Assumptions

Well, I feel a little better today, after talking to my friend Debbie last night. She tells me that Ikea (a store I LOVE) has little chandelier bulbs which are flourescent! I do tend to make assumptions sometimes, and this was one of those times. We all make them, but something I saw in today's paper made me think about it a bit.

Two lovely young girls were killed near Pakenham, struck by a car while walking home after a party, on a foggy night. One of them is a cousin of a cousin, but I didn't know either of them. It is an awful tragedy for the families and their friends.

The thing that upset me was that the newspaper printed a picture of a broken beer bottle by the side of the road where the girls were killed. Now, the report says that alcohol was not a factor, and the driver is not being charged, so what is this picture meant to imply? And why does the newspaper decide to make this implication?

Have you ever broken out in a cold sweat because you just narrowly avoided serious injury or worse, and it was due to some dumb mistake? Who hasn't? We all do it. I don't think walking on a foggy night is the highest risk-taking action I've ever heard of. Let those poor girls rest in peace, and don't try to lay blame.

You want to see incandescent? Just get me angry.

I'm not sure that a ban on all incandescent bulbs is the right or best thing, at least until they can supply a bulb for my favourite lamp. It takes one of those little chandelier bulbs, and I don't think I can get a flourescent version. Maybe I'll have to hoard a stockpile?

I coveted this lamp a long time before I bought it; I first saw it at Best Regards on main street, over a year ago. It was a bit pricey for something that just sat and looked pretty, so I didn't buy it, but every time I went into the store, I looked for it. For a while I didn't see it, and I thought it was sold, but Connie had just stored it for a while. When she marked it down to 50% off, I just couldn't resist any longer.

This isn't the only lamp I can foresee being affected by this ban: the dining room chandelier (operated by a dimmer switch, which you can't use with flouresents), the tri-light floor lamp, and my antique slag-glass lamp which has a shade that pins directly onto the bulb, may be problems.

I really hope I'm wrong; shouldn't there be a useful replacement before you ban the original? Please tell me they've thought this through, and we won't see a pile of lamps going to the landfill.

Bad stuff happening

It's always sad when people die. Even the death of a tyrant leaves one mourning the waste of a life that could have been used to benefit mankind, but that took a twisted path instead.

A lot of people died on a college campus in Virginia, a few days ago, victims of one deranged man with too much firepower. A lot more people die in Baghdad every day, and some would say that they are victims of a similar man. In every situation, we wonder why we can't stop it, but it's what started it that needs to change.

A dear lady I know passed away the other day, too. She was 94, and confined to a nursing home. She wasn't herself, anymore: I believe the perpetrator in this case was Alzheimer's. I remember when she was younger, though she was always an old lady to me, since I first met her when she was in her 60's and I was a relative child of twenty-something years. Always a smart woman, capable of a droll comment on any subject, she also had a zest for life that made her an interesting addition to our church community. Her favourite bible quote was "In all thy ways acknowlege Him, and He shall direct thy paths", Proverbs 3:6. At least, it was the one I heard her quote most often.

Too bad we can't try to live by that proverb. If we did, our paths might not lead to body counts.

This is spring?

Okay, what happened? There's snow everywhere - 2 inches so far - and I am wondering why I have been so anxious to buy patio furniture. What are the chances I'll get to lounge on the deck any time soon? (On the other hand, I DO believe in being prepared, so I'll be looking at sling chairs again in a day or so)

This is the sort of weather you have in December and it makes you feel good; Christmas is coming, you get that HOHOHO thing going. In April, not so much. I've had the itch to go to the cottage for a few weeks now, and I already knew I wouldn't be going for a while, but this really puts the kibosh on it.

The picture tells the story, taken from our living room window. (Personally, I think umbrellas should never be used to repel snow - it just doesn't look Canadian.)

Not good news

There was a shooting in Renfrew this weekend. It sounds as though it will be a controversial situation: according to bystanders, the dead man was standing in the street with a knife, acting aggressively, and was shot by one of the three police officers who were taking shelter behind a cop car.

