Taking and Doing Nothing

It isn’t often that the weather will wake me up, but it did this morning. The wind was howling and sounded much like the neighbours truck, the one without the muffler. Well, not exactly, but pretty close.

When I finally managed to get out of bed, I saw the snow blowing horizontally and in the distance the trees were showing me which way it was blowing. Although there were clouds in the sky, they didn’t look like snow clouds which caused me to believe that the snow was being picked up from fields north of the city and being moved to fields south of the city. Just so long as it keeps travelling.

Now, the clouds are just rimming my world and a pale, winter blue dome is overhead. The wind is still blowing pretty strong and I suspect there is a little snow left, but there is every indication it might become a windy but nice day. Well, nice for the second day of March.

I have a couple of projects that will keep me busy today, unfortunately I think I am going to need to be outside to do them. My buddy needs a couple of boards cut to size and Louise has a project in mind that is best done in the cool confines of the garage. I won’t linger over either job, but if I am dressed properly things should go pretty well. By “pretty well” I mean that when I come in there is a good chance I will still be able to feel my fingers.

I have to be quiet this morning because it is Louise’s EDO (earned day off) and she is still sleeping. Normally I don’t care that much because if she is silly enough to stay up late then the consequences belong to her. Today is a different kettle of fish however because she was up late doing good works. Well, she was at a casino till about 3:30 AM, working for a charity, not having a lot of fun. Alberta is one of the few places that some of the casino jobs are manned by charitable organizations as a way to fund themselves. They need to supply about twenty people to work as cashiers, runners and counters and need to staff the casino for two days. For their efforts, they can make upwards of eighty thousand dollars.

Needless to say, there is a big demand by charities and it is only every year and a half to two years that you can get one. If for some reason the charity falls short of manpower and does not supply the agreed upon number of workers, that charity is punished by losing the ability to work and I suspect there is also a fine.

When I was first involved in the casino fund raising, you had to take out insurance that would cover your (the casinos) costs if for some reason no one came to the casino. It didn’t happen often, but if there were a bad snow storm the charity could end up owing a few thousand dollars. That was before, now all of the charities from a three or six month period will pool the earned money and share it equally. It is a much fairer system; the people working during the week make the same as those charities that work the weekends.

Of course the government takes their share for doing nothing which is what the government is best at. Taking and doing nothing.

Well, I guess I had best get this day moving…