weather that caused a power outtage out at Irvine and they lit their fireplace to counteract the resulting cold and now their house is laying on the ground in ashes.

It's Not Brain Drain...

If I ever do move to the states permanently, it won't be brain drain. It will be, "I'm sick of freezing my ace off drain."

I went out and scraped the windows and just about froze to death. Then to make matters worse, on the drive to school the radio said that it would get as cold as -8. It just about broke my heart because -8 isn't cold, it wasn't yet -8, and I could barely face the temperature as it was.

It's blizzarding in Calgary.....yet again

Today when we got up, it was snowing like crazy and the streets were all icy. It kind of sucks, but it's not unexpected at this time of year in Calgary. Well, today I was supposed to be at the university at 8:30 for my practicum at the weight loss clinic. It normally takes about 20 or 25 minutes to get from our house to the university, so we usually leave around 8:00. We decided to leave about 15 minutes early this morning so that we could acutally make it on time. The first big snowfall of the year is always the worst, becasue for some reason people forget how to drive on icy roads, and there are way more crashes and stalls.

So-did Gary and Tracie actually make it to school on time? you ask. The answer is no. It didn't take us one hour to get there or even two hours. I made it into the clinic at 9:55, over two hours after leaving home. We practically could have gone to Edmonton in the same amount of time. Anyone who has sat in traffic, barely inching along for over two hours, knows that this is not a fun way to spend the morning- which by the way, it wasn't.

-Tracie Milner, hates being stuck in traffic for over two hours

OF MICE AND MEN

I was doing a job at a house out in Redcliff and I left a pail of water on the floor of the garage. A mouse was able to jump into the pail but unable to jump out because of the water. The presumption is that he was able to swim until he got tired and then slowly drowned. I wouldn't wish that fate on anybody.

I For One Welcome Our New Pumpkin Carving Overlords

If you are looking for information aobut how to carve a pumpkin, or how to make a pumpking carving stencil or template, a good place to look would be the sponsered links on the left hand side of the page.

Here is a pumpkin site.


"A drywall-saw-wielding industrial robot with a chip on its shoulder.

"Last Halloween we could only run the robot at about 30% because it would tear itself out of the floor. Consequently it took about 6 minutes to carve a pumpkin. This year I hope it will make it in under 2.

"As each piece is completed, the robot spears it in the center, then wipes it off by passing the saw through a fork located above the orange bucket. Unfortunately, the robot does not gut the pumpkin."

Student Loan People Stink Again, Just Like Last Year

Those S.O.B's at the student loan place did it again this year. Somehow they managed to screw up my full time student status, and then not notify me until a day before it was too late.

This year it was the dolts at CIBC. Which makes them even stupider than the Edulinks people because, I have two different student loans with the CIBC people a provincial loan and a federal loan. They are willing to admit that I am a full time student on the provincial side, but not on the federal side. Presumably, they never got the form for the provincial loan, but the two groups aren't allowed to talk to each other. Or try to make things easy on the customers.

I guess the real problem is that there are about a thousand companies called CIBC something something, and the only way (besides their name) that they are related is that they pay their money up the chain to the same people. They are not acctually allowed to talk to each other or get data from each other.

What bugs is that while they pretend to care about you, they don't. All banks care about is your getting your money. What bugs me even more, is that the people you have to deal with at the bank, don't even care about getting your money. At least if someone at the bank, (besides the owners) cared about getting my money, I would have some basis for a business relationship with them. Some reason to keep my accounts with them and keep paying them high fees for no interest.

Right now, the only reason I stay a banking customer is convenience. I like being able to cash checks once in a while. Tracie likes getting her checks deposited right into our account. We like paying bills online instead of waiting in line. Eventually the cost of being a CIBC customer will outweight the benefits of being a CIBC customer and we will have to change banks.

We are customers at the Superstore bank, for our savings account, and we are quite happy with it. They pay just about the highest rate of interest available and there are no fees. You don't need to carry a minimum balance and you get to use all the CIBC ATMs free. That's something that CIBC customers don't even get.

