the pod bay door

:: Help, my web site is drowning!

:: I am a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters Edmonton & Area. There are different mentoring opportunities available to volunteers. Last year, I began as a Digital Hero – it’s like being a digital pen pal. The student and I e-mail back and forth through a monitored web site. The student asks me questions, and I try to help, and we get to know each other. Today I began another program called In-School Mentoring. I was assigned to a boy in Grade 6 at the Academy at King Edward. The school is in a beautiful old building that was built in 1913, and is a historic site in the city. The use of the word “Academy” to describe it is appropriate.

I met the student, Scott, today with the BBBS caseworker, and we discussed interests, activities he likes doing, and so forth. I will meet with him for 40 minutes once a week, over lunch hour. I learned very quickly some of his interests, including mechanics and electronics, robots, music, sk8boarding, and puzzles. He also told me he likes classic rock (Pink Floyd!) and SNL, so we hit it off quickly. We plan to play Scrabble next week.

I’ve not done this kind of volunteering before, but felt comfortable today. The meeting place will be the library, which is cool, given that I’m a librarian. I spoke with the library technician, and promised to compare notes at a later date!

:: Today while driving home from work, I heard a siren. An ambulance was approaching, so I pulled over with another vehicle, into a left-hand turning lane. As the ambulance passed, we began to move back into the lane, only to notice an idiot barreling up the same lane at high speed. He had chosen to use the ambulance as a wedge to clear other vehicles out of his way. He almost clipped my car as he sped by me.

It’s another example of a disturbing trend, what I like to call obliviousness. I’m not sure this idiot even knew what he was doing. Another example is when someone bumps into you while they are talking on their cell phone, unaware that other sentient beings are sharing the same space as they are as they walk and talk.

:: In the spirit of Christmas Letters Past, I’d like to report that today, I bought some pants.

:: These things happened:

• Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head;
• Called Amelia about picking up music charts and CDs for upcoming April performances;
• Ate bowl of Cheerios with blueberries and strawberries and Bran Buds in skim milk with a dash of Splenda;
• Read the paper;
• Crawled back into bed for 15 minutes;
• Renewed That Dog CD, on loan from EPL;
• Showered, dressed, left house;
• Drove to AMA to buy five Platinum Plus movie passes, was immediately smitten with Tammy, the woman helping me, who was tall and beautiful and friendly and helpful and had deep brown eyes and a great smile;
• Drove to Amelia’s to pick up music;
• While leaving Amelia’s, was forced to stop in the middle of a street, waiting for the car in front of me to move; honking horn didn’t help; honking a second time resulted in her slowly moving so I could leave Amelia’s neighbourhood; note to self – there are still oblivious, moronic, shyte-for-brains people allowed to drive in this country, so watch out for them when you are on the road;
• Bought shoelaces at The Shoe Company, almost exciting as buying pants, but not quite;
• Had tazo chai latte at Indigo’s while reading Vanity Fair;
• Bought two copies of the SI Bathing Suit issue and a discount card before leaving Indigo’s;
• Drove home, and spent the afternoon working on project to clean and purge my kitchen; finished weeding and cleaning one bookshelf;
• Interrupted project a couple times to view short segments of stuff I had recorded years ago on video; this included a hilarious segment from Letterman’s last show on NBC with Tom Hanks, describing the time he tried to stuff Slappy White‘s golf clubs in the trunk of White’s car; the opening theme to Murder One, and the Larry Sanders episode with Gene Siskel, Warren Zevon and John Ritter;
• Drove to Sobey’s for groceries;
• Upon returning home, fired up the natural gas bbq and cooked a teriyaki-flavoured chicken breast; boiled a red potato and steamed some broccoli; smothered the broccoli and potatoes in no-fat sour cream, ate dinner with an Orange Crush on ice while watching Battlestar Galactica;
• Drove to Ceili’s, a pub and diner downtown, to join Debbie and Steve and friends in a get-together before they leave for a three-month trip to South America; enjoyed meeting some new people, including two of her amazing friends, Marni and Sherry – all four of us are from Windsor Park in St Boniface, part of Winnipeg, and we went to the same high school, albeir some 20 years apart; the incredible Lauren was there with Glen at another table, she saw me, came over and after a wonderful hug, we compared notes and visited for 20 minutes;
• Nachos arrived, but with jalapenos, which I asked not to be included, so a new batch was made, and Debbie and Marni and Sherry and Sona and I chowed down;
• Said my goodbyes, and drove home, and wrote this;

Life is sweet, it was a good day, and my friends are feckin’ amazing people.

:: You must watch this short video, with or without sound. I wonder, did they practice first? Then, check the time.

:: I have been waiting for almost two years for someone, anyone out there, to try the Skype program with me. This afternoon, my dear father downloaded and installed the program on his machine in Winnipeg, and we spoke to each other through the VoIP program, using headsets. VoIP=Voice Over Internet Protocol, used in IP Telephony. I was amazed at how clear the sound was, much better than my telephone. What are the rest of you waiting for?? All computer-to-computer calls are free to anywhere in the world! Put your headset on, start a call, and the damn thing even rings like a telephone!

I purchased €10.00 worth of time to use SkypeOut, which lets you call landlines or cell phones. Using Skype, I can call a landline or cell phone in the States for $0.032 per minute.

Thanks, Dad. Anyone else care to try?

:: I am around, just really busy and really tired from work and other stuff. I’ll be back soon. One thing I am working on is consolidating as many sites in my Bloglines account as possible, and that is taking some time to make happen.