The first thing she said when I called

This social thing, I don't know. It's quite the change for me. For a year or so I had essentially no social life training for IMC. Now I'm doing the work thing, the social thing has really taken off, and while the core is going well, the cardio training has taken a bit of a back seat.

Going to High River used to be easy. You drove south on #2 till you crossed the diagonal railway tracks, and made the next right. High River is this nice little town in the foothills, though the suburbs are attacking it lately, with a thriving arts community. The view west is amazing, and from some vantage points it takes your breath away. Today was all about the cloudscapes. The sky is huge, with the land unfolding out in front of you. The sky is different shades of blue, and all sorts of wonderful cloud shapes that were just begging to be painted.

We used to go down several times a year to look through the shops and stroll. One gallery had this table that kept calling me. A nice round dining room table, made of birds eye maple and other more exotic woods. It was gorgeous and would have suited our home perfectly. It was also more than a month's gross income at a time when I was still spending most of it. We never did buy it. I don't think I could ever have actually covered it with a table cloth, and I know I'd have whimpered at every spill.

Then they put an overpass over the railway. That was ok. Since the last time I've been down that way, (there is another more scenic route) they put in another exit. So I took the first exit like normal, then I'm driving along wondering where all the stuff is. I did the same thing driving into Okotoks from the south. There's a new stoplight that wasn't there last time. Turned off one too soon again. Darn this constant growth, making me reset all my mental maps!

Pike's Pottery was having a sale this weekend. We have a ton of their stuff, most in the green and copper Earth Spirit series. We chipped a small plate a while ago, and wanted to replace it. We also ended up buying some other stuff as well. A new mug for me  in a darker green and lighter copper, with a brighter glaze, as well as a pair of cereal bowls and a honey dipper in the same glaze.

We didn't do any other strolling around. As we left the shop I called my buddy MT that lives south and east of there to confirm our meet up. MT and I worked together a long time ago, and we got on really well. We recently met up on Facebook, and invited us out to her place when she found out we were heading to High River.

Let's just say there was a bit of salty language over the phone. It was sunny then, so she couldn't see the phone screen, and hadn't realized I could hear every word as she was trying find out if it was on, or she had turned it off somehow, and getting her son to shut off the lawnmower. I was laughing because it was just like the conversations we used to have.

You know sometimes how you meet a person again for the first time in a while, and you aren't sure what to talk about? That uneasy silence? None of that here. It's been 16 or 17 years since we last saw each other, so there was lots to catch up on, but it was like we had last seen each other a few weeks ago.

Most people would say she is retired, but that's far from the truth. Her just telling me what she's been up to almost made me tired. I can confidently state nobody would guess her age. We had a great visit, and then suddenly realized we were beginning to run a little bit late for dinner with some friends in Okotoks. We said our goodbyes, but I'm pretty sure we'll get together again. She is in Calgary every month or so. Her turn to visit us.

We always have fun visiting G&G, our Okotoks friends. We've known them many years now, and it's so nice to catch up on them. Technically, they are retired as well, but he's working part time doing something he enjoys, and she always has artistic house projects on the go.

It was really late when we got home, later than I usually stay up. My day had started early with Curtis wailing out the Song of his People at a respectable volume, trying to convince me he was hungry. They still turned up their noses at the wet food we're trying out on them. After that I settled in to coffee and writing, pounding out about 2500 words of the latest twist in The Body in the Digester.

Friday, (don't you love backwards posts) I was on the bike for a medium strong spin, and a good core and stretch session after. My legs were feeling more equal strength, though my left knee wasn't happy about pedaling standing. There was a pause just at the point it is most bent. My breathing and heart rate were good for the effort, but I was sure getting sweaty.

Am I going to post a novel snippet? Not of this bit, I don't think. The Scrivener writing tool is suiting me perfectly. It's much easier to work with than a pile of text documents. Pity they don't have an iPad app yet, though I'm told they are working on one.

Double Unders are hard!

What a great day outside! I was thinking of running all day, wanting to be out in the warmth. I was especially thinking of running as they drained some of my nearly perfect blood today. The nurse was a little surprised at my blood pressure, (I think 110 over 65) and heart rate of 48. I take it you're fairly fit, she asked. Well, I'm trying. Evidently that is on the low end of what they will allow.