Renfrew is a town with hurting people, and many of them are far from God; that's why this sort of thing happens. The church has failed to reach some people who most need to hear about how to live. I'm speaking as much about the shooter as the victim, and this is not a self-righteous comment, but a confession from one who still struggles to be a better person every day. Jesus gave us the simple rule, "Love your neighbour as yourself" - but it is difficult to truly follow.

The story I've heard is that the young man's upbringing was difficult, his father, also deceased, abusive. Did that contribute to what happened on Saturday? What is the story on the police's side? Will it turn out to have been a tragic mistake? You hear a lot of stories in a small town, so who knows the truth? Nothing changes the fact that a young man is dead, and he shouldn't be.

Just had to stop by to complain about the weather. We finally saw "An Inconvenient Truth" last night - we haven't gone to the theater in about a year and a half, prefering to wait for shows on the movie network, if you are wondering why we didn't see it sooner- and it was as depressing as everyone says it is.

I'm bullish on recycling and turning off the lights when I'm not using them, but I do tend to leave my computer running. Fortunately, I've now found an excuse to do that as well: www.worldcommunitygrid.org, which will use my computer to compute life-saving research on aids, muscular dystrophy, and some other projects, so it isn't just sitting here doing nothing! Mind you, I should really remember to turn off the monitor.

Anyway, I hope it soon warms up; very jealous of Wendy, heading to Arizona for Brent's ironman and fun in Vegas.

That's service!

Why is it that some companies really don't handle customer service well, even in this day and age when it is considered vital by most businesses?

My subscription at the Citizen expired yesterday, because the credit card I'm using is dated for this month. Now, the card is good until the end of April, and I haven't received my new one yet, but the subscription program online spat out a rejection when I tried to sign in yesterday. So, I emailed customer service. They answered that if I wanted to use a credit card that should expire after April, to try calling the service desk.

I replied that I'll renew my subscription when I get a new card, and that to receive payment sooner, they should try repairing their program.

So if I'm not up on current events for the next while, you'll know it's because I'm stubborn.

At the other end of the customer service rainbow is my HBC credit card, run by GE Money: I got my March statement yesterday, with a big note on it (with a picture of a disembodied arm holding a bouquet of roses) saying they are "truly sorry" for not living up to my "customer service expectations". I suppose the bill is late; I really don't know why they are apologizing. Since the balance on it is zero, I don't think I would have missed it anyway.

On excess

So, here we are in April, and I really want to wear my spring/summer clothes, but the weather is not cooperating. However, I've already starting to clean out my closets, disposing of winter stuff I didn't wear, and pulling out spring stuff for inspection and sorting. All the disposed stuff will, of course, go to charity; a huge bag was deposited in the CP blue box on Saturday, and there will probably be more.

I'm always amazed by the overflow of goods in our society. We have so much stuff, we have to rent storage places for it all. It's kind of disgusting, when you look at the world's poverty. So many people with so little, and we can't find landfills big enough for our garbage.

This is not to say that I don't buy things; I buys lots of stuff. I try to think ahead of time about whether I really need it, and whether it will last, and about where it was made. I seldom buy goods made in China, for instance; you just can't be sure it wasn't produced through forced labour, or in a sweat shop, and the regime in China is, um, evil (hard to frame that in a nice way). Sometimes, though, I buy stuff I shouldn't, and eventually it'll end up in one of three places: the dump, the donation bin, or our church's annual yard sale.

My point here, is this: today, if you are shopping, think about what you are going to buy - where it came from, what went into it, and its future - before you take it home. If you aren't sure that you need it, maybe you should leave it on the shelf.

A couple months ago I visited the Salvation Army store in Arnprior where my friend Debbie works, and had a tour of the place. There is a room in the back, where they put the bags of stuff people donate. It measures about 10 x 10 x 10. When I was there, the bags were 5 ft. deep, wall to wall, and piled to the ceiling. Debbie tells me this is a quiet time; in the spring and summer, the room is full, as is the bin outside where deposits are made, and the driveway often has items left in it too. Lots of people bring stuff that should go to the dump: tires, broken computer equipment, or faulty appliances, for instance. They have to pay someone to haul it away. Most of their work is done by volunteers, but it's hard to get enough help to stay on top of it all. There is just SO MUCH STUFF coming in.

It's a good thing that people donate their stuff, but why do we accumulate so much that we have to do this?