-Gary Milner Hates Banks and Student Loan People

Happy Belated Birthday Jackie

Happy birthday Jackie. I don't know your phone number, or I would have called you. I phoned Mom to find it out, but she wasn't home. I hope you got to do someting fun.

Big Trucks Stink

I went to the IGA to pick up some cream and hamburger buns. I was surpriesed to see how many really big trucks there are. Especially big trucks with people who can't seem to drive them adequately or park them properly. It seems to me that if you have a really big pickup you should learn how to handle it properly, or at least park in a part of the lot where it will be easier to stay inside the yellow lines and drive away after.

-Gary Milner internet superstar

My Life In A Nutshell

Well, if I had one word to describe it, it would be uneventful. For the past two months since going back to school, I have done the same thing day in and day out. Monday to Thursday, I'm in school. I have my practicum at a weight loss clinic at the University, so I'm there all the time. I was hoping that some of the weight loss would rub off on be, but apparently I would have to give up things like ice cream and cinnamon buns. Mmmm, cinnamon buns.

Thursday nights I watch survivor. This is my favorite night of the week. I hope Rupert wins. Then on the weekends I work at the hospital. That's right, I've worked every single weekend for the past two months. This weekend I worked night shifts, which means 7pm to 7 am. Last night was the daylight savings-set the clocks back an hour-night. One hour doesn't seem like much extra to work, but it is.

Then on monday, I'm back in school and the rotation starts all over again. So that's my life in a nutshell. I just keep saying to myself over and over "only five months left" - referring to school of course. It's not so bad, but I'll be glad to be done - again.

-Tracie Milner, wife of internet superstar

A PROPHETIC ANSWER TO A QUESTION

Over at church this morning they handed everyone a list of questions that we're supposed to answer and hand in . Later they'll tabulate the all the answers together and tell us the results at a fireside. The first question was,"who was the most influencial prophet?" Lance Morris said that the most infuencial prophet was Mohammed and proceeded to give us his reasons. Personally I thought it was funny. But you should have heard the icy silence. Some guys have no sense of humor.

Life at the U of C

Today, I was working on the group portion of one of my midterms, and low and behold the two dumbest/most shallow girls in the entire faculty of management sat down right behind us. I wish I could convey to you their conversation. Quite frankly, I feel dumber for having overheard them, and so, I will spare you the pain.

We had the annual general meeting for the Gauntlet, were we elect board members. We elected two incumbents to the board, and an ex-photo editor. We also elected the staff representatives to the board. I asked the staff candidates which cover they liked the best, and they all picked covers that somehow involved themselves. Adam picked his first cover shot. Russ picked a cover that he got this summer, and Karoline picked a cover that had one of her stories. Even the other guy, who I can't remember his name, picked a cover that had a picture of his friend in the background.

-Gary Milner

Midterms Meet Their Maker

Well midterms meet me anyway.

I virtually finished my third midterm a little while ago. I say virtually finished, because there is a group takehome that I am doing tomorrow with my group. It involves excel and an excel plugin called chrystal ball.
It's a big relief to be done my midterms. It will be smooth sailing for a week or two anyway. I don't think any of my classes have cumulative finals so I'm pretty happy.

I don't know if any of you read the hit tracker page, but the one Jeff set up, mysteriously disappeared at around 9:00am and I didn't get it put back up untill about 9:03am. I'm probably going to write an email to extreme-tracking to find out how it mistakenly got deleted.

On the bright side, starting fresh will mean that the average number of hits per day won't be stuck on 12 for the next thousand years. Even though we have been getting 18+ hits a day for the last 2 months, that's not enough to raise the average because of the other 10 months when we were only getting 10 or 11 per day.