That run today. Limbered up really well. Tried to run nice and easy, which was a bit difficult. My right leg was all bouncy and happy, and my left leg felt very wooden and stiff. I think was limping on it a bit. Two two short walk breaks, just because.

Stretched well after, rolling the ball hard on my legs. The hams are feeling a bit stiff, and there is a bit of creakyness in my left knee. Doing a supported one leg squat, I can get way lower on my right.

I'd picked up a jump rope and some stretchy bands with the last of the Sport Check gift certs I won last fall. The jump rope should be good in short bursts to help strengthen my legs. Just for a giggle I tried double unders a couple of times, and got whapped across my shins with the rope for my trouble. Maybe next time.

Closer to Madness

In addition to being a really good song by the awesome guitar player Jesse Cook, it's also rapidly getting to be my state of mind.

I started with this.

SELECT MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.CLEAN_UWI, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.RECORD_SOURCE, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.SOURCE_STATUS, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.NUM, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.ID, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.NUMERIC_ID, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.EXTRA_VAL_10, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.EXTRA_VAL_6, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_1, [PV Service Status Codes].PV_Status_Desc, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_2

FROM MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC LEFT JOIN [PV Service Status Codes] ON MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_1 = [PV Service Status Codes].PV_SERVICE_STATUS

WHERE (((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.CLEAN_UWI) Is Not Null) AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.RECORD_SOURCE)="ROUGHNECK") AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.SOURCE_STATUS) Not Like "MISSING") AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.TYPE_1)="Tank") AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.NUMERIC_ID) Is Null) AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_1) Not Like "RecycleBin")) OR (((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.CLEAN_UWI) Is Not Null) AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.RECORD_SOURCE)="MAXITRAC TANK") AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.SOURCE_STATUS) Not Like "MISSING") AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.NUMERIC_ID) Is Null) AND ((MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_1)="I" Or (MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.STATUS_1)="O"))

ORDER BY MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.NUMERIC_ID, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.EXTRA_VAL_10, MASTERFAC_WKSPC_MAIN_TABLE_LOC.EXTRA_VAL_6;

That gave me about 15000 rows of data to triage. I'm still at it, finding all sorts of idiosyncrasies in the data. Later on I figured there was another pair of blocks of SOLD's that I couldn't get into that query anyways, so I ended up doing a really clever MATCH thing in xl. I need to check it all tomorrow to make sure I wasn't too clever. That can happen.

Did you know that Access and XL do sorts in subtly different ways? Even after more than a decade of serious XL use in data migrations, I found a new way for it to screw you over on dates. I was wondering why two fields were sorted together, and marked as duplicates. At first I figured they were duplicates elsewhere, but I gradually tracked them all down, and then just these two were left. Finally, the light dawned. It thought the serial number like 1-10-3274 was DATE, for crying out loud, which isn't a big leap because it happens often. XL has a fetish about dates, and I've used many swear words in association with XL and dates. Then it happily figures out how many days it is from when it starts counting dates, and then it uses that value to sort and mark as a duplicate to the actual text value of that number. Sigh.

Just for the record, when I get a choice about doing dates, I always do them like this. Today is 20130605. yyyymmdd. They sort nicely. XL doesn't think it something else and try to be helpful. There are no stupid / or - characters to mess things up. I admit that XL doesn't know how to do date arithmetic with it, but that's XL's problem. If *I* need to do it, there's an app for that.

Lets not even talk about data with leading or trailing spaces. Just don't do it. Ever. Please and thank you. I've never so badly wanted to fix data in the source system, so that my triaging would be ever so much easier. There is so much crap in Serial Number, which is actually EXTRA_VAL_6 in the SQL above, which complicates both the query and the triaging. Still, I suppose that if it wasn't a mess, they wouldn't need me to come along and tell them how to clean it, and in the meantime, get some useful work done with it.

That run yesterday felt pretty good. I was light on my feet, with only the slightest pulls just above my heels. It started really clunky, and then about a minute in it suddenly got better. Overall it felt pretty good, and if I hadn't had someplace to be, I might have run longer. I did not run today. How did I only learn today, that today is national running day? When did that happen?

Tonight was a good core session, working tired hip flexors and calves. Then a great yoga class full of all sorts of zenny yogic goodness.

50 units of nearly perfect blood

A while ago I passed 50 blood donations. They gave me a pin and a new donor card. Then I got an invitation to an awards ceremony. There was a certificate and some yummy munchies.

