Good things happen to good people

This morning one of our service guys was in the office waiting to be directed as to where to go.  We got to talking and he told me about how he was told that he could go out and get any service contracts at hotels etc. that he wanted and that while he was in his interview he was told that the company wanted to be up to 20 service vans by next year.

Seems that the story has changed.  He's expected to go out and find the work and also to do it as well.  WTF???  How the hell can you be on the road finding work and DOING it at the same time as well as being dispatched out of the office to jobs here and there? (most of which have already been completed, somebody really needs to get organized)  I guess the boss (A L) told him this morning that if he couldn't find enough work to keep himself busy he wasn't needed here.  NICE.  Seems he's been working half days for a while and he has a family to feed so that just doesn't cut it in my eyes.

Well, I've been playing this game here in town for 10 years and I know which contractors to go to for what and I gave him a couple of names.  One of them my friend Andy.  He talked to the first guy and I shot an email over to Andy about him.  The first guy said to send in a resume, Andy said to come in for an interview.  Guess what?  HE GOT THE JOB!  Yippee.  Paolo is a great guy, knows his stuff and is a go-getter of the first degree.  He's been hired as a service manager and salesman at the company that Andy works for and is sooooo grateful for the lead that he's taking me to lunch Sunday.
But I didn't do anything other than send him over; he sold himself.

Seems like a rant day

Seems to be a whole lot of ranting going on all over the blogoshere today, so I might as well chime in too and get this off my chest before I 'splode.
It started to rain here last night 'round 8, and southern Alberta being southern Alberta, turned in to snow.  Yup, 8" of that heavy, wet, heart atack inducing white crap.  While Andy is putting up pics of flowers and making the rest of jealous, and Buck is showing off his nekkid feet, THIS is what I woke up to this morning.

The deck was clear of snow yesterday, Gentle Reader.

Someone make it stop!
Beer me!

Exes at the wedding?

So.  Prince William, eldest son of the late Diana, Princess of Wales is getting married to Kate (of who knows where or what).  Of the roughly 250 invited guests, there are reported to be 6 (count 'em, 6) ex boy/girlfriends on the list.  How very bizarre is that? 
This situation opened up a conversation this morning on the radio about if you would invite an ex to your wedding, which ended up being with most people replying 'NO'.
One lady called in and said that at her girlfriend's wedding, her future MIL had brought the groom's ex as a guest!  How much of a slap in the face is that?

And in other news we're expecting another 2" of snow over night.  Can someone please make it stop?  Any volunteers to do the world-famous naked sun-and-heat dance in the front yard to ward off the evil snow gods?  Anybody?   Anybody?

I've landed enough work so far this year to keep the guys in the field busy for the rest of the year.  I wonder if the lads will let me run at least one of these projects, at least that would keep me busier than I have been lately.  Funny how you get promised a whole lot of things during an interview that never come to pass.  They just finally (after 6 months) decided to order me some business cards.  YeeHaw, we be movin' to the big time!  Beware the coffee shop interview!

I still haven't got the hideous wall paper stripped in either my room or the second spare bedroom, bin too busy with the curling.  I guess as soon as the last bosnspiel (curling speak for tournament) is over this weekend I'll have to get after it, I'm tired of living in a half-done house.  But then the landlord is going to replace the fence this summer and then the flooring next year.  Wouldn't the flooring have been a whole lot easier before I moved in, lock, stock, dogs, and a lot of over-sized furniture?  He did the deck before I moved in.  Had an energy assement done, had the basement and attic re-insulated and got his 'guy' to replace the windows (which is still only half done and I can't replace the drapes that Jazz shredded and put the blinds up 'cause they'll just take them down to replace the windows and I hate doing any task twice!  I haven't even re-hung my artwork, the walls need an extra coat and they'll just take it down.  Again.  Sigh...)

