23:54 - 02.09.05
To a T
The company I am assigned to right now has made it a priority to help with the damage from the hurricane "in the lower 48". Most of my charitable donations are not ones that are recorded. I buy the packages available at our grocery store for the food bank, for example. I also buy the newspaper produced by the homeless of our city from the street vendors - sometimes the same edition from several of them so that they all have a little more for themselves. When I get the call for pick up of clothes and household goods for charities, that works for me too. I like that anonymous thing. What I liked about the company's offer was two fold. First they are matching any donation made to the Red Cross dollar for dollar. Doubles the amount of aid available. Then I also get a tax receipt. It was delivered by email almost immediately after I donated on-line. Bonus. It took a bit of thought to decide how much I could afford to give. Truth be known, I'm in the hole financially right now what with tearing apart the house, taking out the loan and such, but I decided that the whole point of the loan was to be able to do what I thought was most important without being hamstrung by the cost. I can make up the payment by simply going in to work everyday. Right? Remember too, I had tithed myself at Christmas to be able to help with the tsunami relief efforts through the Red Cross. That worked out ok and I think the survivors need it more than I do. I'd just spend it on books and music anyway. Sigh. I can't be as generous as people like Celine Dion who donated $1 million, but I guess every little bit helps.
There were a lot of people criticizing our Prime Minister yesterday for not acting more quickly to send resources to the devastated areas. He said he wanted to wait to be told by the US what was wanted before he acted. It was interesting when the CEO of the company I work for right now reinforced that stance in today's memo that he sent to each employee about the issue. The company has offices and staff in the area affected and their first concern was for the health and safety of those people. He noted that he had been asked by many staff "what the company was doing" to provide immediate assistance. He said that the only thing the company had done so far was provide cash - a significant amount too - because that was what was needed right now. He was encouraging all the staff in the company to follow suit. That was the reason for the offer to also immediately match any donation made by workers to the Red Cross. When I had emailed to ask if outside consultants were allowed to participate in the matching grants I received a very quick "yes". Wouldn't be allowed in most companies, but pragmatism is the best response in emergency situations. I know there are a lot of politicians who would state (as our provincial government has done so often) that "throwing money" at a crisis isn't always the best solution. That's true. Sometimes it is the only solution. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Meet the basic ones critical for survival, then for the health and safety of a population. Protect children from loss of education and families from loss of stability. Common sense that is rarely used. Even with the best intentions, other resources can't be used until those first calls on resourcs are dealt with. For example, the urban rescue specialists from British Columbia, who already have arrived in Louisiana, aren't being allowed in to do their job because the authorities don't see the point if they lose their lives too. Pragmatism. The other offer that might be helpful in the long term is from the Netherlands - Holland - famous for dikes and building sea walls to protect most of their country from being reclaimed by the sea. Given that they've perfected their techniques as a result of similar devastation, why not try for the best instead of just rebuilding the same thing. When starting from ground zero, trying to recapture the past is like trying to keep a sand castle from being taken by the tides. Just doesn't make sense.
Back to local news now though. Yesterday, the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan celebrated their 100th anniversaries as political entities. My youngest and one of his buddies spent the entire day moving from one party to another in the downtown, then finished off with the fireworks seen in the linked article. I checked the ephemeris for the Province's September 1,1905 birth using the noon declaration in Edmonton as the time of birth. And astrologically, what do we see? Ascendant 18 degrees of Scorpio - cusp of my 11th house. Sun at 8 degrees 39 minutes Virgo, Moon at 9 degrees 55 mintes Libra opposes my natal Mars. Mercury at 3.5 degrees Virgo and Venus at 30 degrees Cancer. Mars at 6 degrees Sagittarius - right on the cusp of my 12th house ("Instant Karma's going to get You" - John Lennon). Guess that's why I find out so many political secrets, right? Jupiter is at 5.5 Gemini - cusp of my 6th house - while Saturn sits at 28.75 degrees of Aquarius trines my natal Neptune/10th house cusp. Uranus is at 1 degree of Capricorn, Neptune at 9 degress Cancer and Pluto at 22.7 Gemini - oh yes, the cusp of my 7th house ("When the moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars - then peace will find the planet and love will steer the stars. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius"). North node of the moon - the dragon's head - is cusped between Leo and Virgo. In Chinese astrology Alberta was born in the year of the Snake and her lucky number is 7. I think I'll chew on that relationship for a while. In astrology one can do an analysis called synastry to predict how a relationship will unfold. Don't know if that is possible with a geographic location, but it appears I'm tied to this place by more than a few aspects.