I even had my photo taken with the cert, but I won't be showing you that one. Linda says I look more than just a little wild eyed. The angle makes it look like I have a huge divot on the right side of my head, and that I have no hair at all. Which isn't true, there are at least a dozen strands.

Lots of the room had done 50 donations, 2 people at our table had done 75. There were two people in our room that had done 1000 donations, though I'm not sure if that's platelets or plasma. Still, it was sitting in a chair for a couple hours, 1000 times. They have spent an entire man-year with a needle hooked into their arm. (As a snarky political side note, that's considerably more than anything "Senator" Duffy has done for Canada.)

The guest speaker was a little boy about 8. He would have died essentially just after birth without many blood donations. His mother nearly broke down speaking with us, to say thank you. For all I know he got some of mine. Or not, it doesn't really matter, he got what he needed because someone gave. There are many, many people alive now because thousands of people donate blood. That blood I can replace in a few weeks has made a profound difference to those people, their families, and their friends.

There is never enough blood. Can you donate? Have you? If you can, and haven't, why not? If you don't know if you can, go find out. My next donation is on Thursday, number 55. Hope to see you there.

They talked about signing up for stem cell, and blood marrow donors and I think I'll sign up for those next donation. Please sign the organ donor card on the back of your provincial health card. Consider supporting laws that make organ donation the norm, and you have to sign the card to NOT donate. One of my friends is alive today because she got a kidney donated by someone who was a genetic stranger to her.

In other news, the core stuff is continuing. Ran 15 minutes tonight before the award ceremony, nice and easy.

The oldest novel snippet, for new buddies

Once Curtis was fed, we slept in. That doesn't happen often for me. Then some errands at banks and markets. Some quiet time, listening to the rain. Very nice. Did some wine stuff, ending up with 30 bottles of Italian Nebbiolo. That doesn't often happen; I usually get 29. There is a batch of Brunello started now. BBQ chicken. Very yummy!

I mentioned I'd met up with an old buddy on Friday night. Part of the novel I'm working on was mentioned. Here it is for them. I'm not sure I've ever actually posted this before, though I think a few people have read it via email. Reading this for the first time in a while, I see places that need improvement. That's ok. And I just remembered, there is another death scene too. Maybe I'll post that next week. I think in all the history of crime fiction, nobody has ever died this way. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't post it.



Bryan adjusted his face mask while dragging the air line and water hose to the other side of the digester sump. This was where the drain pipe entered the digester, and was the only part that couldn't really be hosed clean. He had already dug out several 5 gallon pails of heavy black silt, at the cost of making the mask slide around on his sweat. The euchre game during coffee break couldn’t come soon enough.

One more pail, then I’ll take a breather and move the light so I can see what I'm doing. I swear the light never shines on what you need to look at, and it's always so dark in here. You'd think with the 4 manholes open and over a dozen lights we could see better.

A few shovelfuls later a white stick clung to the side of the shovel and was left poking out of the silt. Even with gloves on he didn't want to touch it without hosing it off first. For good measure he hosed around the sump, then moved the light into the sump with him. He squatted carefully to take a closer look.
It was long and slender with a knob on the end. It came out easily enough, and he gave the rest of it a quick swoosh with the hose before holding it up to the light.

It’s a bone. I’m holding a bone in my hand. What do I do now?

Bryan stumbled out of the sump and waved the bone at the safety man. All he could think was that he was going to miss the euchre game after all.

`Gail, Gail, here, take this, let me out of here!` he cried as his feet scrabbled at the wooden steps placed below the manway.

`What’s the matter, are you ok?` Gail asked. She had been checking the air equipment and had missed Bryan’s discovery. `Here, you’re gonna hurt yourself thrashing around Akkk! What’s that?` She took the bone by her gloved fingertips. `Bryan, what the hell! If this is another of your practical jokes --`

Now that he had torn the mask off, and was pawing at the safety ropes Gail could see his face was pasty white and sweaty. `Stop it!` she yelled, and slapped at his hands. `Sit down, I’ll get this stuff off you. You’re out of there and you’ll be ok now.` She carefully put the bone down on the air tank trolley, and pushed Bryan down onto the nearby upended pail so he couldn’t see the bone. She made soothing noises as she stripped off his safety gear and unzipped his coveralls. `Lean back, and take some deep breaths. Calm down.` She eyed the bone. `Look, I’m going to have to call the management, and they’ll call the police. Think about what you are going to tell them. I’ll just be on the phone over there, don’t go anywhere.`

