Unlike my dealing with BlockBuster last week I had an awesome customer service experience today.

I stopped at Bosley's to get some food for Yoshi. I found the kind of food that I wanted, but they only had the 15 pound bag. I grabbed one and took it to the front counter and asked if they had any larger bags in the back.

The clerk poked around a bit then when she came out she grabbed another 15 pound bag. She apologized for not having any 30 pound bags in stock, then offered two 15 pounders for the price of a 30 pound. Sold!

This actually allowed me to refresh the food bag we have in our earthquake kit, so that was an added bonus.

How times, and technology changes. Years ago (approximately 2004) I bought a 1 GB SD card from a co-worker. Used I got it for $100.

After I bought my most recent cell phone I bought a micro SD card for it. The 8 GB card was only $30.

I learned something interesting about Starbucks recently. Actually, Sox learned this, and I have confirmed it. After I switched to decaf and I head out for a coffee I usually get an Americano.

What Sox learned was that after noon Starbucks no longer brews decaf coffee. If you order a decaf, they offer an Americano for the same price as the regular drip coffee. I've tested this a couple times, and as someone who likes Americano's this is awesome.

Just got back from my latest blood donation. Lots of people there midday which even required me to wait a little longer for the appropriate bed. I have always donated from the left arm and it has always gone fine. I am not normally a superstitious guy, but I always insist using the left to donate. It all started because I am right handed too.

Anyway, the donation was fine, and the cookies and juice tasty. Unfortunately they have moved to individual sized juice boxes. What a terrible waste to see all of the leftover rubbish. Sure they can be recycled, but that is a lot of extra processing to do.

By the way, that was donation 45.

Tonight was the emergency preparedness seminar. Great thing to go to. I have lots more ideas for the house, the vehicles, and work to prepare for an emergency of any sort.

The seminar was about 2 hours long and focused on a few different aspects of what hazards or disaster might happen in Victoria, and how we as individuals should prepare for those scenarios.

So far we are a little prepared, but have a way to go before I would consider us totally prepared. One nice thing is that the house we live in now, we don't need to worry about a tsunami.

One thing I really took away is that doing something small each week is a great way to get moving on the kit. Being prepared really is a mindset.

The only downside to the seminar was one guy in the crowd. Right at the end he started posing a lot of questions about how the city and province are not instituting the correct policies for building codes. He definitely had an agenda and sounded like a bit of a fanatic. The hosts of the evening were able to shut him down quickly and effectively by reminding him that the purpose of tonight's seminar was personal preparation, not provincial preparation.