Category: Miscellaneous babble

Somewhere there’s an air intake for the building my office is in. I think when the weather cools off, whoever runs the ventilation must open some vents somewhere to bring fresh air inside. Judging from the smell in my office, those vents must be somewhere that smokers congregate. Either that or someone in this building is smoking where they shouldn’t be. The last few days there’s been that old, trashy second-hand smoky smell all over the place. Ick.
I think I’m going to have to get one of those air freshener things or cover up this vent in my office.

It’s mid-October, which means the weather is cooling down. Back home, this is about the time it starts snowing, and that means that all those people who’ve forgotten how to drive in snow are getting into accidents all over the place.
It’s really stupid you know. Hello, it’s October. It’s going to snow soon! Time to get ready! Every year it snows. Every year, the first snow of the season brings accidents all over the place because people aren’t paying attention. You’d think they’d see the snow and think “Ok, time to take it easy now”. Same thing happened in Detroit too. Go figure. It’s that time of year again though.
Here, the cool season means oysters. Oysters by the bucket and bushel. Oysters and oyster roasts. It’s a big thing here, and just about every organization out there will have some kind of fund-raising oyster roast.
I have to admit I’ve only been to one oyster roast in the 5 years I’ve been here. That was about 4 years ago and was put on by the department the wife was working in at the time. Oysters were plentiful and tasty, and there were hot dogs for the kids and non-oyster eating people. It was on the cool side, nothing extreme for me. The oysters were hot and tasty and there was lots of socializing and fat-chewing going on.
Figuring out the magic trick to opening an oyster without getting shell fragments all over the place was a challenge, but with the help of a few friendly oyster eaters I managed to pick it up pretty quick. Just find that tinly little opening, wiggle the oyster-opening knife in and twist. Inside you’ll find a little mound of oystery goodness waiting to be slurped down. Straight up or on a cracker with a dash of hot sauce. Chew or let it slide straight down. Eating methods are about as varied as the people eating them.
Maybe it’s time to go to another one.

Across the street the hospital is building a new parkade (parking garage). It’s pretty cool watching it go up because it’s all pre-fab slabs and columns. I’m sure whoever came up with this concept spent a lot of time playing with Legos or something.
There’s no forms to build and no concrete to pour. A couple of times a day this big flatbed truck loaded up with large concrete slabs or pillars will back in to the site. A crane will hoist the pieces up and place them into position and then they get attached together in some fashion. And presto, there you have it, one instant wall, or instant floor/ceiling beam. Very nifty.
I think the outer brick layer must be fashioned in a similar way because one day there was just plain old concrete slab, and then the next day there was brick all over the outside.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday the Red Cross blood donor clinic at work had their 2nd annual Blood Donor Appreciation party.
It was a fun time with music, snacks, cookies and door prizes, but mostly thanks for people who gave up a little bit of their time to donate blood to help others in need. At last year’s party, there were 6 people who managed to rack up 7 donations for the year (still haven’t figured that one out). This year there were a whopping 11, including little old me! That’s up to 231 people those blood donations could have helped. Add that to the couple of hundred other people who donated up to 6 times in the past year and that’s a lot of people helped.
One of the nice things about this year’s event were the speeches from blood recipients sharing their stories about how blood donations helped them survive. It’s really nice to put a face to the people I’m helping with each of my donations and adds just that much more satisfaction to giving blood.