Bryan’s face was looking a little better, she thought. How would a bone get into a digester? She paged her foreman. `Hey Two Dogs, this is Gail down at number 5 digester. Get your lazy carcass down here, there’s going to be shit happening that you’ll need to know about.` Next she tried the Chief Operator’s phone, and got lucky. `Chief, this is Gail down by number 5 digester. Bryan found a bone in the sump, yes a bone, an honest to God bone. I’ve got it right here!` Silence. `I thought so to at first, but you should have seen his face. Nobody is that good of an actor.` Silence. `How the hell do I know what to do? You get paid the big bucks to make decisions, do something. Probably calling the police is a good idea.`

`Geez, what an idiot,` she said to Bryan as she hunkered down on another pail. `Are you ok now?`

Gail was not surprised to see Mitch and Stu, the Operations Supervisor show up first. Two Dogs never hurried. She handed them the bone and said, `Bryan found it in the sump.` Stu simply looked at Bryan, who was shivering and making hand-washing motions.

Mitch took the bone, and held it in his gloved fingertips, a look of revulsion on his face. Stu peered at it with his usual amiable interest. `You’re right, this is no joke. Lets see, first things first. You,` he pointed at the Chief, `call the police. Tell them we’ve found what looks like a bone, and we’ll need some specialists to look through the silt to see if there are any more remains. Tell them to bring their own self contained breathing gear. Get someone to wait for them at the front gate and bring them here. Get someone else to lock every other gate into the plant; we don’t want the press wandering around. Make sure someone is on the front gate every minute. Log who goes in and out. Got it? And you,` he pointed, as Two Dogs strolled up, `get every explosion proof light and all the extension cord this place has down here. Pull them off any other jobs. Get every portable air pack down here. Do it now! If the cops beat that equipment here you won’t have a job to slack off at. Gail, get some “danger, no entry” tape, and wrap it around every door and across every tunnel into this pump house. We don’t need a bunch of spectators. Don’t do the east doors, but stand there yourself, and don’t let anyone in unless they belong. Go!`

Gail started up the stairs two at a time. The Chief was already on the phone. Two Dogs gawped. ` What,` he started.

Stu cut him off. `Deafness isn’t one of your sins, but you have lots of others. You know what I want, and I want it now. And in a few minutes the cops are going to want it too. If you have to explain to them why it isn’t here, they’ll likely charge you with obstruction of justice.` Stu had found the magic words. Two Dogs hated dealing with cops even when he was innocent. He headed off, if not as briskly as Gail, certainly faster than Stu had ever seen him move before.

Stu turned to Bryan. `Ok,` he said, much more gently, `this is going to be the last few minutes of quiet time you’re going to get for a while. I’m not going to ask what happened; I can hear it when you tell the cops. Get it straight in your mind. I doubt anyone has ever found a bone in a digester before; they’ll have lots of questions.`


`Stu!` The Chief waved the phone. `911 wants us to stay on the line, and I’ve got to get to another phone to deal with the gates!` He let the phone headset drop by it’s cord and jogged up the tunnel leading toward the main control room.

Dwen had never seen so many people in a digester pump house, nor the inside of a digester so well lit up. She watched in admiration as the senior cop got things organized. Once he seen the bone for himself, and where it came from, he realized there wasn’t a fresh body to look at or for. `We’re going to be here for a while. Is there any way to get it quieter in here so we can hear ourselves think?`

`Well, I don’t know, we need all this to keep the process going,` Mitch dithered.

`I’ll have those lagoon pumps off in two minutes,`Dwen said. `The place will be a lot quieter then, and we can review safety procedures. It won’t hurt anything to be a little behind schedule, but Mitch, you might want to phone out to the lagoons to let them know`.

The cop watched as Dwen wound down the variable-speed high pressure pump, turned it off, turned off the low pressure pump, then turned off the seal water pumps. `Better?` she asked.

`Yes, thanks. Chief, don’t you have a phone call to make?` He paused until the Mitch agreed, and left. `City foremen, they’re the same everywhere.` He sighed, then focussed on Dwen. `You looked like you knew what you were doing there. Are you next in charge after numbnuts there?` he asked, waving his eyebrows at the departing chief.

