I got into work just about 1pm and we did AES. I ended up doing $560 and a credit card. In the evening I got a kind of a disturbing call a senior woman distraught how she just lost her husband Monday. I felt bad for her. That left a bad taste in my mouth. But I recovered and even though I felt bad for her I had to get on with the job. This is one of the tough parts of doing this job. I get maybe calls like that every month and it gets harder to take every time. People that complain about telemarketers have no idea. They think all we do is sit on our buts and collect big paychecks. Hardly. Maybe Rob and Bart might but they worked their way to get there. Nobody is getting rich out of this. I was able to put this behind me by thinking of all the people that I’ve helped over the years from the mom looking for a wheelchair for her Son to helping seniors access programs and selling tickets to sporting events we do. I think about all the pleasure we give people when they come out to our events and enjoy themselves. And God lover her, Mrs. Figgin (God lover her) Jones saying “We’re having our supper,” Yeah well I’m missing mine. “Why don’t you get a real job.” Lady you wouldn’t last one shift doing what I do. I make $10/hour and between my wife and I we barely make 2G a month. I have diabetes, scoliosis and I have use these reading glasses from the dollar store and place my nose up against the screen to read every name. If I get it right, 8-10 I can get the sale. There’s a lot of energy that goes into a call. I know these campaigns very well and I work damn hard at the age of 55 to do this. Let me tell you it’s not easy money. But there’s a certain magic when I pull off the perfect 20-second spiel and the customer says “Can I buy 2 $35 family passes and donate the tickets?” That happened tonight. Yeah I’m good at what I do. I’m proud at the service I provide and if I’m short or quick to hang up it’s because I don’t want to play 20 questions with a 13-year old girl when it’s the Mr. Jones I’m looking for. I have no time for that bs.

So anyway, I ended up feeling pretty good of myself following the scores of the hockey game as the night went on. Okay so Anaheim won. Great now we can get on with summer. I listened  to a bit of the post game show on Ched radio and the Ducks took the team on ice photo. A tradition started by the Edmonton Oilers. I went to Tim’s and got my donut and small decafe to support Camp Day, catching the later bus and home without incident. For the 63rd anniversary of D-day, today was a pretty good day. I got home and Anne was all serious on me saying how the Vet had to make a decision to put Pledges down. Then she snickered and everything with him is fine. She even paid half of the bill on her debit card.

So all in all I had a pretty good day today. Anne wants me home tomorrow because the plumber is coming in and we don’t know when he’ll be here. She gets her cheaque in the morning so that’s good news.

Keith Graham asks the question “Where are the space aliens?” I think this was inspired by my comment about a story idea he had on his post previous to this one. He makes some interesting conclusions and I never argue with a math major. You can read his fascinating conclusions here.

Work on F goes slow but I am plodding away in the fields and slipping in the dung behind the plow.

Tonight Patrick Conway on C2C is George’s guest tonight will discuss how “the fall of the gods and collapse of the ancient world is planet Earth’s greatest unsolved mystery.” Sounds like a great show.

Hopefully Anne will be able to give me $40 today so I can go into Audrey’s and puck up those books. I don’t know about the SFBC though and I think the best thing to do is to order from Amazon. I haven’t done this yet but I’m considering it just to get those 11 books and honor the book club agreement then opt out. Before I make an order I want to make sure that I’m doing this correctly. I don’t want to make any screw-ups. The other thing is the parcel post charges this might be almost as much as a new book at the retail level. I can always get the book used. I can even get it from Ebay from a reputable dealer. I don’t know if I should trust Amazon used books.

The other thing is Anne and I are really considering “Bell express view”. Or satellite dish tv. I thought I wouldn’t qualify because I needed a Southerly exposure. What I like about Bell is this system is cheaper then Shaw and comes with a built in PVR. Also we can get rid of this annoying “film” that runs along the top of our tv screen. I have to see if this is cost effective. If it is and we can get the programming we have now and other choices plus get the system HDTV it might be worthwhile if it’s around $50/month. If I can get a copy of Word from Dave or someone from the office without investing in a retail copy and my vision is resorted, then this might be a pretty good alternative to Shaw cable I’ll be investigating this tomorrow night at work. I wanted a new copy of Word for my other system and I was going to invest in that but if I can get Bell instead of a new Word, then I can save the money for Bell. That’s the idea, in theory.

That’s all for now.

e. Jim