President Hinckley dead at 97

President Gordon B. Hinckley died at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday evening (2008-01-27) from causes incident to age. (External news story in Deseret News.)

I expect that Thomas S. Monson will be the next president, then, though the successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Hinckley’s funeral within the next few days. (Church news release)

Random memory

At the beginning of January, I went shopping for discount Christmas chocolate and biscuits. Loaded a bunch into my shopping trolley and went to pay for them.

"Card declined". Oops? The checkout lady tries my card again - still declined. She looks at it and noticed that it expired at the end of 2007.

Oops. I don't remember getting any new card, and I never paid attention to the expiration date because my EC (Maestro) card is valid for so long (three years, I think).

Anyway, I asked her whether she could keep my stuff for me and I'd try to get some cash and come back. She said she guessed so and told me where I could push my trolley and she'd keep half an eye on it for me. (She also seemed a bit unconvinced how I planned on getting cash with my expired card.)

Anyway, I went home, borrowed Stella's card and PIN, drove back to the shop, and bought my things.

After a bit of looking, I did find the new EC card my bank had sent me: while Stella had immediately replaced hers in her wallet, I had stuck the letter on my desk in a "todo" spot. Ah well. I exchanged the expired cards in my wallet for the new ones (one for our joint account, one for my pocket money account), and a couple of day later also transferred the balance from my old Geldkarte to the new EC card (used to be two separate cards, now the Geldkarte chip is on my EC card).