I was flattered! TWICE

A couple of years ago, Dad called for my regular Christmas call and I mentioned how there weren't very many days that I didn't miss being on the tools as opposed to in the office.  He very kindly reminded me of exactly how many years, months, weeks and days it was until the big 5-0.  Gee, thanks, Dad, that's all I've thought of since!
Last week, a salesman that I've known for about 10 years or so was in my office and we got to talking about how long we'd known each other.  I first met Robert when I was working at one of the electrical distributors here in town.  He was in the warehouse picking orders and I was on the order desk and on the counter first thing in the morning.  He got promoted from the warehouse to the counter and I had the privelege of training him.  We kinda lost touch when I moved on and then it turned out that he's now the salesman for the company that I work for now.  He was sitting there, telling me how he must be getting old because his daughter can move him to tears by saying 'I love you' or 'You're the best Dad in the whole wide world' (she's 10) and we got to trading stories.  He looked over at me and said "You know, for somebody that's got to be 43... you look more like 35".  I asked him to seriously tell me what he was originally going to say and he told me again 43. 
This morning another salesman from a different wholesaler was in and we got to talking about how if we had known we were going to live this long, we'd have taken better care of our bodies.  I told him about my Dad, who lives in Mexico now, has trained prob'ly every horse in the vicinity and when  he ran out of horses, he started in on the dogs (and we all know there's no shortage of dogs in Mexico).  He has a regular trap-line of clients' dogs that he works with, walking each at least an hour and training on them and getting to each client's place by bicycle so I wasn't too worried about him having to replace a knee or a hip. 
To which Mike said "Your Dad can't be that old, you're only 42 tops."
When I told Robert that I had recently had my 48th, he said nah, 43 and you don't have to worry about the big 5-0 for another 7 years.  Mike had a hard time believing it and told me he would never have guessed.

Life is good!

From the Sports pages of the Calgary Herald

Love him or hate him, Don Cherry's got class.  (I love him and think he's hilarious)
Quit complaining about Don Cherry

The Stanley Cup playoffs are just around the corner — and you know what that means.



It’s time for that annual rite of spring: The self-righteous indignation and collective hand-wringing over Don Cherry and his mangling of the Queen’s English, among his other crimes against humanity and the easily offended.



It’s a funny thing — to borrow one of Grapes’ favoured and oft-used expressions. All this Cherry picking is not only misguided, it’s tiresome, lame, predictable and — sacre bleu! — so very Toronto.



If one were to go solely by what the sweethearts say about Hockey Night in Canada’s most — only? — colourful character, one could be forgiven for thinking Grapes is a drooling, knuckle-dragging troll who somehow clawed his way out of a cave somewhere on the Canadian Shield, leaving a trail of slobber and spittle as he dragged his way into that most holy of CBC shrines, the hockey broadcast centre. Installed in his corner, he sounds off with loud and reliable furor on the issues of the day, opposite that most earnest and righteous of hockey deans, Ron MacLean, even as CBC engineers tremble nervously over the kill switch.



Cherry’s crimes against humanity — including, but not limited to, his assertion late last year that newly elected Toronto Mayor Rob Ford would be the “greatest mayor this city has ever seen,” — take in a wide range of offences, his critics say, from his vocal support of “enforcement” on the ice, to his unwavering belief that Canadian hockey jobs should go to Canadians first, and non-Canadians second. That doesn’t make one un-Canadian, his argument goes.



“Protectionism” is not a word in Cherry’s vocabulary — “thinkin’ straight” is more like it — but neither is “philosophy.” He simply says what he feels, and tells it like it is, to his eyes. A pandering sap, he is not.



Grapes likes to keep it real, even when he knows it will get him into trouble. And it gets him into trouble a lot. The truth can hurt — unless, of course, one can’t or won’t hear the truth between the one-liners.



Grapes’ argument for keeping fighting in the game is, like most of his arguments, simple and basic: High-stick artists will take liberties with the game’s star players, unless there’s somebody on the ice with the burliness and brawn to show them the error of their ways. Wayne Gretzky was great, Grapes’ argument goes, but even Gretzky might not have become the Great One without Dave Semenko out there to keep “the other guys in line.”



Common sense is easily lost in the translation, whenever Cherry starts sounding off on such no-brainers as the need for no-touch icing; the real reason behind the game’s recent spate of concussions (players’ growing lack of respect for other players); the wonky safety glass in some hockey arenas (‘I tell you, one day, somebody’s gonna get killed”); stanchions that jut out onto the playing surface in some arenas (“I’m startin’ to sound like a broken record here, but somebody’s gonna get killed one of these days”); over-priced hockey equipment for middle-class families struggling to get by (“Now, you kids out there, you don’t really need that $3,000 pair of skates, just because your friend has them; give your mom and dad a break, OK?”); how only weenies, pinkos and the International Skating Federation call it “ice hockey”: and, perhaps, his most criminal offence of all, taking the time at the end of each Coach’s Corner to remember — and mention by name — those who’ve fallen in the service of their country in unknown, faraway fields.



Cherry’s penchant for loud suits and even louder ties makes him easy to ridicule, though even here he has a simple explanation: When he was younger, he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen, he attended a function for a friend and was badly underdressed for the occasion. He still remembers the hurt and embarrassment in his friend’s eye, and he vowed to overdress rather than underdress in future. It’s a rule he’s stuck to, ever since.


He may not always be right but he always, without fail, says what he believes, and says it with heart and conviction. It’s a rare trait, both on TV and in real life — especially during a federal election campaign that’s long on hot air and short on character.


Say what you will about Grapes, and many have said plenty, but it’s difficult not to like a guy who once riffed at MacLean: “A million comedians are starving to death and you’re trying to be one.” A guy who, following one particularly lousy game, remarked that the game’s three stars were, “No. 1, the Zamboni driver, No. 2, the usher and, No. 3, the guy selling popcorn.”


Or this more recent kernel of wisdom — this, remember, from a supposedly knuckle-dragging troll who glorifies hockey violence: “You can call it a cheap shot, blind shot, a late hit. You can call it what you want, but it should have been a suspension as far as I’m concerned. It’s unbelievable that that’s not a suspension. What it did was it gave meat to everybody that’s against the National Hockey League.”


As Grapes once said — and it had nothing to with his ratings, though it could have been: “I think the people, the working-man people, made a statement here, that you don’t have to be a college graduate to be a good Canadian.”


Oh, dear. That wouldn’t have gone down well with the liberals and sweethearts in a certain town near Lake Ontario.





astrachanpostmedia.com

From the Op/Ed pages of the Calgary Herald

Sadly, hugs have replaced handshakes

By Bronwyn Eyre, Calgary Herald April 5, 2011
We really don't do greeting and departing very well, do we?
Used to be, a brief, firm handshake was near-universal and seen to be classy and, in subtle ways, versatile. It worked between the sexes, required no awkward embrace and demanded a certain skill -a confident extension of the hand meeting the other's halfway for a two-or three-pump exchange. Simple. Satisfying. Sufficient.
I say the handshake "worked," past tense. Of course, it still does. But, alas, the venerable handshake has given a lot of ground to a variety of hugs: Half-hugs, kissy hugs, air-kissy hugs, gropy hugs, reluctant hugs, gratuitous hugs, inappropriate hugs, held-too-long hugs and just plain awkward hugs -especially those shoulders-together-bumsapart ones.
Where, oh where, did this wave of huggism come from? When I was growing up, I don't recall any great amount of hugging in any context -parents with children notwithstanding.
The handshake was the standard interchange and hugging, when it did occur, was pretty much restricted to -for lack of a better way of putting it -natural moments, such as between long-separated family members, funeral condolences, athletic victories and the like.
My parents say that, beyond babyhood, there was little if any hugging in their respective families. In fact, even family members shook hands -think young Prince Charles with the Queen. It just wasn't part of the mainstream culture.
Some say hugging in contemporary North America is our answer to the European double-cheek kiss. (In the Netherlands, by the way, the quadruple cheek-kiss is standard; and in Belgium, it's commonly six!) That's as good a theory as any, I guess, although I sometimes wonder if the hugging fad isn't a kind of awkward overcompensation among the texting tweeterati, who spend so much of their time in virtual one-onone communication.
But whatever its genesis, hugging certainly has taken hold.
Teenagers hug when they meet in shopping malls. Middle-agers hug when they meet for lunch. Dinner guests hug both when arriving and leaving. Even business people hug at business luncheons. I've seen newly introduced men and women hug each other.
Those people who offer official, on-the-street hugs to passersby strike me as the urban equivalent of the animated team mascot who offers huggie-wuggies to anyone who's receptive. It's all harmless enough, I suppose, but the neediness out there doesn't say much about our robustness as a people.
How interesting it would be to see the results of a survey into how people -by age, gender, ethnic background, etc. -regard the practice. I suspect that many who commit to the social embrace do so more from a sense that it has become socially obligatory than from a personal inclination -with men especially. After all, how many men really like doing the air-kiss thing?

I hasten to note I don't find all hugging offensive, improper or excessive. Obviously, it has its moments -ones that can be sweet, consoling, joyful or appropriate beyond words. But as with so much in life, it comes down to Aristotle's wise counsel of moderation in everything.

Handshaking itself can get excessive. I'll not soon forget the handshaking protocol I learned while in Germany visiting relatives: Handshakes first thing in the morning. At mid-morning snack time. At midday lunch. At mid-afternoon torte break. At dinnertime. And last thing before bedtime. At least, they did it well -neither the knucklecrushing vice grip at one extreme nor the limp finger tips at the other.

Doubtless, our enhanced awareness of germ transfer has made the handshake less common, and that's understandable. The fist bump would be an excellent and hygienic substitute. But for now at least, that knuckleson-knuckles interface lacks the gravitas often required in the moment.

Another greeting/departing model is the oriental bow. It's hard to quarrel with the classiness and dignity of that one. But let's face it, the bow -especially with hands closed in front of you while you do so -is way too alien and formal for us in the western world.

As for me and my house, I think I'll persevere with the handshake convention, if and where possible. It's got us through centuries of interpersonal relations and I hope it doesn't disappear entirely.




Bronwyn Eyre is a columnist with the StarPhoenix in Saskatoon.

Bizarre

I opened my email program at work first thing Monday morning just like always and there was a message from Zoosk mail from a person that I know (a little) who wants me to write a 'testimonial' on him.  (Zoosk, is that short for Gadzooks?)
We met the Christmas before last when we happened to be out with a mutual friend and her husband who were celebrating the husband's birthday.  We kinda took a shine to each other and he ended up spending the night at my place.  He was over a couple of times for dinner and stuff after that and it was non-stop whining about 'the shoulder'.  He had done some sort of damage or other to it and just wouldn't stop whining about it.  If I heard about 'the shoulder' (his term, not mine) one more time I'm sure that I was going to go into a screaming fit.
And we tried to, um, do the nasty.  A great big ol' non-performance there!  Shall we say 'Glibido'? (see previous post from Nobbs)  Or should he make sure that  there's a great big ol' hydraulic hoist at the ready?  Or maybe a steady supply of those little blue pills?  Most definitely had a bad case of 'willy-nilly' (refer back to Nobbs again)
You know, I'm not usually a mean person, but since when do you ask an ex-girlfriend to write a 'testimonial'?  (even though I wasn't really ever a girlfriend)  Now that's definitely stepping into very dangerous territory especially when you have 'performance issues'.  One of my co-workers was speechless that he had even asked me to do such a thing.