`I’m the senior operator on shift. Even the Chief shouldn’t do anything in my area without running it past me.` She looked him straight in the eyes, and added `and neither should you. You’ve got a job to do here, and I want to help you with it so nobody gets hurt, and the process doesn’t get messed up.`

Stu showed up as Dwen finished. `Exactly right, officer. I’m Stu, the Operation’s Manager here. As far as I’m concerned Dwen Burns is your contact for operational issues. Tell her what you want, and she’ll get it done for you. First safety thing is hard hats. The firemen are ok, but we’ll have some hard hats for your guys in a few minutes. We’d appreciate everyone wearing one while they are inside the building.`

The cop nodded. `Fine. First, I’m going to need a statement from the person who found the bone, and anyone else that was here at that time. Next, we’re going to have to search that tank for more remains.`

Stu took another cop over and introduced him to Bryan. They decided a quieter more private place yet would be better. Stu took them upstairs to collect Gail from the door, and put another of the plant personnel on door duty, then took them up to the administration building.

`Ok, Ms. Burns, lets take a look at this tank, and you can tell us what we need to know about it so we can search it.` He put his fingers in his mouth for a quick whistle over the hubbub of people talking and the background plant noise. `Come on over and listen up. Ms Burns here is the operator in charge here, and nobody touches anything without her say so. If you need something, ask her. Ms. Burns,` he gestured.

Dwen stood on the bucket and looked over the attentive faces. Don’t think I’ll much difficulty coping with this lot, she thought. `My name is Dwen. For the fire fighters, the only thing you need to know is that this tank, big as it is, is legally a confined space. The process generates methane, and even with all the venting, the low oxygen level inside requires that supplied air masks be worn at all times.` She paused for second, then said `and besides, it smells really bad.` The small crowd chuckled.

`What we have here is called a digester. It’s called that because it takes the suspended solids that are in wastewater, and through an anaerobic biological process, breaks them down and produces methane. The methane is compressed and piped down to the bottom of the tank through those long silver tubes you see hanging from the roof. That keeps the tank mixing. What settles out is a fine silt, and we have to clean it out periodically. This pail is full of the silt that was shoveled out earlier. The sump in the middle is mostly full, and there’s probably still some in places on the floor. Once inside you can at least get at it. But if you put your head in the manhole and look up, you’ll see some pipes up there that could well have material on top of them. The tank is 110 feet in diameter, and the centre is 6 feet lower than the sidewall. The pipes are about 20 feet above the bottom of the tank. Any questions?` The various people had taken turns shuffling forward to look in the manway.

`Can we get some more of these lights in there?`

`Yes, the maintenance staff will do that. If you want them somewhere special let them know. Please note that you cannot use your own flashlights in there unless they are certified explosion proof. We have some we can lend you.`

`Will the floor be slippery?`

`Not really any more slippery than any other wet concrete, but you will have to be careful of your footing. Some parts of the floor are more smoothly finished than others, and there could be process residue. As well, there will be lots of   electrical cords and air hoses in there. Um, officer, I’m assuming you’ll want to check the top of the pipes?`

`Yes, will it be safe to put ladders in there?` he replied.

`As long as there is a person holding the bottom of the ladder when someone is climbing it. For some reason working against a curved wall in the dim light seems to be somewhat disorienting. We’ll run a safety rope down from one of the roof manways for the person going up the ladder.`

`It’s not like we can’t see everyone that’s in the tank,` one of the fire fighters said, `but the rules call for a person posted at the manway to act as a safety man. Can you supply one, or do we need to use one of our people? And given the number of trained rescue people that will be in the tank, do you think we can dispense with everybody wearing a safety line?`

`I’ll get someone posted here.  I’ll insist on the person on the ladder wearing a safety line. If your professional judgement says we aren’t compromising safety by dispensing with the other people wearing a safety line, I’ll go along with it.`

`Ok, we’ll do it that way,` the firefighter said. `I suppose we should start with the pipes, so anything we knock down can be washed into the sump and checked there.`

One of the police officers frowned. `Wait a minute. I’m a forsenic expert, you mean that I’m not going to be able to look at the evidence in situ first?`

Lori and the boss firefighter shook their heads simultaneously. `Nope, you’ll have to do all your work out here. You can take over the centre of the pumphouse floor if you want, and there’s several pails worth to get you started. We’ll bring you more pails as soon as we can.`

The meeting broke up into a series of procedural discussions. The forsenic technicians only wanted a hose for water and some extra lighting for their work station, and were soon involved in a minute examination of the silt. The fire fighters sent two men up to the roof to handle the ladder safety rope, and a team of five into the digester. One would go up the ladder to search the piping, one would hold the ladder, and three would take turns digging out the sump.

