12:33 a.m. - 2003-10-25
The Devil in the Details
It was sort of an "attention to details" type of day. I spent some time running between banks trying to be certain everything was in place for number three son's trip to Vancouver. Most of the outlets in our community offer very little in the way of real service anymore though. Automation is great, but with financial transactions I still want the paper trail. I'm old enough to have experienced too many messes in my bank account because of human error - no paperwork, no recovery of money. The banks don't even have anyone who can execute oaths anymore either. I tried three so that I could complete my oath of office to no avail, not one had a staff member who was qualified. Anyway my son called from his buddy's place in Vancouver about two hours ago. He had a good flight out and they were just on their way to find a late supper.
I got a call from my liaison for this part of the assignment for Elections Canada this afternoon. Sounds like a nice guy - most of the front-line people are. We went through all the tasks that were priorities and tried to find common ground from which to work. EC had already renumbered my polling divisions because they have changed the boundaries of the riding. Unfortunately, all the population growth is in the areas they put within the lowest polling numbers. That would make for some very odd numbering in the future. That confuses both staff and voters, when I have to add in more polls to account for the increase in eligible voters. Since that is one of the key tasks, I think I'll be focusing on getting approval to redesign the map so it allows for expansion in a more logical way. The other big issue is going to be assigning all the "floating voters" - ones Elections Canada can't seem to determine what polling division they should be in. There are nearly 4000 names to work through according to my documents. Not hard (I hope) but time consuming. Last election, some of those "floaters" actually belonged to other ridings, some not even in this province or this half of the country - oh well. Guess it's a good thing I paid attention in geography classes at school. I spent several hours this evening both saving all my old data on Elections Canada's computer so that I could nuke the old programs to make way for the new software they want us to use now. It's all loaded on there now and everything seems to be working fine. I have to call them tomorrow to do some tests of the system though.
I got the phone calls I skipped yesterday done and accomplished two tasks at once. For each call there was some work for Elections Canada that needed doing, but for each there was also reconnection with old friends in the volunteer community. I'm working with my friend from my school days, the Vice Principal, who feels a need to do some positive volunteer activities to balance off the negative in their day job. I need the same balance. Since I'm home during business hours right now that makes it easier for me to research what's out there right now.
Spent some time today researching both astronomical and astrological information. I wanted to know more about the solar storms that are occurring and appear to be increasing in intensity. I spent some time last night worrying about my son's flight because one of the last solar bursts interfered with aircraft tracking systems - great eh? My computer had some weird wobbles today as I was working away - fatal error messages - that aren't all that serious on a PC, but they're not what you want to have happen on a radar system. There was an article in one of my e-newsletters that explained how to safely look at the sunspots generating the storms through either a telescope or binoculars - sort of the same procedure as for eclipses.
That was part of the astrology research today - just thinking about some of the interactions that would occur in the next month, checking some ephemeris entries for next year trying to watch the flow of events. I got an announcement of a joint conference in Switzerland for astrologers and psychologists who work together to help people deal with life issues. It looks really interesting, but the cost would be beyond my budget. It would be interesting to see how far my German would take me in this one - not - since half the workshops are in that language while the balance are in English. The link for anyone who is curious is: AstroConference.
I've enrolled in a dream interpretation course on the internet too. I looked at the 20 + pages of dreams I've recorded this year and decided it would be a shame to not take full advantage of the information contained in them. Learning by e-mail in a "class" situation is a very different pedagogic approach. It slows down the exchange of information but does allow one more time to think and edit one's interactions. That may be both useful and an obstruction. Ditto for body language or personaility getting in the way or, on the other hand, saying what the speaker/writer is not. The upside was the course was negligible in cost and could be paid for over time - all that I could afford - and it i something that fascinates me without being critical to oh say, acquiring a certificate or a diploma for completing the course. No pressure, just fun.
�
�
