On donating

Sorry to all my readers for the lateness of this posting. Last night I was at work from well yesterday morning at around 7:45 until this morning at oh... 1:30~2:00am. When I got up later the same day it was thanks in no small part to urgent emails sent to everyone in the company. (I have a Crackberry and every urgent email will wake me up.)

Excuse me for a minute but I have to rant, what is wrong with people who just need to send urgent emails proclaiming the success of this year's Sugar Plum Treats Day? No really that was the email that woke me up, it was to announce that Sugar Plum Treats would remain on sale in meeting room B until 2pm. Excuse me for being blunt about this, but I really could not care less and please explain the urgency of that message while we are on the subject. See to me an urgent email is, "Michael the telephone system is down, outgoing calling does not work." Or "Michael the website is down, get into the office and get the servers working, our clients are going crazy." See these are not only time sensitive, they are important. Sugar Plum Treats are not exactly time sensitive, and heaven help the sorry individual who thinks that home baked goodies are somehow important.

Anyway early this afternoon I donated blood, it was my 57'th donation. A number of people in the Skate Club have asked me in the past why I do so I will try to answer here for the final time. I know donating really does bad things to my performance on the track or trail, but I am not a professional racer and what I loose on my time I gain on my conscious. According to Canadian Blood Services one donation can save three lives. So by my rough numbers I've saved potentially something in the neighbourhood of 170 lives. I will not set any speed records in the next month. If I get to do any trail skating, although I doubt it in this weather, I won't be setting any PBs. But I will be giving several other people a chance to set a new PB and that has to count for something.