Convergence, 50¢ Coins, and my Aching Wrist.

First the good news, Siobhan has signed up on the Gothic BC forum to provide assistance for the bid. She's in charge of managing the bids this time around so she has to be non-partisan, but she's already provided invaluable information. We should have a good handle on venues by the end of the week and I can then move ahead with the official hotel. Brigitta and Minori are on board for the fashion show. I don't want to go into too many details since the competition is going to be tough, but things are looking like we are going to have one monsterously good bid in place in time for the vote.

Once again I've tried to get my hands on a couple rolls of 50¢ pieces to no avail. This Friday is Purim and I was reading about the whole ½ shekel alms for the poor thing and it occurred to me that if ever there was going to be a time when the banks might have a few 50¢ coins in stock, this would be it. Nope. I went into the main branch of the Royal Bank (which incidentally was a distribution partner for the Royal Jubilee 50¢ memorial coin just three years ago) and got the same blank stare I always get when I ask for a roll of 50¢ pieces. The procedure, without fail, is always the same:

1. I ask for a roll or two of 50¢ coins.
2. The teller looks at me like I just landed from Mars.
3. I explain that while they are not in common use, they are a regular mintage circulation coin.
4. The teller then goes to the cash cage and the person in the cash cage then looks out at me like I just landed from Mars.
5. The teller then returns to tell me that they don't have any.
6. I ask to order some.
7. The teller returns to the cash cage and has a conversation with the person in the cage. More Martian glances are shot my way.
8. The teller then returns to me and says, no, they can't order them.
9. I then explain that, yes, you can. There are a circulation coin, you can get them the same as any other circulation coin, even though they aren't on the rolled coin order form; I know, I used to be a teller and I used to order them for myself.
10. The teller then takes my number and promises to call me after speaking to someone.
11. I go away, knowing I'll not get called and let the whole thing slide for another year or two until it strikes my fancy to try again.

Meanwhile, the new mouse at home is working. My wrist is getting a much needed rest, the problem being that now that things are relaxing I'm getting all the aches that always accompany recovering from too much mousing. The tendonitis in my elbow always flares up and at times can be ridiculously painful - imagine a wire being inserted into your elbow and jammed up your arm to your shoulder blade, cooled beyond freezing so the flesh inside your arm sticks to it and then it's randomly slid back and forth. This is a chronic problem I aquired as a dumb-ass 12-year old so I usually don't bother complaining about it. It's not going to ever go away completely, and no one needs to hear me whine about it all the time.

Meanwhile switching to my left hand at work is beginning to aggrevate the tendonitis in my left arm. This is why the new mouse has me jazzed - switching to my left hand at work and at home usually aggrivates my left arm to a point that exceeds the pain in my right arm well before my right arm is really recovered. Now I get to rest my left arm at home, yet still allow my right to recover. It's a great big experiment in pain management and I am my own guinea pig.

Right now it all hurts in a way that's hard to explain, but I know from experience that it is a step on the road to improvement. If I was the sort to take care of myself when I should rather than after it is a problem, I wouldn't have this problem in the first place. I guess the dumb-ass twelve year old that got me in the painful mess in the first place hasn't completely grown up ;-)