Linux Ate My Dog

Well, Linux went into my computer just fine. It took about two hours, but everything worked just fine on the first try. Ben also gave me another 64megs of ram he got from a computer he bought just so that he could get the network card.
I guess, that they have been making lots of improvements to Linux over the years. Ben said that in the past you needed 24 disks, and it was text only. Now you can boot from you cd and there is a graphical user interface. It tells you what to select so that even a beginner could do a custom install.
One of the best things is that you get almost everything you need right off the bat and it is free. You get an office suite, for wordprocessing, spread sheets and presentations. You get server software for fileserving, web serving and ftp serving. You get a bunch of games and a ton of other stuff packaged with the Operating System.
It even accessed the internet over the Gauntlet's network without doing any extra configuring. I'm pretty happy. Now all I need to do is get a router and I will have my own little LAN conneted to the Interweb.

-Gary Linux Guru

Well, let's just say, "if your VCR is still blinking 12:00, you don't want Linux"

I bought a computer for the University surplus last friday. I got a pentium 233 and 15 inch moniter for $50, as well as an ergonomic keyboard and mouse. I'm going to install Linux, and use the computer as a web browser for now. Later on, I will make it into a web server. Maybe a file server as well.
The moniter was the best part of the entire thing. My old moniter is starting to crap out a bit, there are blurry spots that move across the screen. I had hoped to install today, but it might get put off for a little while.

-Gary

TICKLED PINK

I heard on the news tonight that a guy went over Niagara falls today and lived. This tickles me pink. He was filmed going over the brink so they know for sure that he went over the falls. The maid of the mist spotted him swiming about l00 yards below the falls and tried to throw him a life presearver but failed. He then swam to shore unaided . I saw him with a towel over his head and walking on his own with only minor injuries. I think he is only the second guy to achieve this feat without protective equipment. Dozens have died even using protective barrels and other devices.

I'm Retiring

I guess this will be my last post at the milner blog. It was a fun place to post for awhile but due to political reasons I've decided to post elsewhere. Besides my posts were probably too boring for such a classy site anyway - as some of us know Gary is hypercritical of content not written at a professional level. Gary you can take your ball and go home.

A Trip to the Theater

One of my volunteers and I went to a media call last Tuesday for a play called, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", we took a few photos and on our way out, the publicist asked us if we would like to have tickets to Friday's show. I am not a guy to turn down $50 worth of tickets said, "Yes, I'll take two".

Little did I know, that Tracie had to work, and that I would be going to the show by myself. Don't worry anyone, we won't be getting a divorce one week before Christmas, like the time I had to goto the Star Trek movie by myself.

I dropped Tracie off at the hospital and rode the c-train downtown to the theater. I picked up my ticket and made my way to my seat. The first thing that you notice upon entering the theater is that the set tilts forward and to the left, which is weird for a little while, but then you adjust and don't even notice after awhile. Valerie Ann Pearson (Martha) said, "Sitting on the couch is the worst part, it really hurts your back. Walking around on it is great though, because you don't even have to act drunk." The play was wonderfully done, I can see why it has been so acclaimed over the years. I felt uncomfortable with George and Martha's conversation, and I was in the audience.

A Trip Home From the Theater

I am really becoming aware that I feel a little uncomfortable around people who hang out around the c-train. Not just the homeless kids downtown, but the gangsta types that hang out at the Rundle Station in the NE.

I was at the City Hall station waiting for a NE bound train, looking around minding my own business, when I notice a homeless type kid, about 20 feet away, with a florescent orange exacto knife with the blade extended concealed in his hand. Then I notice that he's doing the "head thrust" at me, like bullies do to little kids to make them flinch. Apparently he thought that I was staring at him and trying to start something.

I am strongly opposed to getting cut by, Jimmy "The Box Cutter" Homelesspunk, so I walked down the steps off the platform and then back up the steps more in the middle where there were more people.

It was the first time that I went from feeling pretty safe in Calgary, to feeling aprehensive. I have to admit that I don't really want Tracie to go to the hospital by herself anymore. Maybe it's because we had our CD's stolen from our car at that station, but it really doesn't seem safe to me. Especially after dark.

Things like this are just serving to make me even more classist than I already am. If we stay in Calgary, I want to live in a place where you have to have a $40,000-$50,000 down payment. Somewhere totally unreachable by Jimmy Homelesspunk.

