Tuesday, October 16th

I drove down to the homeless shelter to provide computer assistance as I generally do on Tuesday morning. It was a quiet morning though busy. The guys knew what they were doing and the only question I was asked (other than general chatting) was how to spell 'failure'. One of the guys was filling out a form and needed that word. Whether he was identifying himself as a failure, the system, the government, a product - I don't know and I didn't pursue it. He seemed pretty positive about himself so I'm guessing he didn't feel like a failure, just went on to finish his form. Though he needed a bit of help on how to sign off, he was soon done with the computer for the day and off to the rest of his activities, whatever they may have been.

As often happens when I go down to volunteer, I learned something myself. This time it was a website, http://www.refdesk.com/. I think I've seen it before but never really explored it. However, it has a lot of amazing stuff. One of the best things right off is that there are very few ads, no dancing monkeys, just a few little cars at the top. And - it has all the info in one place! What do you want to know? Time zones? Newspapers across the country and around the world? Encyclopedias? Statistics? Airport wait times? etc. etc. etc. If you are not familiar with this site, check it out!

Parking near the shelter is difficult to find. Sometimes, it would take me longer to find parking than it would to drive down to the shelter itself. So I gave up looking and now I just park at a nearby city parking lot. It's 85 cents per hour so every week costs me $2.85 but it is worth it, saving me the time and effort of a parking search. The parking lot attendant is the same person each week but since the lot holds many cars, I didn't know if she knew me or not. Apparently, she does. Today as I was leaving she said "The best customer I have is you - always perfect!" Always nice to get a compliment, even though I think she just meant that I give her the exact change.

This afternoon B. and I decided to walk to the library. We had a couple of books to return and I have one waiting for me. Looking out the front door, the day appeared sunny but there were some dark clouds behind us. We'd only gone a couple of blocks when it began to rain. Another couple of blocks and the hail came pelting down. Our jackets kept us warm and dry but our jeans began to get wet, then - somehow - water got into our shoes and worked its way down our socks. As it continued to pour, we decided to head for home rather than the library. We didn't want to revive our now dormant colds. The rain slowed as we approached our house and we were tempted to head back towards the library but we were so sopping wet that we didn't follow up on that. Inside the house again, we found the rain had practically stopped. And shortly thereafter, the sun was out again. Crazy weather!