Thursday was an enlightening day for me. At the moment I am working from my home as my company awaits the completion of construction of our new office/warehouse. This has given me some flexibility in my days and I took advantage of it Thursday to do something that was long overdue. I went down to Canadian Blood Services and donated blood. It has been more than a year since I have been down there (I was blacklisted for a year due to my recent travels in rural China and have been procrastinating for the last couple of months) and it was definitely time to start donating again.
This is something I have seen on quite a few people’s bucket lists and I have to say that I definitely encourage everyone to donate whenever they can. My experiences are that there is relatively no pain involved (I find the worst part is when they remove the tape from my hairy arm) and really where else do you go and get free cookies in today’s world? Why (other than the free cookies) should you donate? For one, this is the opportunity to save a life. This is not a direct saving of a life, but every time you donate, your blood is used to help someone survive a crisis in his or her life. In Canada someone needs blood every minute of every day, and you have to remember that Canada is a small country population wise. Canadian Blood Services has some interesting stats on blood needs, check it out here: http://www.blood.ca/centreapps/internet/uw_v502_mainengine.nsf/page/E_Who%20Needs%20Blood In short, I encourage you to put this on your personal list and get it done!
The main reason I bring up is that it has reminded me of something that I wanted to do years ago. When I was in my late teens I had a friend that had cancer and needed a marrow transplant. I wanted to get put onto the Stem Cell and Marrow Registry so hopefully I could help someone out there in the same position as my friend. This was at a time before you could find any information you want off of the internet, not that it mattered because it took half a day to download one page (or that’s how it felt anyways). The short story is that to be put on the registry, you had to go to an information session and watch a film so you knew what you were getting yourself into. They only offered it a couple times a month and since I was working out of town quite a bit at the time, I was never able to make the sessions. Shortly after, my friend passed away and it seemed like I would remember to go to the sessions, eventually it went to the back of my mind as a someday thing that I wanted to do but never did. I have now added it to my list although I am right on the limit of the weight to height ratio allowed, it is one more reason for me to get my ass of the couch and back to exercising. I hope to have this ticked off before my next birthday (in January).
Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to meet up with an old friend, Terrance Houle who has been making a name for himself as an nationally and internationally renowned artist. Check out his art at http://www.terrancehouleart.com or if you are in New York at the National Museum of the American Indian. Terrance and I are fast food vets from back in my younger years when I lived in Calgary. When we sat down for a couple of beers, it was just like old times, we laughed our asses off and just had a good time. A few of things I took away from the evening are that a person who has passion and loves what they do can accomplish great things in their field if they are willing to share their work and their passion, when you have the chance, you should share your passion with others (Terrance was in Regina working on a one week residency), and talking to people who love what they do encourages you to do the same.
All around it was a great day and I hope we all can find the thing that we can be passionate about and will make us happy plus encourage or help others.
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