I wonder what early Hutterites would have thought?

Black Person + Ethnic DNA Test = ?

I picked this up from metafilter.com:

After watching a 60 Minutes segment on the subject last year, Wayne Joseph decided on a whim to take a new ethnic DNA test. Being of Creole stock, and therefore on the lighter end of the black color spectrum, he had developed a casual curiosity about his exact percentage of black blood. What he discovered was astounding.

I wonder what early Mormons would have thought?

Midterm Time

I handed in a take-home midterm exam today, and I have another midterm tomorrow. My third and final midterm is on wednesday next week. The first half of my last semester has gone by very quickly. I'm so glad. I'm half a semester closer to being done school.

In Other Pedestrian Related news...

A 21-year-old woman and her two year old daughter were hit by a truck on Edmonton Trail yesterday. The mother was critically hurt. The girl received broken bones and cuts.
At this time last year, three pedestrians had been killed on Calgary streets. So far, this year, there have been 12 deaths, despite more tickets being written and higher fines.

-Gary Milner,

Chinese Launch Manned Spacecraft

The Chinese have launched their first manned spacecraft and it's now in orbit.

The craft, carrying a single astronaut, Yang Liwei, is expected to circle the planet 14 times, returning to Earth after a flight of about 22 hours.

Who Owns the Moon?

Meanwhile in another space related story a businessman in Australian claimed yesterday he had purchased the rights to sell pieces of land on the moon.

Paul Jackson, 33, opens his Melbourne real estate agency, Lunar Realty, tomorrow, offering one-acre blocks on the moon for $59 and 10-acre "lifestyle" blocks for $298.

According to Lunar Realty, the moon is owned by Nevada businessman Dennis Hope who challenged a loophole in a United Nations' treaty.

The United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty disallows any country from owning the moon, but says nothing about companies, Mr Jackson said.

Mr Hope declared his possession of the moon by filing a declaration of ownership at the San Francisco County Offices in 1980.

Lunatics.

Thanksgiving

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. I, myself, am thankful for all the boring but important stuff (peace, food, shelter etc) but I'm also thankful to get the day off school, and mostly I'm thankful for research that shows us monkey's are capable of controlling robot arms with their brains. It's research like this that's going to stop prosthesis violence like this.

James Fights the Law Again Reloaded Volume II With a Vengence

Get the whole story right from the source.

Happy Birthday Blog! (and also Happy Belated Birthday Glen)

It's been one fun filled year of blogging. When Gary started this blog and invited me to start posting on it a couple of days later I never really thought about what the blog would be like in a year's time. Here we are now though with 8 members and three of us that publish on a regular basis. Hmmm, that sounded more impressive in my head.

Why Blog?

To celebrate one year, I'll discuss the issue of "why blog?" It's been on my mind lately and I think there are some pretty good reasons to blog. But first, some stats - many people are jumping onto the blogging bandwagon. It is estimated that there were about 135,000 blogs in 2000 and it's predicted that number will increase in size to 10.3 million by 2004. That seems like an awful lot of blogs but unfortunately over half of them will be dead. That's right most blogs, actually 2.72 million out of the 4.12 million weblogs out there, have been abandoned (temporarily or permanently) and about a million of these dead blogs were abandoned after a day. 132,000 would-be webloggers gave up after a year. (Hurray for Milner Blog we made it!)

Blogs on average are updated much less frequently than the Milner blog. Usually an active blog is updated once every two weeks. I quickly did some research and found out the stats thus far for postings on milner.blogspot.com. Including this post there have been:

20 posts in October 2002
16 posts in November 2002
19 posts in December 2002
17 posts in January 2003
40 posts in February 2003
94 posts in March 2003
56 posts in April 2003
54 posts in May 2003
36 posts in June 2003
32 posts in July 2003
22 posts in August 2003
61 posts in September 2003
24 posts in October 2003

That's a total of 491 posts and an average of 1.36 posts per day. So that gets us back to the question: Why Blog?

