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Doing good things

Today I made my 46th blood donation. Maybe 48th, could be 50th. The number is a little fuzzy because I’ve forgotten how many donations I made while I was back home in Canada. I’m pretty sure it was 34. I remember being pretty close to getting the pin for 35 donations.
I’ve been a regular blood donor since about 1989 or so, with the exception of the three years I lived in Detroit. That was just because there wasn’t a conveniently located donor center that I could find.

I go every 8 weeks (6x a year) and donate a pint of my AB+ blood. The people at the donor clinic love me because I’m AB+ and I have large veins. It gives me a good feeling to know that I’m helping someone out. And I get pop and cookies in return. Doesn’t get much better than that if you ask me.

Have you donated blood recently? At all? If not, why not? you really should. What have you got to lose except a pint of blood that can be used by someone else?

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On the move

Well, we’ve finally decided to take the plunge and make the move to Raleigh, NC. It meant turning down a very tempting offer to stay, but I think in the long run everything will work out. Moving is always a pain in the butt, but I’m looking forward to being up there once we get settled in.

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Happy Canada Day!

Happy Birthday to Canada! Living in the US for the past 7 years, I’ve missed the Canada Day celebrations. Canadians aren’t really known for being overly expressive in their patriotism and we’re not big flag wavers like Americans are. But on July 1st of each year, everybody who admits to being Canadian does so proudly and loudly. And usually with much beer and partying.

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Family trees

Had the in-laws over this weekend, so my wife and I interrogated them to extract their knowledge of family history to flesh out the family tree some more. They managed to provide enough useful information to construct a tree 5 generations deep on her father’s side and 4 on her mother’s side. Still lots of details lacking, like birth and death dates, locations, etc. But we have names, which is a start. Our tree now has over 300 people in it (small compared to some others I’ve seen online).

Looking forward to expanding it even more at the family reunion.

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Long nights

My wife is spending the summer working in a medical research lab, part of a summer research program at MUSC for undergraduate students. She’s got mice to take care of as part of her research project, which means working late during the day, then making another trip in sometime in the evening to do more things with the mice.


So for the last two weeks, and for a few more weeks to come, our daily routine has been:

  • Go to work around 8, 8:30
  • Leave work around 6 (5:30 if she finished early)
  • Go back in around 9
  • Back home around 10:30 or 11
  • Repeat.

Long days for her, and for me as well, since I usually go in with her because it’s late at night. It’s been making for some pretty long work days. Can’t wait for it to be finished with soon.