197th Week Update - Miles Neighborhood Food Collection Project

Hi Folks,

Senior Companions Celebrate Another

One Can A Week Anniversary

For the second year in a row, Fran Coleman, director of the Senior Companions program for Our Family Services invited me to present One Can A Week certificates of appreciation to their volunteers at the annual recognition luncheon. Even Congressman Raul Grijalva and Mayor Rothschild stopped by to congratulate the volunteers so the Senior Companions program is kind of a big deal here in Tucson.

Last year Senior Companions gave more than 48,000 hours of in-home assistance to frail and disable older folks. The in-home part is very important because people always do better when they are in familiar surrounds.

Before the ceremonies began, Fran told me that she asked the volunteers if they wanted to continue their involvement with One Can A Week and all agreed to participate for another year. This meant that the only person in the room not involved with One Can A Week was Congressman Raul Grijalva. Guess I’ll give him a call right after the election.

 Personal Note

Wasn’t Fooled by the Pepsi Challenge Either

If you watch MSNBC on the internet for more than 15 minutes you will be treated to a commercial touting the search results of Bing over Google.

Now I love Microsoft’s applications especially Word, Internet Explorer, Excel and so much more. I also love Google. I have ever since I discovered them soon after they hit the internet. Right from the beginning their results were more intelligent and thorough. Instead of two or three results before they threw in other related websites based on your keywords, Google goes deep with ten or more specific results.

Seldom do I choose the first search result so as you can imagine, I never click the “Feeling lucky” button.

After listening to a dozen or more of the Bing ads, I decided to take the challenge.

I figured I’d choose once and it would be all over. But no, they kept me around for five tries. I typed in those searches most important to me … my neighborhood, feeding the hungry and a very important client. (See graphic above.)

Like the Pepsi Challenge moving the cups around, Bing kept on changing the position of the search results. It’s either left or right. I just chose the deepest results, meaning the column with the most websites related to my keywords. After five tries they showed me my results … and their disclaimer. They said I “may have won this round” but others picked Bing. What do they mean, may have won? Are they politicians? I won and they printed the winning tally.

I still love Microsoft and I still love Google. Bing? Nah!

“It’s my party so bring a can if you want to” Not quite the lyrical rhythm of Leslie Gore’s famous 60’s song title, but today’s kids are more into helping folks than crying the blues.

As I drove down Miles on my route Sunday, Dan, Debbie and their daughter Anne pulled up beside me. Anne was in the backseat and eager to do all of the talking. “I asked everyone to bring a can to my party and we left a big box of food on our porch.” Then she smiled as her dad pressed on the accelerator.

There was a lot of food and I knew right away that we were going to be way over our 167 lb. average this week.

We collected a total of 196 lbs. of food. The money we donated amounted to $57.00, a $50.00 check and $7.00 in cash.

See you Sunday,

Peter