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Saturday 30th November 2002

Today it's slightly warmer (about 2) and the snow is melting and freezing here and there. Just enough to give walkers a false sense of security.

It was last Thursday 21st that I caught a lung infection from someone working at Conestoga College. The Government gives free innoculations against influenza, then colleges and work places seem to have different policies about spreading infections. Anyway, the upshot of this has been that yesterday I had a long drive to Acton, a doctor visit (more expense to Hospital Insurance), an antibiotic prescription for $77 (which is not covered by insurance). Also, I in turn, went back to the College on Thursday 28th and have probably spread the infection to others. Last night I had no sleep at all just coughing up pus all night. There should be some coherent policy about spreading infectious diseases. They cost health insurance and industry billions every year. Yesterday I saw the following in the Globe & Mail:

Sick days at work
"Think you're a hero for slogging into work with a cold or the flu (or other infection)?" asks U.S. News & World Report. "Well, you're not. In fact you'd do us all a favour by just staying home. A new study shows that people with cold or flu bugs leave a long trail of germs that linger for up to three days ... The good news: Seems you can kill 99.9 per cent of the viruses by wiping down 'high touch' areas (phones, door-knobs, desks, keyboards, etc.) with disinfectant."

Well, that may be so, but how many people go around cleaning up after themselves continually? Also, what about all the virii which are aerosoled by coughing and sneezing? What about all the paper handkerchieves which are left to dry in wastebaskets, so that spores can rise into the air systems? What about the pens, pencils, credit cards and papers?

Tuesday 26th November 2002

This month the weather has been all over the place .. "Indian Summer" from about the 15th to the 18th. Then we had "English Spring" from the 20th to the 23rd, with bits of "Canadian Fall" and "Winter" complete with some snow, in between. Today I have a throat and lung infection. Everywhere is so stuffy and enclosed, people trying to conserve on energy. It's a wonder anyone can breathe at all.

I have been really busy with an interesting course on html, with a small amount of JavaScript and Java thrown in at the end for flavour. Although I have been writing the most rudimentary html for years, I had never bothered with anything else much until now. I don't care for pages all divided up into Frames .. If I want to make a page shorter, I have to just make another page. Anyway, here's a bit of a JavaScript clock and date. Let me know if it tells the time where you are!

This afternoon my movie was "The Santa Claus 2", with Tim Allen. I always enjoy his shows and movies and this was no exception. The cinema was crowded, which was surprising for a Sunday. I often think that these movies for children are not quite suitable. The younger ones roamed the aisles totally mystified. The sound, as usual, was ear-blasting. Well, anyway, I was pleasantly entertained. Pleased to see that even Santa's elves use David Clark headsets when flying!

November ushered in much colder weather and our first fall of snow. Happily by Sunday it had melted. From the tremendous amount of seed and fruit on the trees, I suppose we're going to have a really hard winter this year. The weather experts say not .. let's hope they're right.

Link to the Movies Pages at "movies.yahoo.com"

Visit a site for many photographs of North American Birds and animals.

Rhona Raskin Home Page at http://www.rhona.com.