Blogging is about different things for different people. For our family it's mostly about keeping in touch, but I don't altogether think that's the only reason why I do it. If it were I suppose we could just instant message or cc: each other and be done with. Blogging has a more formal feel to it than instant messages or even emails and of course is great because it is automatically archived and as such makes a more permanent record of our lives. I also enjoy the fact that others can come here and potentially learn something they never knew before - even if it is just my recommendation on what movie to see, or why I believe this or that.

One of the best parts about blogging is that I think our blog gets better everyday. We get more experienced as writers and the site slowly changes as additions are made. The Milner Blog could use an overhaul and maybe one of these days it will get one, but in the meantime even the small changes improve the site.

When pondering the question "Why Blog?" I think about the personal web pages I setup as a kid. I made a new one about once or twice a year but they were all basically the same thing: useless links to my friends useless personal pages and sites I thought were cool. I even had a counter on my page which I faithfully reloaded until I had well over 3000 hits. With the exception of one of two co-workers and my family I'm pretty sure nobody else ever came to that page, but nevertheless it was cool because it was mine and anybody in the world could come there to see something I had made.

I guess deep down I blog for the same reason I made those all those web pages in Jr. High and High School. I just have this need for an outlet and I have a dream that someday people will come here; read this and think, "Hey this guy is pretty cool. I'm going to come back here because there is something of value here". Hopefully there will be. Here's to another year of blogging.

Mongolie Grill, Not Just For Mongols And Mongoloids Anymore!

Tracie and I went to a restaurant called the Mongolie Grill. It was quite good. It is a stirfry while you watch place. You choose what you want to have in your stirfry from a buffet of ingredients and they cook it up for you. You have to be careful though, because a little goes a long way and you pay by weight.
The only drawback that I could see was that it might take a while for a people to find out what goes well together, particularly in the sauce department, they had close to 30 different sauces, and I had no idea what would be good together. But, after you visit a few times, I'm sure that you will find a combination that is pleasing.

One Year Old
The blog turns one year old today. That's pretty old in Internet years, and even older in Blog years. Looking back, it seems as if our blog is just hitting it's stride. We're getting way more hits, even lots of them are just Dad checking to see if there's a new post every hour. I'm sure if Dad slept like 3 hours less a day we would be getting way more hits. But besides Dad, we are getting hits from the outside world as well. Were even giving a few people what they are searching for, (but not the guy looking for kickboxing photos, he got a broken link). After a year, you build up a lot of content.
Even though we might not be changing the world, we are offering a little information, sometimes, to people who can use it. The sight becomes even more useful because it is indexed by google. For example, not everyone wants to find a "really big internet superstar" but, searching google will lead them here.
Happy Birthday, milner.blogspot.com.

MOVIE REVIEW: SECOND HAND LIONS

I see movie reviews on this blog from time to time. One review I would like to have seen would have been on second hand lions. Thats because it's one of the best darn movies I've seen in a long time. If you haven't seen it yet, take my advice don't miss it. See that freaking movie. When I say see that freaking movie you know you have got my very highest rating.

Not One; Not Three - But Two Practices

I went swimming twice today. For those of you that don't know, that's a lot for me. We swam about 3 km every hour so I'm guessing it was about 8 or 9 km today. I've been slacking off this week though. Last Saturday we had a really hard morning workout followed by some intense dryland. I didn't notice much pain at the time. I slept all afternoon and took things pretty easy on Sunday. By Monday my calves were so sore I could barely walk. That's why I didn't go to practice. Tuesday was the same thing but I decided to give them a good stretch and things began to get better.

Anna's Auditioning in Calgary

Anna's auditioning today. Break a leg Anna! She'll be back later today (last I heard) and we'll drive to Med Hat for the weekend.

Movie Review: Kill Bill

The tag line for "Kill Bill" is, "In the year 2003, Uma Thurman will kill Bill". This of course turns out to be a big lie, Kill Bill is actaully a two parter, and Bill, if he gets killed at all, won't be dying untill 2004.

