MY FAVORITE RANT

       I have ranted before about call centers and their poor service. It seems like the wait time for your call answer gets longer and longer.

      Today the micro manager was waiting for an hour and 20minutes.

      That did it. Something has to be done. We can't spend that much of our lives waiting for call centers to answer.

      So here's my suggestion. Call centers have to be hit in the pocket book so that it hurts.

     My suggestion is that regulations should be made governing call centers. Give them 5 minutes to answer a call. If it takes them longer than 5 to answer then they pay for every minute past 5. So charge them so much a minute for time past 5 minutes.  A dollar a minute ? It would have cost them $75.00 for being slow this afternoon. As you can see there are several different options for a scheme like this. 

     We  all complain about call centers but do nothing about it. So lets get loud and suggest some solutions. 

TIME AWAY

      I've been away for a few days. I admit that I have not read blogs or commented. 

       I had the mother of all nose bleeds on Thursday  morning. I was off to the bathroom about 1 AM and felt a drip fall from my nose. When I got to the bathroom and got the light on my hand had lots of blood on it. I tried to stop it and saw that the bleeding was continuing very rapidly. I called the Micro Manager for help. We quickly decided we had to call the ambulance.

    The paramedic tried pinching the nostril and using a gauze plug. Nothing helped. 

    They decided it was emergency for me. So out I went out  to the drive way in sock feet and boxers. The paramedic pinched my nose all the way to the hospital and while I was waiting for a bed. Then they put a clamp on my nose which stopped the bleeding but didn't cure things. 

     About 4 AM they inserted an inflatable plug. It wasn't nice but stopped the blood flow. 

    I was released  about 10AM. I didn't have glasses or hearing aids. I didn't have shoes. The micro manager sent up a shirt, pants and jacket. I couldn't get the shirt over my head. So I was on my way home with no shoes or shirt. 

    So it was a long sleepless confusing night.

    I went back Sat AM  and got the packing out and fortunately the bleeding had stopped. It was a treat that a  former student was in the ER and looked after me.

    So it was a miserable time with lack of sleep, worry, loss of blood and a darn hard hospital bed to lie on for 10 hours. 

   Aren't you lucky that I'm not showing icky photos? 

    

MANNERLY KIDS

      I've been pleasantly surprised lately be some very mannerly kids. It takes kids a while to get their mannerly skills polished up. Some of them never make it. For that matter many adults do not have the mannerly skills when dealing with others. 

     A woman introduced one of her sons to me and he said, "Pleased to meet you Red." I was very pleased to hear his reply and wondered where it came from. I will find out.

   Last night an eight or nine year old girl road by me on her bike . She greeted me and then said, "Have a nice evening." It felt special and again I wondered what the parent had done so that this child was so mannerly. 

   Tonight I went to a bench to get something out of my shoe. An Asian kid was there and greeted me. As I went to leave he said, "Have a nice evening sir."

    These replies from young people impress me and I hope it's a sign that parents are teaching good behavior and manners. Kids with these skills have much more confidence in themselves and we have fewer problems in society.

I DID IT!

      As most of you know I quite often eat at the local casino. The food is good and the price is right. I don't gamble. As time goes by we've met others who play the same game. Today , one of my former students, who is a senior had lunch with us. Calvin and I filled out the card for the seniors Wednesday draw of $500.00. We have won the senior draw three times so it pays for some meals.

     Three weeks ago the Micro Manager won the senior draw. We had also been filling in free rickets for a shopping trip. The shopping spree was worth $500.00 but what I didn't know it that there were 40 smaller prizes with the draw. So after they phoned the micro Manager I got a phone call telling me that I won a set of ear buds. 

    So now , what do I do with the ear buds. You can't just stick them in your ears and listen to music. Charging has to be done. The case is charged and the case charges the ear buds. So I found that out by trial and error. I had to pair the ear buds with blue tooth. There are voice prompts which I couldn't really hear. 

    I got the ear buds paired but they kept going off and on. I repaired them. Through that operation I found out that I was putting my fingers over the LEDs and was accidentally turning things off and on. 

    So once I had all these things sorted out, I was ready to listen to music on you tube. 

    It takes many mistakes for me to get it right. 

IT FINALLY HAPPENED

       When I was raising my kids we did not have a pet in the house or out of the house.

      So you guessed it. When the kids went out on their own they got dogs that lived with them in the house. 

     My son's first dog was a beagle and that was a challenge. His second dog was a beautiful calm lab. 

     My daughter's first dog was a spunky mini schnauzer. It kept you entertained all day. Her latest dog is of a mysterious pedigree but it's small.

     Small dogs seem to like chasing squirrels. The Schnauzer never missed chasing a squirrel. Her present dog also never misses an opportunity to chase squirrels. 

    A few days ago my daughter was sitting in the porch to keep cool. The dog was with them. My daughter saw a squirrel so tried to alert the dog to the presence of the squirrel. The dog beat it around the house and back completely missing the presence of the squirrel. . Okay my daughter tried again to show the squirrel and this time the dog caught on and chased the squirrel. Wonder of wonders the dog caught the squirrel. My daughter was surprised and horrified that the little squirrel had been caught. The dog had a very surprised look and let the squirrel go much to my daughter's relief. 

    So dog and owner were surprised that it finally happened that the dog caught a squirrel. 

    I wonder if the dog will keep chasing squirrels? 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD

      Yesterday was Dad's birthday and he would have been 112.

      Dad was born in a clay house 7 years after the family came to Saskatchewan to homestead. They had dirt floors. He liked the little clay house that was warm in winter and cool in summer. These were the same clay houses which were built in Russia and the Ukraine. 

     Of course, what better name to give a little baby born in August but August. So Dad was Emil August. The e in German was pronounced as long a. His mother in law who was English tormented him that it should pronounced with a long e. 

     Birth registrations in Saskatchewan from 1910 to 1912 were some how lost. When Dad applied for a passport in the 1960's the reply was, Mr Kline, we have never heard of you. That meant that he had to go through a procedure to prove has age. Dad was a little miffed as he had been paying income tax for close to 30 years. 

    He had never received a call to join the forces in the Second world war. So this explained why the army didn't find him.

SNOW

       I must admit that I like the comments I get when I talk about snow. This will be my first snow post for this  fall.

       I was shocked the other day when I heard a forecast for snow in the mountains.

      I live about 100 km from the Rocky Mountains. Most of the elevation in this huge range is from 8000 feet to 10000 feet. A few peaks are higher like beautiful Mount Robson. 

     Their are many glaciers that have been there for thousands of years. All summer at the higher elevations you will get fresh snow.

     So the forecast of snow was not out of the ordinary. Where I live we had a high of 24.

     But the snow does remind me that fall is on the way and then winter. 

     This is a peak in Montana which I think was 11000 feet. I climbed this one on a hot afternoon. Getting on the peak was a little tricky. I hope John will recognize this peak and give me he name.