It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood

I'm generally a pretty cynical guy.

But not today.

For today, I have discovered a simple truth: people are awesome.

It started this afternoon. I went to the mall to get my printer's ink cartridge refilled (it's been dead for a few weeks). While waiting for the process to be completed, I went into Coles, figuring it was a good way to waste time. After a while, I found myself in front of the clearance shelf, where I quickly spied two books that looked interesting - one of which I've known about for quite a while, one of which I'd never heard of before - each for $2, far less than I'd expect to pay for anything at Coles. I bought both.

Content with my purchases, I returned to Island Inkjet, and was informed that my ink wouldn't be ready for another five minutes or so. So I stumbled into Sunrise Records - I'm not normally a purveyor of music stores, but it seemed like as good a place as any to kill five minutes.

While aimlessly browsing the Sunrise shelves, not looking for anything in particular, I noticed AC Newman's new CD (that's it above). For $9.99! So I took it up to the checkout, and the girl behind the counter said something indicating strong approval of my choice. For a possibly-mandated offhand remark, that brightened my day.

I went home, did some stuff. Then, at about 8:00, I placed a call.

For one of my journalism classes this term, each student had to pick a particular beat to cover (I got the media), and, among other things, conduct a half-hour live interview with somebody in that field.

I approached the Canadian Association of Journalists, seeing if there was anybody there who would be willing to help me out. Much to my surprise (although I might be overestimating the bureaucracy of the CAJ), I was directed to Mary Agnes Welch, the CAJ President, who is also the Manitoba legislative reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.

The interview was originally supposed to take place Friday, but it was pushed back to today because it was apparently a hectic day at the Free Press.

So that was the call I placed. Nobody answered, so I left a message, shrugged, made a sandwich, and while eating the sandwich, maniacally tried to come up with a Plan B (the interview has to be done and transcribed by Tuesday night).

A few minutes later, the phone rang - it was Mary, I'd caught her in the middle of dinner, and now that she was done, she was ready to do the interview. For the next half-hour, we talked (well, she talked) about the future of journalism in Canada, the decline in the quality of journalism, the problems of political reporting, and other things of that nature.

This person, a full-time reporter (a busy enough job on its own), who is also the head of the Canadian Association of Journalists, was willing to give thirty minutes of her Sunday night to talk to a complete stranger for an interview that will in all probability never be published (and she was well aware of this). As I said, people are awesome.

I shouldn't blog when I'm in a good mood. It clashes with the tone of everything else here.

--Ryan