Talked with my Dad on the weekend, now that he's done his stint as a "travelling man". When he arrived home from Alaska mid July he just turned right back around and headed back to British Columbia to play. Sounds as though he had a great time. Talked with my sister a couple of days ago and it was clear the family grapevine had been very active from comments from both her and my Dad. Both knew as much about the deconstruction of my home as I do even though this is the first time I've talked with either of them since deciding to proceed. My sister's hubby works for a local handyman's store so I wanted some advice and ideas about how to go about the reconstruction. I was also hoping that there were installers or specialists who could help me be certain that things are built to last. My sons are more than willing to help but they are all working very long hours at one or more jobs and they have the will but not the skills to to the detail work in some cases. I think that adage about measure twice cut once applies here. I only want to do this work once, thank you very much. As it is I'll likely be paying off this loan until I die. Don't want to leave the boys with a legacy of debt, do I?
Work? Yes well. New coworker started in the next work area; assigned from the agency I work for. She is good friends with the very first co-worker I wrote about when I started posting to you - the one I met on the street a couple of weeks ago while out on lunchtime errands. Another synchronicity? Even though I have nothing to do with her project, she had to come to me to have her timesheet prepared and to get help with some other tasks that should be done by her team lead. She seemed reluctant to have the perfumed coworker involved and after the fax incident a couple of days ago I am quite sympathetic. The perfumed one also stood and dug through the outgoing mail after I added the completed yoga survey to the stack so it appears anything of a personal nature is considered fair game by her. Funny that a new person would pick up on that so quickly. Maybe I'm reading that wrong though. I did ask our supervisor if I could just let the new worker use my computer account herself to generate her paperwork. That privacy issue, you know. My supervisor had a strange reaction to the request but granted it without question. Don't know how to read that. The ne coworker hasn't been given access to her own telephone either so I'm not certain what is up with that. As you know I've been in assignments where no resources are provided other than a table and chair and Iknow how hostile that makes the work environment feel. Maybe it is just a very short contract, but I think I'll make an effort to give her some moral support as much as possible anyway.
I went back to the series of records I had had to leave undone about midJune becaue of the odd problems I was finding with that database. Remember multiple copies of records; those records being scrambled very morning meaning that I had to start at the beginning every day - in a series of over 2000 entries. Yes well. Now not only have I found that again, but I also found that a lot of the coding I had done had been altered and that even more had been done by someone else around that time. I can tell because the input dates are for after the time I stopped working on those records so that my supervisor could fix the database problems that were messing my work up - I was working on a completely different series of records for a discipline that wouldn't intersect with this one. When I tried to explain the additional anomalies to my supervisor she wouldn't look me in the eye. Just noted that the only other person who had edit access was the loud supervisor. So why not just say she had decided to change or overwrite large blocks of the work I had done? Instead she tried to insist that I was the only person working on the coding. Sorry not so. Don't know what to think of that either. The loud supervisor is getting an assistant next Tuesday (long weekend - yes) because she has too much to do. So why mess with my work then? Don't know that either, but it makes me really uncomfortable. If there had been negative feedback over the course of the past six months then I could understand it, but so far all the comments have been positive. Pluto went from retrograde to direct motion today, so maybe the power plays will at least become visible so that there is clarity about intentions. All I really want to know is whether I have work the next few months or if I should be applying for some of the other positions that are appearing in my email inbox sent from other companies. Some of those look pretty interesting, but Iwant to be certain I complete this work as well. Timing - that Saturn thang you know.
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