tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38830297541873466812024-03-12T17:26:13.569-07:00The blog at the end of the Universe. doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-62583114204081569672021-04-06T18:14:00.000-07:002021-04-06T18:14:16.456-07:00<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Enough!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The last time I blogged was January, 2021, like most people I have been busy finding my mask, walking back to the truck for my mask or washing my hands. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I don't care about masks or conspiracy theories or whether or not Bill Gates is planning wholesale population reduction to save good old mother earth.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Failure to deliver on your obligations:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What I care about today is the apparent solution you elected foks have prescribed and the complete and total lack of leadership, provincially and federally that we are seeing in getting it. We are told the vaccine is the cure, yet none of our leaders, not Justin Trudeau, Peter O'Toole, Jagmeet Singh, Jason Kenney or even Rachel Notley have delivered or attempted to work with anyone else to get it done.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They are too busy in their own myopic little worlds to dare join forces and deal with the issue.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I read a statistic today that Canada has provided first immunization to 16% of it's population and the USA has provided immunization to 32%. So we are half way there, well no, we are not. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the USA they have approximately 331,000,000 citizens so in round numbers 100,000,000 have been immunized. Compare this to Canada where we have a population of 37,000,000 people of which, again in round numbers 5,000,000 have been immunized. This doesn't even jive with what they tell us about how much vaccine we have.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Canada's response can only be generously described as awful, because what is forgotten is that when someone's death is attributed to Covid, they are first and foremost a person not a statistic and as often as not somebodies Grandma or Grandpa. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now onto death: </b>2,001 people have died as a result of this disease in Alberta, which means each Alberta MLA is complicit by their inaction in the death of 23 people. In Canada 23,141 people have died which makes each MP complicit in 68 deaths. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Because</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> of the way party politics work, Jason Kenney is responsible for 2.001 and Justin Trudeau for whole 23,141. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At what point does this become serious to these people? At what point do our elected officials stop behaving like dogs humping a football and get to work? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So where are the vaccines in Canada? Well apparently, aside from the ones we borrowed from the Congo, Justin Trudeau forgot to place an order, maybe his visa was maxed out I don't know, the point is we went to the third world for help because our leaders were too ill equipped to see the crisis coming. Who does Justin blame? Brian Mulroney for starters, then Stephen Harper and I think he went as far back as Sir John A MacDonald. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jason Kenney blames Trudeau, Notley blames Kenney. The federal Conservatives and federal NDP did nothing to help with this, they just spent their time like dogs humping those footballs, felt good but accomplished nothing. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So I say unequivocally, regardless of your party affiliation but if you are a provincial or federal elected official you personally are accountable for the deaths of over 20,000 people from Covid, now lets talk about the rest of the damage you have done.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Other damage you have done:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While people are surviving on CERB and welfare, not a single elected official in this country has lost dollar one during this pandemic. You still have your travel card, your free car washes and your salaries all intact, just so people can hear your say "we are all in this together". Bullshit.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">90% of you have never signed the front of a pay cheque, nor struggled to find work, you drive around in a pickup truck to pretend you are one of the 'aw shucks" common folks. But like Napoleon said; "while I intend to govern fairly, I intend to govern" and like Napoleon you are terrified that Covid might be your Waterloo and yet you remain undoing and hope to distract us with bullshit or bribe us with our own money come the next election, an election all of you deserve to lose.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I was elected to the Alberta Legislature in 2008, I ran because I have a great deal of respect for former Premier Ed Stelmach. Ed was and is a farmer, he lived the struggles of the early 1990's with low commodity prices and 22% interest rates on bank loans. He came within a hair of losing the farm his parents homesteaded at Andrew. He knew real pain and struggle and because of it had genuine compassion for his constituents. I served one term, that was lots.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Party politics is dirty and ultimately as a back bench MLA, one is largely responsible for making speeches and handing out giant plastic cheques. The real decisions are made by the Premier/ Prime Minister and his/ her cabinet, but ultimately the Premier, or Prime Minister's only real qualification is the ability to sell party memberships and get votes out during leadership races. Nobody dares ask if they are smart enough to do the job.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So now we have unemployment numbers not seen since the great depression, new carbon taxes and interparty fights over the dumbest shit imaginable. And yet, people continue to die, go bankrupt or lose their jobs while you argue about dinosaurs in the new K-6 curriculum. It's a good thing financial planning is in there because some kid in grade two is going to inherit this mess and I really hope that kid is better with decision making than you are.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">760,000 Canadians deferred mortgage payments in 2020 (cbc 11/16/20) </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The unemployment rate is 7.5% in Canada, in Alberta it's over 10% (economic dashboard Alberta) TEN PERCENT! how many MLA's or MP's are in the group? ZERO percent. And this does not tell the tale, I know of a place where 30 people are waiting to start work but can't,. It's not just those 30 people, it's their partner, their kids, the guy at 7-11, who are affected by this because you cannot get vaccine into the arms of people so they can go back to work. You tell us it's the solution yet you are incapable of delivering it.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So I lay before you, the wreckage you have inflicted on your constituents because you are too arrogant to actually sit down with each other and do what is best for the people you serve. If as, you claim, vaccine is the cure then where the fuck is it?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As leaders, I know you forget this sometimes, it is after all a trifling detail, but your job is to serve. What we have instead are elected officials of all parties whos hands are covered in the blood of the dead because you are either incapable or unwilling to serve your constituents and get them the thing you say they need.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">You are Willy Picton on a grand scale. He fed dead prostitutes to his pigs in Abbottsford BC and for years and those little piggy's all went to market. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Bacon</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> anyone, anyone? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Your crime is no less heinous, actually it's worse, because you are supposed to be the people with foresight who do what's best for their constituents and you fucked it up royally. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Get this job done, or admit you can't do it and get the hell out of the way of those who can.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I will wear a mask when I have to, maybe we should all drive to Great Falls Montana and get the covid vaccine at the Walgrens for $10.00 ($13.00 Canadian) because they seem to know how to get it into peoples arms. Unlike our elected officials here who are too busy not telling people what's really in the pork chops. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-69615318856065625042021-01-18T19:19:00.000-08:002021-01-18T19:19:02.223-08:00I am a contemporary barbarian<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I've done remarkably well not commenting on the current state of municipal, provincial and federal politics both here and due south. I have, like everyone, opinions about these things but for the moment I will ask to be humored while I express my truth.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I am a contemporary barbarian.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I don't need to google how to change a tire, I can determine a right angle using the Pythagorean theorem or the 4-5-6 scale. I can wire a lamp and thanks to the OBD2 reader my grandson got me for Christmas I can turn off the check engine light in your car. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I can also cook, sew, type about 60 words a minute. About the only thing I can't do is swim. I try very hard to keep my promises and prefer not to make them if I know I can't keep them.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I was elected to the Alberta legislature for a little while, and the big lesson I learned from that particular experience is that our provincial and federal politicians get elected in a democracy but they do not work in one. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The leader of the party; be it Premier, Prime Minister or President is the ultimate overlord. He or she will surround themselves with "loyal" supporters and then spend a great deal of their time trying not to be too embarrassed by the things these supporters do. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Case in point, Paul Rehn, MLA for Lesser Slave Lake, whom Kenney was forced to remove from caucus in order to placate a constituency smart enough to know they had no representation. Only because it was so blatant and public in the media did Kenney act. He did not act because it was the right thing to do.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I applaud his action as people who are driven by their base instincts, left unchecked and without discipline, can hardly be counted upon to preserve the liberties of the nation or province they serve. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In other words Paul Rehn might be the poster child for everything that is wrong not only with politics but possibly also the weakened social construct we call society. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The man violated the trust of everyone who cast a ballot, abused his position, ignored those he was elected to represent and even violated a common sense health order not to travel. "We are all in this together" I can hear him say "Well except for me of course." It is better to have character than be one, Paul, but thanks for clarifying what you are truly all about.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Instead of seeking representatives who's character is based on action and results we align with representatives who's character is based on charm. We elect the prettiest show pony and are then shocked and dismayed to discover that the show pony is of no use in battle whatsoever.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Where are the virtues of honor, service, duty and courage? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Who breaks into the Capital Building dressed like Chewbaca? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"> problem is not that Chewbacca supported Trump, the problem we now live in a world where Chewbacca gets his 15 minutes of fame and the virtues of honor, service, duty and courage are left at home, if they even existed there. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">We can't tell leaders from Chewbacca because for all we know he was the ring leader behind the riot on Capital Hill. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We have lost our ability to be self reliant, A person used to build a house as a means of providing shelter for his family. now it is considered a herculean effort if they build a shed or a flower box outside the mortgaged McMansion. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We yell at each other in forums and with language we would not dare use face to face, lest the conversation be interrupted by a swift uppercut. We attack character because we have no ability to draw our own conclusions or consider an argument that runs counter to our own preconceived notions. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Then legislators chose as a priority the task of the eliminate words like "man, woman, mother, brother, father, sister" as though these words were somehow guilty of some form of assault. These terms do not separate us, they unite us and provide each of us with the opportunity to have an identity. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Without identity you no longer exist. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I fear though that for many, the decision to cease to exist at least as thinking adults', has already been made. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We are, at best, going through the motions to show that we have some value all the while turning our backs on those values that got our society to where it is today: Honor, service, duty and courage. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">By handing freedoms and responsibilities over so freely to the charming people we elect it reinforces the very nature that the superficial is all that matters. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">One should not look behind the curtain lest we discover the wizard is just pulling the levers of social media with no interest whatsoever in being of service to those who elected them. Case in point is Tracy Allard posting Christmas pictures from the legislature while she is in Hawaii. Smoke and mirrors all.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It is about power and control, that's all it is and the longer we forget that virtue is indeed a necessary virtue, the greater power and control will be centralized and largely forsaken to the so called special interests.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Every time I hear the phrase "special interests" I know that my interests are not being considered. I doubt very much that yours are either.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We gave it away, we literally gave it away to people in leadership roles who could not possibly be less deserving, we elect drama teachers and career politicians, we elect people who are at least as incompetent as we are. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Stop asking leaders to tell you what you want to hear, start demanding the truth whether you like it or not. It'll soon change the fabric of leaders from show pony's to people of substance, people with idea's, skills, knowledge and most importantly, a commitment to the people who elect them. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Show me one, show me </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> h</span><span style="font-family: arial;">onor, service, duty and courage. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'll wait......</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-36449236725264935332021-01-08T20:20:00.000-08:002021-01-08T20:20:24.121-08:00Tested for the "VID" results in under 24 hours<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I tested negative, AHS woke me up at 08:00 to tell me my result, that is pretty good service! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Since I know the name and address of the bastard (aka friend) who infected me, I know how long I have to quarantine before I am safe for public consumption. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is good, unfortunately the guy who infected me, had to cancel a flight home to Ontario. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Normally I think cancelling a flight to Ontario is a win and wish that some day we had to go through border security to fly there, but for now it's doubly sad because the government tells us 99.6% of people who get Covid survive, and according to Alberta's Premier this deadly disease is less deadly on airplanes, where for some reason the recirculated air manages to filter out the disease, so why I ask aren't we all on planes?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Alberta's Premier, obviously knew this when he launched a program to save his MLA's and WestJet by sending his people all over the globe to keep the airline viable, with pretty much the same result as the incident involving a former Cabinet Minister who, when caught with a prostitute in his car said he was "conducting research study into prostitution." It was a government owned car, which I understand was immediately sent to auction. I'd use his full name but Graham is 90 years old and really, who cares.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There is no word on whether or not WestJet has scrapped the offending planes used by the caucus, but I see today WestJet laid just everyone off, so I guess that Jason managed to save neither the airline or his team with his "Covid safety on airplanes research". </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Job loss, whether a prostitute, cabinet minister or flight attendant is not funny it's quite serious actually and I should be struck down for sharing and comparing the deeds of the modern and vibrant UCP with the deeds of an old Lougheed era cabinet minister, who was at best really a liberal anyway. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In this world of "do as I say not as I do" I will be staying home for the requisite incubation period of 14 days, this means I have about seven days to go since I saw the bastard who infected me last week. I say bastard in the most loving way possible as "Typhoid Morris" is a good friend. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And onto Washington: I understand complete order has been restored with the Ewok and Chewbacca having gone back to Seattle to do warm up exercises for their next Antifa sponsored insurrection. These two clowns now famous for their tattoos on their hands of the Marxist Hammer and Sickle have been spotted at numerous Antifa events. I really doubt anyone who's seriously MAGA would be a member of the Karl Marx fan club. It is details like this however that distort the narrative that Trump supporters were there to do damage. I understand the guy who broke Nancy Pelosi's Scotch decanter was found hiding in his Grandma's basement after the FBI pinged his cell phone, no word on his tattoo, but his proximity to Nana speaks volumes. I do hope the FBI remembered to wipe their feet on the way in and say thank you on the way out. Hey it's somebody's Nana, it's not her fault her grandson is an idiot, show some respect.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So was the whole thing really a contrived conspiracy designed to end democracy and herald in a new era of socialism? Well as I said yesterday I doubt my friends in Texas are very worried and would likely welcome Chewbacca with open arms should he choose to come visit wearing that helmet with the horns on it, I'd strongly suggest a trip to the hill country in October, keep the fur too, it's chilly. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trump, who enflamed rioters by telling them to go home, and the Capital Police who moved the barricades to reduce tripping hazards for the protesters clearly are all bad people, the only good ones that I can see were Chewbacca and his Ewok who were probably getting something above minimum wage and a few selfies for their efforts. Nancy Pelozi was there somewhere, yelling at her hairdresser.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If you doubt any of this, go look at the video footage of the event. It's quite interesting.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Stolen election conspiracies aside, I suspect law and order has been restored and the visitor galleries on capital hill will soon be filled with bus loads of very bored school children watching grown ups behave in such a way the kids instinctively know would get them spanked at home. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And the world turns: Trump needs to admit he's out of a job, get the movers lined up, the utilities switched into Biden's name and hopefully his new house in Russia will be out of escrow before he gets there. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As bad as things are for Trump however, I understand outgoing Vice President Pence is unlikely to get his damage deposit back because he smoked in his house and is probably going to take his sweet time moving out just to annoy incoming Vice President Harris who has her U-Haul rented by the hour. But it's nice to see politicians living in public housing like the poor. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of course, none of this actually works like this: Trump will have a Secret Service detail by his side for the rest of his life (lucky guys) and the Federal Government will be responsible for things like cars, drivers, food, housing, medical expenses, Botox for the Mrs. and ringette lessons for the youngest kid. So if Trump is broke he's still better off than 90% of his supporters. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I find it so ironic that in a country where health care is not a public institution, the members and staff of the senate and congress have the best medical and dental plans money can buy, after all people who take the humble salaries of these two chambers have only their PAC's and undocumented donors to make them rich. This is how, on $175,000.00 a year Hilary Clinton, in eight years in the Senate, was able to save enough food stamps to raise her net worth from $2.3 million to $40 million. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Although</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> the democrats do have way better sex scandals, I half expected an Obama/ Oprah thing to pop up and nobody ever thought Nixon or Reagan or Bush 1 was much in the "ladies man" department. This they left to Bill Clinton and his cigars, and JFK and well, everyone who wore a skirt </span><span style="font-family: arial;">in 1961. I think Jimmy Carter was just too pure to be caught with his pants down, his brother Billy however, all bets were off. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Democrats, who would never steal elections or get rich being bought off by their PAC's and donors, can be forgiven for thinking with the "little head" more than the big one, although notable exception is made for Bill Clinton and stated earlier JFK. I was going to make a comment about how JFK and Margaret Trudeau had Cuban missle crisis's about ten years apart, but it seemed funnier in my head than on paper.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It's a problem of what I will call populist tribalism and we have it in Canada as least as much as they do down south, our own Prime Minister, who thinks he is something of a "ladies man" when he isn't trying to impersonate Al Jolson is completely out of touch with the average Canadian and isn't likely to have anyone in his rolodex with a area code starting with 204, 306, 403, 587 or 780. He might have some 604 or 250 numbers, but only because the conservatives in BC call themselves Liberals for some unknown reason. Trudeau does not have a PAC so he has to launder his illegal donations through his family and a bogus charity run by twins. and supported by the international massage parlor, SNC Lavalin. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Alberta, we have two machines of roughly equal size pushing around the piles of dirt they have on each other, yet neither really addresses, in an earnest way the issues of their constituents because that sounds like it might involve shoveling. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-55444644749564729042021-01-07T16:13:00.000-08:002021-01-07T16:13:22.566-08:00Impact of the "Vid"<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I've heard covid called the "Vid" by people younger than me who don't have time to use real words, this is the same generation who call 7/11 the "sev" and McDonalds, "mickeyD" although that last one really isn't any shorter. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Today I went for my nasal brain swab to see if I have the "vid" I don't think I do, given that </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">a) I am not micro-chemophobic </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">b) I probably swallowed enough alcohol based products in my life that everything is pretty well germ free. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But I am not doing this for me. I'm doing this because I have three wonderful grandson's, who would give me serious shit if I ignored the issue and because there are people who could get very sick or even die if I inattentively were to infect them. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I went to the Hazel Bluff community hall, which is about 5 miles west of town, and waited exactly zero minutes for the lovely nurse to stick what felt like a ski pole length swab up my nose to take a sample of my cerebral cortex, then tell me to go home and isolate until I get the text with my results. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My daughter Rebecca, who lives closest to me and who happens to be home, immediately sprang into action and brought Dad groceries and dish soap. So I am set. All I need to do is renew my Netflix membership and my life will be golden, I shall wake up late, feast on Salmon steaks and binge watch Longmire, (again). </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I really like Longmire, although I am surprised that Absaroca County, Wyoming seems to have no crime except murder, it does sound like a great place to drive very fast, generally Wyoming is that indeed: In 2008 whilst I held a public role, Barb and I went to Thermopolis Wyoming for a holiday and as I'm tooling down the interstate in her new BMW, 3.0 liter twin turbo SUV at a very irresponsible 200 km/h, (124 miles an hour) the state trooper who pulled in behind us, saw the Alberta plates and proceeded to blow past us like we were standing still. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ever since then I have wanted a Crown Victoria with that cop spec 4.6 V8. See, unlike Idaho where I a got a ticket for doing 75 in a 55 in my motorhome, the cops in Wyoming, are just really happy to see out of state traffic on the interstate and this might explain why Walt Longmire never has any petty crime in his county, except for one episode where a prize chicken went missing but was later recovered and reported to be "quite tasty".</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The motor home ticket did result in me having to call the Governor of Idaho's assistant because, well I forgot to pay it and they issued a warrant for my arrest. I did pay the fine and the Governor's assistant laughed and laughed. I did not go to jail, which was a good thing because I was still in public office at the time. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now that we are in this weird sort of voluntary/ mandatory lockdown and no longer have a BMW SUV, I have to settle for my Buick Le Sabre which is by no means a slow car, (the supercharged 3.8 V6 is a time tested bullet proof engine) I can't go to Wyoming and play in traffic because, well it would be stupid to do so, especially since everyone else is managing to stay home. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Except of course for the people who keep telling us to stay home: like Allard, Huckabee and Liepert. Although in fairness Ron, isn't a provincial politician. But since I don't want to flaunt my freedom in the face of people who sacrificed things like their grandson's first Christmas and worse funerals, I will stay home. My Buick shall have to wait until the restrictions lift before it sees the happy side of 200 km/h in Wyoming, I am betting I can get about 230 out of it and until then I shall have to be happy making vroom vroom noises while I watch Walt Longmire solve another seemingly perfect murder.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If you have never watched Longmire or are a vegan opposed to concealed carry or open rifle carry by guys with big hats you have no idea what you are missing. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I skipped gingerly over the whole Kenney debacle </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">because, well, it's stupid. Indeed today I am more concerned about parts of the United States that are either mad because Trump is insane or mad because Mitch McConnell is now wallpaper. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Never in my life did I expect to see Ewoks and Chewbacca break through the doors of the Capital and break stuff like Nancy Pelosi's scotch decanter. Democracy has been set back at least 15-20 minutes and now the only real question is who is the next crazy leader? We still have that guy in North Korea, but I understand he's an NBA fan and can't be all bad.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm not impressed by Joe Biden, but Vice President Harris has a few things going for her one including a well orchestrated opportunity to demonstrate some serious national rebounding from Trump. Gun sales are up about 1,000% in Texas, so I am not too worried about a wholesale erosion of democracy. My concern with Biden is the guy has never actually had a real job, he went from articling law student to Senator about 50 years ago. Harris who is similar to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin only in gender is a smart person, I also think she is sane.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Democrats of today are not that dissimilar from the Republican's of the 1870's when my great grandfather was involved, you may recall that Lincoln was Republican and took on the Southern Democrats in the civil war to end slavery. So really he was kind of a social progressive and the Democrats were the social conservatives which proves I guess that pendulums swing both ways and sometimes more than one pendulum is swinging.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">None of this forgives Donald Trump or Chewbacca for the gong show or broken crystal, but is does say that the Republican loss of the presidency is not the problem people think it is, indeed it's only a problem if you interpret it as such. Texas is the only state in the union with the right to secede with a simple majority and while I don't think my friends are weaponing up to make that happen, it's comforting to know they could. In Texas it is generally accepted that "An armed society is a polite society" and while New Hampshire has a cooler motto "Live free or die" the end result is the same. Harris is the deciding vote in Congress, which means that the Republicans' and the Democrats have an equal shot at screwing things up or at actually working together. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Time will tell I suppose.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile in Alberta: that spot of unpleasantness in Washington DC should not cause us to lose focus over the behavior of our own elected officials, in this age of social media when so many careers are ended by texting dick pics to the wrong people, it takes about five seconds for the oppositions war machine to find out and broadcast them far and wide. Now maybe dick pic is the wrong thing but there was one picture from Mexico that definitely had a dick in it, he was standing in from of a piƱata or something. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Such irresponsible power hungry people. I really feel like I'm caught between the fiscally bankrupt and the morally bankrupt, neither evil is acceptable and people like me who are very pragmatic about how you live your life as long as we don't spend too much money on it have no place to go, or do we?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Day one</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-55959088927482102322020-06-20T18:37:00.000-07:002020-06-20T18:37:35.348-07:00My choice of names for the twelve Edmonton wards<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a plan afoot to rename Edmonton's twelve wards, I'm concerned about this because I don't think using Aboriginal names are really going to address the ongoing issues each ward represents and I most certainly do not want anyone thinking any of the aboriginal people who lived here first are responsible for the mess. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We live in a time of citizens cutting grass in public places, of randomly placed pylons disrupting traffic and priorities that nobody but the elected officials comprehend. If there is truth in politics, a statement I highly doubt, then I will put forward my choice of names for the new wards, because nobody who works on any city committee can be happy with something as simple as a number. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Changing names will require new letterhead, business cards and signage all of which are good for the economy.</span></div>
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<img alt="Seven Edmonton neighbourhoods to switch wards in proposed boundary ..." src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhLicVM-LxN1xdMTcPu4JozXmX0opEivX7nklpKIzPZJPMGysODoCa6gACZ-XfM8as9duE2MPwpK4vB6bmWiOQG1Ziju4cFkIFlg7t2MUXG-Cwd7_4NJyXmZRJLfzLGywQURTjALeapZmeq3wLmvbqt6qYSQbCKyPvjkftIrD0n_MHEei7vQ73YYernmQuJXgYHnOMssmtaXJSS_u27WFEA-1BVMjKDyUIJgiSu4noa=" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">12 wards, which start out clockwise then veer off as only a drunken committee could think effective is bad enough, it's almost as though the planners were trying to confuse the public but we all now the real reason was to ensure they would continue to get paid to rework the boundaries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway the names and the rationale:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward One:</u></b> <b><u>PortaPotty Yellowhead speed trap. </u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In recognition of the gagging smell from the compost plant and the permanently parked photo radar trucks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Two: Paved sloughs, big churches and endless municipal wasteland</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since this area is all about paving sloughs to build distribution centers and big churches, lets just call a spade a spade, this is home to most of the vacant land in Edmonton that people continue to prove they don't want to live on, unless they are in a tent</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Three: College Woods having neither</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This one has a big sign for the new College Woods subdivision which has neither a college nor woods, all it really has is a bunch of McMansions up against the Henday with the inevitable call for a sound berm. It is also home to the worlds dumbest looking police station.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Four: Tornado Alley</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Attracting all the recent tornadoes this ward should reflect the City's neglect in making sure residents of the area actually have passable roads to drive home on instead of the debris strewn byways they currently navigate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward five: Loud voices</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The home of NIMBY, this ward is best recognized for it's history of shaking off all industrial development and complaining about congestion on the Henday, not to mention scaring away power lines.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Six; Katz/ Mandell</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Named after two people who with joined hands managed to build some of the ugliest buildings on the planet and then actually expected gamblers to pay for parking. Since this ward is also home to some of Edmonton's most expensive homes you'd think the city could cut the grass in the parks and give the folks who pay ten grand a year some sort of services.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Seven: Middle earth</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This ward best represents the strong history of pre and post settlement in Edmonton. It's home to all and all are welcome, except of course the City bought and bulldozed everything interesting to build a very stupid looking bus depot with dents in it that turned out to be too small for the current buses to get in. This latter little known fact was discovered by accident, literally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Eight: Oh that smell </u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks to the waste water treatment plant, you know you are here as soon as you arrive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Nine: We don't have enough</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Say what you want, folks who live here woke up one day and realized they don't have any schools, parks or recreation facilities which bodes the question: why'd you buy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Ten: Bastion of higher learning</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All the really serious academic brouhaha is located in this ward, hence the need for vegan crosswalks and 33' wide bike lanes, cars are viewed as evil, except for Uber and Harley Davidson motorcycles which is viewed as essential.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Eleven: DIY land </u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many of the houses in this ward were owner build and only randomly inspected during construction, it is a veritable birthday for basement waterproofing contractors</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Ward Twelve: Go Away</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Still pissed at ward 5 (loud voices) for sticking them with the power line, this ward just wants to go away. They are thinking of seceding to Sherwood Park or Beaumont where the roads are smooth and the grass is actually cut. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-1578627313192628052018-01-11T07:47:00.000-08:002018-01-11T07:47:11.811-08:00When anger died<div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wise people will say that alcohol causes more pregnancies and divorces than anything else and I admit, that while I never got pregnant while drunk, it did cause more than one relationship to end; usually in a gigantic ball of rage and determined rightness, broken things, third party interventions and the like. Not everyone who drinks suffered this fate as often as I did, some people have allergies and break out in spots, my allergy to alcohol used to make me break out in handcuffs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, the wonderful boundless energy of the alcoholic mind, the delusions, grand designs, dreams and skirts to chase. Me, I spent most of my time being delusional and chasing skirts, I had designs and dreams too but mostly of the unattainable kind because I let life interfere. Being sober when you are an alcoholic is BORING, dealing with the job, the cable bill and a relationship are just too much to bear, so drinking, either to enhance the dreams, performance or to sedate become the norm. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a point at which alcohol enhances performance and a point at which the desire increases but performance decreases. Nothing wrong with either thing really and I'm not here to get all preachy about what's right and what's wrong. I think being a drunk is fascinating and, honestly, I'm not the least bit ashamed of it. No more than I would if I had prostate cancer. I don't brag about it, but I recognize that a simple chemical can so completely fuck up my perfect life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I don't miss it. Almost eight months without a drink, lots of opportunity to drink, but I don't. The reason I don't is very simple, I quit drinking, I quit being mad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So really I quit two things: being mad and being drunk. I was never one of those happy black out drinkers, even when drinking alone, which was most of the time, I'd find some excuse to be angry at SOMEONE! Somebody had done me harm and God Damn it I was going to show them. When I quit the booze, and eventually stopped being an asshole a whole brand new world emerged. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I found Karma. Nothing in the spiritual world, and the difference between spiritual and religion is: Religious people are trying to avoid hell, spiritual people have already been there, has ever been a better relation for me than this concept, which, in my case comes from the teachings of Tibetan Buddhists as translated and interpreted by Koshok Lobsang here in Edmonton and by the writings of Thubten Chodron, a Buddhist monk in Washington state. I did not have to go to Tibet to find an answer that made sense, I went to the Gaden Samten Ling (GSL) Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Society, I took a course from my old friend Kushok on how to meditate. It was awesome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">When I was in politics I helped GSL get some money to build the center, a quarter million dollars if I recall and I honestly think it was the reason I was elected. I didn't know it then but recently when a friend asked me why I would run again in 2019, as in, what was my motivation? I meditated on the question in class one night and realized in a flash of insight that GSL was the reason I ran in 2008 and maybe there was no reason yet shown to run in 2019. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This aside from the problem of what party I would run for, since the UCP and NDP don't appeal to me, I said publically that I'd only run if I could be in opposition and it would be very cool to be speaker, but these are not enough reasons to run, so I'm probably not going to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) believes that one has to turn their life over to God, as you conceive him to be, if they are to be successful staying sober and Buddhists believe there is no single God as we Catholics know him, rather they believe consciousness is eternal and much like how the bible doesn't talk about what Jesus did in retirement, the concept of "eternal" is a mystery. Like all good mysteries, belief is an adequate substitute for data. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So in my AA journey, I turned my life over to God and in turn have morphed into turning my life over to consciousness and the Buddhist precepts. Now some of the precepts are pretty basic: show compassion for all, don't kill, don't steal, don't drink, stay celibate, etc.. If I were getting graded on killing bugs or celibacy, for example, let's just say "I'm not a monk".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">What I like about Buddhism, like all faiths, is that it is subject to scorn and oppression, check with the Chinese government on this if you have any questions, which says to me that if the people in power are afraid of it, something good must be going on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">AA is not aligned with anything; no religion, politic or philosophy beyond the importance of sobriety and the ide that while drinking was the public manifestation of a problem, the real issues are much deeper and if I am going to stay sober I have to go there too.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So, about not being mad anymore: </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AA has a prayer, called the Serenity Prayer and we have all heard it:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The courage to change the things I can</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>And the wisdom to know the difference</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I say it, sometimes a hundred times a day, it helps me deal with the people who are not conforming to my world view, despite the fact it is obviously what is best for them. I found the prayer lacking because, while I do have to accept certain things as being the way they are, I do not like to see people suffer, standing idly by has never been the hallmark of an old volunteer fireman. We tend to rush into things whether we are in harms way or not. Its a hard habit to break, but break it I must if I am to achieve anything like a calm inner demeanor.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">This is where I think the Buddhist philosophy came to the rescue. I still have all my hair and I don't wear robes or shun worldly possessions, these things I leave for the more devout, but there are some great ways, in meditation to deal with anger and the concepts of compassion, the following quotes sum it up real well:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>"Rather than going to the extreme of despair over the state of the world, we generate compassion for all sentient beings thinking "How wonderful if they were free from all unsatisfactory circumstances and their causes."" (1) </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">This is another reason why running for public office might be off the table, this does not appear to be the platform of any party, quite the opposite actually. Maybe I could change that from inside, but what I know of caucus discipline, I doubt it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Compassion is a very cool thing, very cool indeed. Service to others with little or no regard for reward is enlightening. There is nothing more enlightening than thinking "I can help this person" helping them and then getting shit for it. It's enlightening because it says more about me than them. It's a tough nut to crack. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Make no mistake, we are all self centered, and the more people say they aren't, they are. My favourite Weird Al song line, from the song <u>Amish</u> is "I am way more humble than though are" kind of says it all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Being self-centered is ok to some extent, If you are actually conscious of it, alcoholics aren't usually conscious of much, let alone being the center of the universe, but any decent alcoholic or addict does have one trait: The sole concern of their next drink or high, it is a completely self-centered disease.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Until I recognize a pattern, it will continue. The use of depressants or stimulants to counter deeper psychological problems is the study of masters. The masks I wore either while drunk or looking to get drunk, or to justify being drunk, where phenomenal in their scale. I mean really fucking outlandish and the damage I caused to so many people, myself included forced me to take a completely different path. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Human beings are nothing if not resilient, changing a way of life, thought or deed is possible and very useful. I first recognized there was something wrong with the old way. If I don't think I have a problem, then no early power is going to convince me otherwise. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So yes like everyone I have problems, but I wake up now and am happy that I am doing so, there are still elements of my life that need compassion, but none so much as before, because now I can see the reality of my own limitations and I am not afraid of them. I am. for example, no longer frustrated that I will never be a jockey. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">None of this is easy, but things that are worthwhile seldom are: let forth the light that shines within you, that you might take the darkness from others. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">(1) Good Karma, Thubten Chodron, 2016 </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br /></div>
doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-48177474935221612202017-08-27T07:33:00.000-07:002017-08-27T07:33:01.395-07:00I don't care who stole the little library, I'm just going to replace it.
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">A family
in the west of Edmonton had their little library stolen: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>a nice little box designed to hold books that
people could exchange, borrow, read and pass along. I like books and I like
libraries. I don't own a kindle, I don't listen to on line video streaming, I
read, so when it was reported that the little library was stolen, and
presumably not for it's cash value, it pissed me off, because as the news
article stated, the Dad built it and the kids decorated and designed it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">I will
not bother to analyze the motives of the thief, I don't care, what I will do is
replace the stolen library and if possible build a few more that we can spread
around the town. Dar and I are going to put one on our lawn here on Ada and I
imagine I'll find a home for one or two others, don't care if we build a
hundred if people enjoy them for what they are, which is not firewood.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Years
ago, my partners and I built two inner city rooming houses out of concrete block
because we knew that durability was more important than expecting people to
change their behaviours, our motives in 1991 were to build durable structures
that would look good, be cheap to maintain and stand the test of time. If you
drive by 9526-103 Avenue today, it's still the best-looking building on the street
and has housed 16 residents for over 25 years. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">As my own
career morphed from Consultant to Politician to HR VP, I admit that I never did
feel the sense of pride or permanence as I did when Pam Barret, Jim Spinelli
and I cut the ribbon on that first building. Today, as the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Handy Kinda Guy</b>, my business model is
based on permanence and what Stewart Brand would call the "Long Now".