Uma Thurman stars as "The Bride" a member of an elite assassination squad, led by Bill. The movie begins at the wedding where "The Bride" and all the wedding mercilessly killed. Unfortunately for Bill and the rest of the squad, the bride wasn't quite dead. The movie then continues on to describe how the bride kills her ex-squad of assassins, leaving Bill for last.

You may be asking yourself, what is this movie really like. Well imagine if "Crouching Tigher, Hidden Dragon" and "Pulp Fiction" had a baby. It would be Kill Bill. Part samurai movie, part revenge plot, it is definately a genre bending movie, which even uses anime as a segue to the second half of the movie, which takes place in Japan.

This movie is BLOODY to say the least. You know that movie, "Army of Darkness"? In one scene, a man gets thrown into a pit and a geyser of blood comes shooting out. The same effects people did the blood in this movie. (I don't know if the same people really did, but you get the idea.) I have never seen so many heads and miscelaneous limbs severed in my entire life. Chopped clean off. Lucy Liu gets one head before she is even attacked by Uma Thurman. I couldn't even begin to guess how many heads are chopped off by Uma. Blood sprayed everywhere. If you were having a spraying contest between a garden hose and one of the headless people the headless person would win.


In Other News
If you have four girlfriends, use the BCC: function, not the CC: funtion if you want to send the same love email to them all.

Fighting Tickets

There are, surprisingly, a lot of people who say, "Take responsibility for your actions, pay the entire fine" when it comes to traffic tickets. Really I agree that not enough people are taking responsibility for their actions. But, our law provides a way for people to discuss the penalties for their actions with in the legal framework.

People who commit assault, something that causes others harm, not just the potential for harm, get to have lawyers to make sure that they are treated fairly and in a manner that will change their actions in the future. James had his windshield and tail light fixed. He changed his "behavior" shouldn't this be taken into account when the time comes to deal with the actual fine?

-Gary Milner

James Fights the Law Again

James was once again the target of an over eager policemen. He got a $115 fine for not wearing a seatbelt, and then the "cop" looked over his truck and fined him an additional $115 for a burnt out tail light, and a cracked windshield.

He took the ticket down and the cashier had noticed a highlighted part on her part of the seatbelt ticket, looked it up in her reference book, and said that he had been charged under the wrong section of the law and that he didn't have to pay the ticket. That $115 less, because he went down to the crown prosecutor's office. (What if he had payed at a bank or motor vehicle registry)? Then he took the other ticket to the crown prosecutor who dropped the ticket for not maintaining the vehicle from $115 to $69.

Hearing this story made my day.

Here's an interesting point, the date printed on the ticket is the last day to pay or talk to the prosecutor. You can go in on any work day up until that point. My friend Adam, found this out too late and was too busy to go in on the day of the ticket.

Blogger Link
I'm somewhat indifferent, but I would lean towards one that matches the site.

Did you get rid of the comments?

-Gary Milner cool guy

Which Blogger Logo Do You Like Best?

I like number 8 but I think number 7 matches the colours on this blog the best. Which one(s) do you like?

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#8b

#8c

#9

#10

Pedestrians Revisited

On the weekend, a 14 year old girl was hit by a car in the NE. A policeman was interviewed on TV. "Pedestrians have the right of way, but that is a moot point when you are hit by a car."

Yesterday, an older man was hit by a train while crossing the tracks (obviously the train didn't leave the tracks to get him). Now, I know that the C-Train is hard to see and hear until you are about to get hit cartoon style, but still, please look both ways.

Here is a description of how to look both ways:
1.Look to your left, make sure that there are no cars coming or that the cars have stopped.
2.Look to your right, make sure that there are no cars coming or that the cars have stopped.
3.Check to your left again to make sure that there are still no cars coming and that the cars are still stopped.
4. Enter the road.
5. As you get to the middle of the road check to your right again. Are there cars coming now? Are the cars still stopped? Before crossing the median make sure you can answer no new cars or still stopped before proceeding across the road.
6.Exit the road.
7. ???
8. Fun and profit.

