11:18 p.m. - 2004-04-26
Bells and Bows
The phone started ringing early this morning and never seemed to stop. Good calls or at least ones with lots of useful information exchanged. My supervisor called and said he had a contract ready to go starting next Monday. Would I like to take it on? Yes, but what if the election is called. He's ok with that. The pay isn't what it could be but right now just getting away from the election work is enough. Besides what he talked about sounded quite interesting. It isn't the contract that he discussed at the beginning of the month either. That one has changed scope and is quite a bit bigger now. It is still being negotiated. He called a bit later and asked if he could courier the contract to me for signing. Not a problem - our cupboard was really bare, but I figured that the latest I would have to wait would be supper time. Waiting just makes the food taste better - right? Well the courier never did arrive so I don't know whether they got lost - we are out in the boonies, being right near the airport - or just decided they didn't want to go this far today.
While I was waiting I had one ear glued to the phone and my hands were busy doing housework. I had intended to finish writing up two reports I need to do for the election, but I never had more than a couple of minutes free at one time. I had an intriguing talk with one Returning Officer this afternoon. Remember in an earlier post I mentioned an elector being given my phone number by my Member of Parliament's office, even though they are not to release that information? I had refused that caller's demands that I release the Returning Officer for her area's information. I was trying to explain what happened to that RO, when she mentioned the same person by name and noted that she was really annoyed with Elections Canada for giving out her home number. The caller had told her that it was the only call she had made and never mentioned the call to me or that I had told her that that info was protected. She appears to have lied about a couple of other things too. The other Returning Officer had done the same thing I had, in that she couldn't really fault the caller for getting the information, so she took all her work particulars. After we discussed both our experiences with her, she called the woman back to tell her she would not have her working for her. There is a very high level of trust necessary to work with the confidential information that is part of every task we do. If someone is willing to lie to the degree that this person already had, then the last thing any of us want is to risk having someone like that involved in the election.
I found a few interesting stories in my e-zines the past couple of days. Law enforcement is made more difficult in some Middle Eastern countries because half the population - women - are required to wear abayas, burkhas, chadors - they are named differently depending which country one is in but the upshot is the person is completely covered so that no identification can be made. Rings of thieves and some terrorists are literally hiding behind their womens' skirts. Abayas. Real men aren't they? The New York Daily News reported that one major health initiative undertaken by their public health department had been a major success. They opted to give nicotine patches free to any one who wanted to try to quit smoking. 11,000 people took them up on the offer. Save lives and huge sums of money on cancer treatments all at the same time. Smart people. Research and data_storage These articles about using the spin of an electron were fascinating. Stanford and IBM working together to create what is being called vaporware. I had a dream about that and posted it a while back. I'll see if I can find it later. Now it's time to meet Smaug on the Lonely Mountian (The Hobbit). Good Night dear diary.
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