Once things were underway, the officer approached Lori and asked, `I’d like to get more detail about the digester, is there a quieter place we can talk?`

`Sure, lets go up to my control room upstairs. It’s past time I went through the computer anyway.` Lori led the cop upstairs into the control room, and casually tossed her hard hat onto a table. `Have a seat. Give me a minute to look at the essentials here.` Her fingers started dancing over the keyboard.

She finished and said,`Ok, that’s enough for now. What would you like to know?

`Ma’am, could I get your full name, and title please.`

`Ceridwen Burns, I’m an Operator Three.` She spelled Ceridwen. `Call me Dwen.`

The sound of lawnmowers

Breakfast with my buddy was fun. It's been quite a while, and facebook chats are not the same. Very yummy breakfast at OEB again. She gets to go to Fort McMoney for a few days. Lucky her.

Then home and onto the lawn before it rained again. I could hear my neighbours all around me doing the same thing. With all the rain our lawns are like a jungle. The dandylions have really got a foothold this year. One neighbour showed us this eco product that kills dandylions PDQ. I'll have to get some tomorrow I think. The back lawn was still pretty wet so it was heavy going. But they said it was going to start raining tonight, and rain for another week. If I let the lawn go that long I'd have to weed whack the entire thing first. No further developments on the flower boxes.

Next was some core while I was all warmed up. Side plank with raised leg! Yay me! Feeling stable at long last. Several days now with legs that are NOT cranky. This makes me happy. There were some interesting crickle crackle noises out of my shoulders during the pushups. I'm looking forward to running without pain and unsteadyness, and being able to bike standing up.

I've driven and ridden past the signs to the Leighton Art Centre a great many times, but I've never been. They have a clothesline sale this weekend with many local artists. I've been meaning to go since forever. The best part about it is the view. Holy cow! It's amazing. The mountains start way off to the left of this photo, and go on way to the right. See for yourself.

The art, well, the art. Ho Hum. Art is so personal. There was a few pieces I actively didn't like, and a few I did, but most were ho hum. Nothing demanded that I take it home. There was one painting of a sheep that reminded me of Linda. Something about the eye.

There were a ton of people out riding Road to Nepal. The little parking lot at 22x and 37 St was full, except for where the bog was, and had overflowed all around it. I was a bit itchy to get out riding, but I'm not quite there yet. Nice to see so many people out though.

Home to relax and hang out a bit, when an Direct Energy rep (or so she said) banged on the door and tried to hustle us into a three year flex contract. Hustle being the operative word. I kept telling her that I didn't want it, I didn't want any changes, I didn't want any consolidation, and being in the gas industry, I didn't think either gas or electric prices were going up any time soon. She kept filling in the form, mistakes at every turn, asking for info like my birth date that I don't give out. Then there was a confirming call that I was supposed to answer yes or no to, so I didn't. Told that woman I didn't want any changes, and she essentially hung up. The door hussy got pissy with me and said I was only supposed to say yes or no, but I told her I didn't have to follow her rules, and I'd been telling her I didn't want what she was selling. She eventually went away. I was really quite cross about it.

For a few months I worked on contract to Enmax, helping to fix a bunch of energy bills. It's a complicated world, and I don't propose to explain it here. The problem was that one part of the system hadn't talked to another part, and the bill did not represent either the correct kind of contract or the correct rates. Essentially we had to unroll each bill back to where the change got cross threaded, apply the change properly, and roll it all forward again. Sometimes the customer would end up ahead because they had been paying too much. Often they would end up behind because they had been paying too little.

There were times the customer had asked for a change back then, which hadn't been applied, and if the change was backdated it would cost the customer lots, sometimes thousands. There were a lot of complicated rules, and sometimes there were no good answers.

But the general rule was that the contract rate was almost invariably higher than the regulated rate which might go up or down. You see, the gas industry is very complicated, and I barely even begin to understand some of the pricing and accounting. But the people that do, create these contracts so that the company makes money. It's a form of hedging, and gives them a steady income stream. The price of gas has been coming down over the years, and it's at historically cheap levels. It's going to stay there for a while.

So if understand this hustle, I mean, deal, the contract price is the regulated rate plus 2 cents per GJ to a max of 5.9 cents per GJ. The regulated price right now is not quite 3.5 cents per GJ. They always set the max above whatever they think the market will do, so they don't lose money. In the mean time they are raking in that extra 2 cents. They prey on people and make them think the price is going to go sky high, and these locked in rates, with horrendous cancellation fees will "save" you money. Right.

Plus there are various admin fees out the ying yang. It seems like every service has surcharges and taxes and administration fees and riders and service charges and who knows what else all. Airline tickets are really bad for that. This pisses me off, because it cost money to set all that up in the first place, and guess who paid? Right.

At least she was smart enough not to ask for a recent bill. That's a sure sign of a scam. They get the site ID of your meter, and push the paperwork in. I was waiting for her to ask and had a plan, but I guess they know people are onto that.

I keep firmly in mind that these companies are not in it for you and me. They are in it to make money, as much as possible. My position is that every time they want you to change plans, it's because they've figured out a way to charge you more money, and possibly make it sound like you are paying less. But they don't want that. They have a bunch of people with a certain low animal cunning, and their entire purpose in life is to sell you a bill of goods.

You'd almost think I was social

Yesterday day was a huge social day for me. Normally I'm a bit of a recluse. Shy, retiring, not much for chat. Hardly ever stir out of my lair other than to go to work.

Work was social. My office roomie and I were both in a chatty mood. Normally we are head down buried in queries and spreadsheets. Our big tasks for the week were accomplished. We still made progress on things, but there was a bit of chat. For two such as us, some of the conversation might surprise you.

Then home to get Linda and attend Mike Hallihan's funeral. I really enjoyed working at Skystone, and Mike was one of the founders of the company. One of his core beliefs was that it was important to take care of the people. While I was there that was one of the core belief's of Skystone, and it was a pretty special place to work. In many ways his wife Terry was the heart of the people part of the organization. She was the main person organizing many of the occasions that made us more than a group of co-workers. I'm pretty sure her mission in life was to fatten us up to sell us by the pound, because she was all about making sure there was enough to eat. Attending one of the company "picnics" at their cottage on Lake Newall was an exercise in restraint. The food kept coming and it was all good. Mike had a great hand on a BBQ.

I'm still in regular contact with several of the people there, and in more periodic catchups. There was lots of that today, since I haven't seen some of those people for nearly a decade. I've got a few tentative dates for coffee. Some have aged very well, some less so I'm afraid. I guess you could say Mike was in that category, to everyone's sorrow. He was not yet 61. Think about that. I wasn't really close to Mike, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any regrets about things not done in the time he had. He had an active and full life, both family and professionally. How about you?

As a bit of side commentary, I hadn't realized he was Catholic. It shouldn't matter, really. So it was a very Catholic service, which is a bit odd if you're not used to it. Then I remembered what Linda's dad's service was like, and relaxed to enjoy the show. (I'm not religious in a church way, so I essentially consider all church services as a form of theatre, with certain conventions to be observed.) I have to say though, that particular church is going to be in trouble soon, if the people I saw were representative. The priest, his helpers (I don't know the correct word for them) the choir were all elderly. There needs to be some renewal there, or there's going to be an empty building.

Since I started up working on my novel again, and since at one point the remains of a body show up, My buddy Jayne added me to a Crime Writer's page on Facebook, and invited me over for a social and meet some of the others. I knew her and Kevin a long time ago. Kevin was one of the first people I met when I moved to Calgary. Then we were off in different worlds, and connected up a while ago. There are a couple other people in the group that I know as well, but they weren't there last night.

We had a perfectly nice evening chatting about all sorts of stuff. Jayne has been short listed for an award, which has made her week. All in all it's got me thinking more about my novel, and wanting to really get moving on it. In that vein, I accidentally stumbled across some writing software called Scrivener. I read about it, watched an intro video, and it looks right up my alley.

Anyone use it?

One of the consequences of being social is this:

I really don't want to change my plan, so for the last couple days I've hardly looked at my phone. There's a bit of an itch there. I've come to like Twitter, but I guess it eats bandwidth, or rather, following the links does.

Today I'm sipping a coffee and we'll be heading out for breakfast soon. Another buddy flying through town on a work mission, but there is time to catch up. Now that I'm done this I'm going to head downstairs for a quick bit of core, since there wasn't time yesterday. Plus more. Zoom!