I'm Thankful For Thanksgiving

Tracie has to work Friday over night and Saturday over night, so depending on the homework situation, we may or may not come Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or not at all.

-Gary Milner cool guy

Maybe if People Played More Board Games

57% of Ontario residents do not feel strongly that they have enough fun in their lives. A poll by Cranium/Ipsos-Reid also found that residents in Quebec (49%) are the most fun-filled people in Canada, especially compared to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where just 24% of residents feel strongly that they have enough fun in their lives. Alberta came in second last with 68% of people reporting they don't feel strongly that they have enough fun in their lives. It seems logical enough though, what with all those French circuses in Quebec - why wouldn't they be happy?

Continuing with my statistically ample post, and on a slightly darker note, only 26 people are known to have survived the 220 foot drop from the Golden Gate Bridge. The number of jumpers has reached over 1000. I recommend this insightful article about jumpers of the Bay Area's famous bridge. (It's a long one, but a good one IMHO).

Back on a lighter note, protestors at conference this year were met with some mild resistance. This one is funny for Mormons, Non-Mormons, or recovering Mormons. (Those protesters are stupid no matter who you ask.)

Pedestrians

Lately the topic of pedestrians being hit has been on my mind. So far this year 338 pedestrians have been hit in Calgary. I couldn't find any info about pedestrians being hit here in Lethbridge but as a driver I have noticed how oblivious some of the folks around here are. When it comes to crossing a street and there is only one car coming for miles, why do pedestrians feel that they should waltz out into the street without even looking stopping that one car while they leisurely make there way across. I know they have the so called right of way, but in my opinion it would be polite of the pedestrians to wait until the one car is gone because obviously they won't have to wait as long for a vehicle as the vehicle will have to wait for them.

Reality

Who ever told you that we weren't coming must not be a very good listener. I have been telling people that if Tracie gets called in to work, we will be staying home. But, maybe we will come anyway. The reality is that nobody should be making plans based on what we are planning to do, because we have no plans. Hell, we might go to Las Vegas, we probably won't, but we could if we wanted to.

It's the same with going home for Thanksgiving. We could use the money from the hospital, but maybe Tracie will take the weekend off. Or not.

Jeff Milner Movie Review: Bend it Like Beckham

Using a free movie rental I got in the mail, Anna and I rented Bend it Like Beckham. I never had high hopes for this movie, so in fact it wasn't much of a let down for me. Anna, however, was surprised that a movie with such hype by the critics was going to be something much more than a simple movie about an (East) Indian girl trying to play soccer while at the same time keeping her family happy. While that's pretty much what it broke down to - nothing deep at all, I did however enjoy it for what it was, a simple feel good movie with the basic plot turns expected in such a movie. The writer(s) didn't ruin it by trying to make it a movie about whether the team wins or loses, as a lot of sports movies do, but instead the focus was on the decisions made by the protagonists, which in my opinion makes all the difference in the world. If you're up for a nice family movie with a happy ending, check it out.

Coming to Med. Hat

I'll be in Medicine Hat this weekend for Thanksgiving. I've heard from the grapevine that Gary and Tracie are not coming. Jackie will be late and Anna-Maria is going to be in Utah for the weekend. I for one think you guys are missing out - but if you have to work or go on a trip with family... well I guess that you gotta do what you gotta do. :) (I'm sure you'll have fun Anna).

Siegfried & Roy Magic Show

If you haven't heard, Roy was attacked by one of the tigers in their show. When reading the story I couldn't help but wonder what they did with the tiger after the attack. At the end of the article it says, "The tiger was quarantined at the hotel." What do you think they are worried that it has?

THINKING OF BECOMING A COCAINE USER?

    Sometimes I watch drug busts on t.v. . One thing I've learned is that more often than not pushers like to hide their cocaine in the cracks of their butts. Unbelievable eh. Anyway that's why they call it crack cocaine in the first place.
    Have you ever wondered why dogs are so good at finding cocaine? It's because nine tenths of the time the cocaine has likely been hidden in someone's butt. Dogs as you know, love that smell. If a drug sniffing dog could talk he'd say, "Boy, I love my job. All I have to do sniff out drugs and someone pats me on the head. Life just doesn't get any better than that."

