What the hell happened ?

Just updating a wild and crazy month of April. I was so pleased to be in Toronto on April 8 for the home opener game of the Toronto Blue Jays. I rode the bus again with the gang from Fionn Maccool's pub in Sudbury to go to the Roger's Centre to see the game and take in all the fun.

Yes, it was nice. My first ballpark hot dog of the year (actually a nice Schneider's sausage) and a beer came to a total of $32.16. I guess that is the going rate for having fun. So I enjoyed a few more beer. Interestingly, they do not accept cash at the Roger's Centre. Everything was paid by debit card, which I had installed on my phone. The game was nice. The best part was getting away and enjoying a night out.

Two days later, back in Sudbury. I got a call from H&R Block. They were doing my income tax forms and asked to submit a receipt for rent payments. I said sure, no problem. I hung up and went online to check my bank statement so I could look up the exact January-to-December rental cheques I wrote last year. As I was logging in to my account, I got blocked with a message saying I had the incorrect login. Hmmm. That was odd. So I tried again and this time the online account said it needed to send a verifying code number to my phone. Fine. So I logged in again and got through okay, only to notice to $6,490 was missing from my account. I notified TD Bank right away and they said a global cash transfer has just been approved by my account number and password to a bank in the United States. No way, I said. Oh yes, they said. So after some arguing and asking them to notice that I had never done any such thing in the past 30 years on this same account, they backed off a bit and promised to investigate. I then went downtown and changed by debit card and account information. Two different people asked a bunch of questions to verify that I was indeed the person named for my account. Alsp, because this was fraud over $5,000 I had to get the police involved. The good news is that eight days later, I got a message from TD Bank saying that the stolen money was being replaced.

My birthday ...

My birthday was on the weekend, while I was away at Angel's wedding in Timmins. I don't worry about birthdays anymore. They're nice but I don't worry about observing them. Just another day of the week.

Getting back to work on Monday I was pleased that my coworkers took time to notice. They signed a card and contributed to a very nice gift of good Scotch. Wow, life does not get much better. I was pleased.

A nice wedding

I am amazed at how much we take for granted all the super nice people in our lives. I was thinking of that Saturday night when I was in Timmins to attend the wedding of my niece and God-daughter Angel and her new husband Al Chamberlain. It was so nice to see all the kids, the cousins, the aunts and uncles and people that you don't get to see as often because we live in another town. Weddings are a great way to bring people together.

Angel sat with me for a while just to chat and reminisce about how things were years ago and how our lives have changed and about all the people who have been part of our lives. It was just the best time. I truly enjoyed it.