Notice to All Rent-A-Doughnut Eaters (AKA Security Guards)

If a person has a photo pass and $4000 worth of camera gear, they are probably not vandals. While it could be possible to get a photo pass, and be a vandal, it is exponentially harder to get a photo pass and $4000 worth of gear.

I don't know what it is, but as soon as you make someone some type of security, they think that they should be harassing everyone who comes near them. Even after they have verified that you have a pass, and that yes, you do have permission to be there.

I was accosted by some lady security guard at the foot ball game yesterday. I'm sure that I am the only person she saw all day. I showed her my pass. Yet she continued to pester me every time I walked by. She couldn't remember me maybe. It's easy to forget a face, if they are the only person you see that entire day, and say 10 minutes passes.

-Gary Milner Hates Security Guards

New Recipes

Check under the recipe section, for sure to be favorites like vegetable curry, pita melts, and more!

GOING TO CONFERENCE

    When I was a kid my mom used to send me to Sunday school faithfully every Sunday. But when conference rolled around not only didn't she send me but I wasn't even allowed to go. I wasn't allowed to go for many years and I knew that all the other kids went to conference because they talked about it from time to time. I begged to go for years and then finally I got to go. When conference came the next time, it was my own decision not to go. And I never went willingly again. If mom told me to get ready for church I would say, oh it's conference today, and if it was indeed conference it seems like most of the time I was able to beg off.

I AM VERY DISPLEASED!

I typed my first blog for my first time in a fair amount of time and when I went to post it the milner blog went down. I could get on to other websites but not the milner blog and my blog was lost in transition. So do to lack of energy and frustration over loosing my last blog about being a potentially permanent pedestrian and my stupidity, the stupidity of drivers, and many cities (Medicine Hat) being setup for cars and not people. I will just shout a good day to you all.

Later days!

My Position On Pedestrian Right Of Way

A day or two ago, two students were killed crossing a street while on their way home from campus. A lady in a minivan didn't see them. The front of the van lifted them up, and then the windshield threw them into the air.

While I believe that pedestrians have the right of way, it is absolutely imperative that you as a pedestrian LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE YOU CROSS THE STREET! The motorist should stop but if they don't you will die.

Think about it, when you are driving around town, how many of the other drivers are idiots? 50%? 60%? They don't become better drivers when you get out of your car. They still talk on their cell phones and put on their makeup.

Please pay attention to the world around you.

-Gary Milner

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO WITNESS A MURDER

Before I tell you what it feels like to witness a murder let me give you some background on what I've been doing for the last few days. Norman Meyer needed someone to go huntiing with him so I consented and we went out three different days. Going out into the country on colorful warm fall days is relaxing and enjoyable. I have to say it was kind of nice. We saw antelopes from time to time but Norman kept saying that they were to small. He said he only wanted one with extra big horns. And this was fine with me because I couldn't understand why you would kill an antelope anyway. Today however, something went horribly wrong. We saw an antelope and instead of just looking at it, out came the rifle and before I even knew what was happening I became a witness to murder. Then, as if the shooting wasn't bad enough, I had to watch as he hacked at it with his hunting knife. Now I know why when certain people want someone killed , they hire it done.

Changes

I added a Blog Quick Edit link on the left hand side. This allows us to link to the blogger edit page straight from the blog. If you are not logged in already then you will have to put in your username and password.

I also changed the words "Shout Out" to "Comment" but I'll change it to whatever you guys feel is best. The colour scheme of the comments have also been changed to look a little more like the rest of our site.

TRANSLATING DOG TALK

I found out yesterday that somebody invented a device that looks like an ordinary headset that when your wearing it you can understand what dogs are saying. For instance when a dog says something like bow wow, and your wearing the headset, you hear that he's saying hey-hey. If he says bark bark bark bark bark you will hear hey hey hey hey hey . A prolonged grrrrrrrrrrrrrr sounds like heeeeeeeh.