I fix things, and in this case, I am going to use my skill and fix the obvious
problem of a stolen little library.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">I spent a
lot of my life chasing exactly the wrong things, many of them pretty blondes and
now that I am out of that habit, I am at liberty to focus on what makes me feel
good about life. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We all
have our struggles about which others know nothing, indeed, no matter what the
demon we face, be it booze, dysfunctional relationships, fear, loathing, or in
my case all the above, change happens if we admit a couple of things:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">a)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We
admit we are powerless over our problem</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">b)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We
realize that no human intervention is really going to fix it</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">c)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We
accept that God can and will if he is sought</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">This is
about as religious as I am ever going to get in my blog, mostly because, while
God has lost some public popularity, how people interpret, like, hate or ignore
it is an entirely personal thing so if you donāt like my motivation or opinion,
donāt hire me to work for you, if you do like it, then feel free to call me for
a price or advice. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">In either
case, I am absolutely confident that I will make a good living, providing a
needed service that is also work I love to do.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">In reality,
it goes way beyond that, itās fun. Oh, I get that we might define this
differently, you might not think dealing with smelly old rotten things as fun,
but itās a real challenge sometimes to solve a problem, to be the big guy with
the big truck and the long ladder, who says, āsure we can fix itā </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">I hope
only that everyone is at sometime, as blessed as I am to realize that life will
humble you, but in humility comes an almost unlimited amount of strength, I canāt
fix the whole world, but I can certainly work on my own little corner of it. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-26067024506565061212017-07-25T08:46:00.000-07:002017-07-25T08:46:08.574-07:00UCP: MAKE ALBERTA GREAT AGAIN!<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What an interesting week in Alberta politics: </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Normally summer for politicians means weight gain at barbecues, sneaking out of town for vacation and such things. Now that we have a United Conservative Party to replace the PC and Wild Rose parties, politics in July suddenly matters. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The new party is causing a lot of butt hurt amongst the NDP and the Alberta party trying hard to expand itself and make up the difference.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I have done several media interviews on the future, and since my crystal ball isn't any better than anyone else's, I'm going to prognosticate about the future as I see it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The Liberals:</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Who leads this party? Are they still registered, have they recovered from Doctor Dreamy?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The NDP:</b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">They have some great people and some really bad ones, in particular the MLA for Stony Plain, a barista by trade, this kid was a placeholder and found himself a sitting MLA. Recently I asked him if his governments hard line on coal would be detrimental to his constituents and if so, was he prepared to tell the government that the policy on coal was bad? Now admittedly I set the kid up, because there is no way a back bench public transit riding MLA was going to do anything other than support the philosophical agenda he was given, and true to form, he did not answer the question. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">One of my favourite NDP MLA's is Deputy Premier, Sarah Hoffman. My bottom line belief is Sarah is not to be underestimated in her tenacity and ability to attack sewer rats or to take so much as a second breath before she launches into an attack on the new party. She say many entertaining things and has the ability to fake sincerity down to a science. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The Premier herself, has to be worried by the lack of vote splitting on the right and with the reenergized Alberta Party occupying that hallowed middle ground, they are likely to siphon off support from the NDP, particularly as people realize how badly the recession hurt and how badly the government handled the carbon tax issue. I see third party status in the offing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The Alberta Party:</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Former Edmonton Mayor Steven Mandell has been observed at a number of events supporting the middle of the road Alberta Party. I sense a leadership bid in the offing here. Mandell who is rumoured to fancy himself as the Bernie Saunders of Alberta, will undoubtedly use his charisma, charm and the wisdom of his 74 years on the planet to engage the youth in voting for fiscal responsibility and social progression. How a guy who has been collecting Canada Pension for nine years can expect to do this I don't know, especially when Thomas Lukaszuk, the younger and more fashionable politician is probably seeking the same job. Mandell is probably bored being at home full time and doesn't have any good hobbies other than running a trailer park. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Lukaszuk, has tried and failed several times to hitch his wagon to the shining star and hopefully realizes that hitching your wagon to a star requires very long reigns and a horse would be a better choice. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Greg Clark the current leader, is a hard working guy, has great staff and generally very likeable, I'm worried that he does not have Mandel's war chest or Lukaszuk's charisma and his tenure might he short lived as a result. The Alberta party is collecting an interesting association of former PC MLA's in addition to Mandel and Lukaszuk. Dave Quest, the man who sold former Premier Ed Stelmach his last Oldsmobile, has resoundingly rejected the UCP in favour, apparently, of the Alberta Party. Official opposition status.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The UCP:</b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The word "United" makes me very nervous, while I agree that unity is necessary the top down structure of the party, preferred by both front running leadership candidates Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, suggests that there will be a lot of internal control to prevent, incidents, like the Hunsberger Lake of Fire or any bozo eruptions on twitter. Personally, my own 2009 debacle is enough to keep me from running for anything, or being asked to I suspect. Google it if you are interested. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I have no clear idea as to who is going to win the leadership, although since the whole unity thing is really Jason Kenney's vision, I suspect he might, even if Brian Jean does look more credible in a hard hat and has sense enough not to drive a gas Dodge pick up. Jason would have done much better credibility wise had he opted for a Cummins diesel 3/4 ton quad cab, instead of the half ton, which is the kind of truck one buys if the heaviest thing they expect to haul is a few bags of mulch from Home Depot. . </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The challenge in unity is that this requires more than consensus or singleness of purpose and this is where the party will need to be VERY CAREFUL with internal discipline moving forward to prevent getting labelled as demagoguery. Appealing to fears is popular in politics and they ALL do it, as it is human nature to vote against something rather than for something. Which explains the NDP government we have now.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are many former PC MLA's who have hitch their wagon to the UCP and who, in turn, hope to alter their status from former to current, which is great, the shakedown will happen when it comes time to declare support for one leadership candidate over another. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Those particularly committed to self preservation will have to think carefully and tread softly, lest they back the wrong horse and wind up with nothing good to show. The safest course of action for those lacking in principle will be to work at polling stations and have selfies taken with all candidates, thereby showing their commitment to party principles at the expense of personal agenda. The UCP will win the next election with a narrow majority or a possible minority.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My guess for 2019: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">UCP 46 seats</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Alberta: 22</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">NDP: 19</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Liberal: 0</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I think the Alberta party is going to pick up support in places like Stony Plain, Sherwood Park and other constituencies where champagne socialism is popular, the Alberta Party will be the urban upper middle class party and the NDP will keep their strongholds of tired huddled masses. Liberal's in Alberta will return their status of being extinct as even Mandell and Lukaszuk sense the toxicity of the brand name, even if it is their rightful home. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Make Alberta Great Again.</b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-52533734222560139192017-06-09T07:20:00.002-07:002017-06-09T07:20:33.340-07:00I renamed this blog. <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This used to be called "the insiders guide to how things are" and I realized that in a very limited scope this was a good an accurate title. I am pleased however today to announce that I have expanded my view and am no longer all that interested in my own opinions. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am very pleased to announce that to capture the big picture I have plagiarized the work of my hero Douglass Addams and just renamed this: The blog at the end of the Universe, in honor of his great hitchhikers book: The <u>Restaurant at the end of the Universe</u>.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial;">those of you who are familiar with Addams work will get this, those who are not, probably won't. Let's all enjoy the ride as I am off in a totally new direction of appreciation, recognition and gratitude. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Time to take a big picture view and not get so hung up on the actions of small minds in big jobs, politicians or anything else that has not evolved since the dinosaurs. My new blog will feature inspirational quotes, predictions for the future of garbage eating bacteria and why my truck is going to come out on top of any accident between it and an autonomous electric vehicle, Otherwise known as a Johnny Cab, if you are a fan of Arnold and Total Recall. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I am going to ask you to support causes and think about things that cause ill in our society. We are blessed in North America to live in palaces, drive huge machines and make more money in a week than many in other places do all year. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I think there is no excuse for homelessness or untreated mental illness in this country. Every person has potential and those of us, who have done so well being self centered and narcissistic need to realize our fortunes can be fleeting and it is impossible to give away more of anything than you get back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I have had a phenomenal life, of self importance and instant gratification, my goal now is not to criticize anyone for how they are, because I do not know their story. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Feel blessed, because you are. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-32689741808112056482017-06-06T07:21:00.000-07:002017-06-06T07:21:14.037-07:00Falling off the pedestal I made for myself might be the best thing that ever happened<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">We all do it I think, place ourselves on pedestals where our issues are so unique or special that there cannot possibly be anyone who has a similar fate. We place ourselves on pedestals and just enjoy the view of the misery. I've had a lot of self inflicted grief in my life, so unique I thought, so special, until I met some people with exactly the same life experiences and I realized that my pedestal was a more prison than monument.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Last week was awful, worse in a long time and so unique, or so I thought. But then I met a group of people who were experts in having awful weeks and I realized that, in comparison, which one should never do, my awful was kind of tame, or so it made me feel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">It has caused me to look at people in a whole new light: We see the Facebook clichƩs that say things like "don't judge because everyone has their own struggles" and such, and like most people I took it not to heart at all. I have grown an appreciation for people, the drunk who is begging for money at a stop light is not, likely performing his life's work. He did not wake up one day and say "I should drink Listerine and beg for loonies". His addiction is not his alone, it belongs to us all because we are all people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Some of us are luckier than others, we have nice homes, nice cars and good jobs. We don't think about where to sleep or how to steal food from a dumpster. We have our shite together and that is mostly good luck with a mix of planning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Many people don't know how to plan, or foresee the consequences of behaviour, they never learned. They get themselves in shitty situations that everyone else could foresee I am a sudden big proponent of dignity, that each person deserves to be treated as we, ourselves, would like to be treated. That our luck, or planning or upbringing should not isolate us from those who are not so fortunate</span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-26706091768195281872017-06-03T21:52:00.003-07:002017-06-03T21:52:40.663-07:00The more I mind my own business, the better it is for me.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Leading researchers have concluded that minding your own business is the key to happiness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I cannot count the number of times I was annoyed, surprised or stressed by information, that would have on close examination been determined to be none of my business. Which poses two questions:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">1) Why do I react if it's none of my business? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">2) Why don't I say it's none of my business?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This is kind of my new strategy for life answering these questions. We all know the scenario. The drama starts and we get involved, either because we are told something or because we think some injustice might have been done so we help. The first rule of a good narcissist is to not take responsibility for anything, and by involving me in some drama of some sort, and I responding, I am giving control to the narcissist. I give the bastard an out. I give him, or her a way to keep themselves being the center of attention a little longer. My new adage is "not my circus, not my monkeys" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">We don't say things like "If it don't have my name on it, it's not my mail" very often because as good people we don't want to offend the other one. We are helpers by nature and design, our lives are typically fuller when dedicated to service of others. So we help and saying no is not a natural reaction as it is counter intuitive. It takes will power to say "not my circus, not my monkeys" The narcissist will think you are trying to withhold something and they will try harder to get it. Until they give up, and if you capitulate, they win. And they love to win.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">So, "not my circus, not my monkeys" is a very useful tool for cutting the legs out from under potentially dramatic situations. My new goal is to just sit back and wonder how naĆÆve some people can be. Including some stories people tell themselves that could be on an episode of Family Guy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So rather than spend my days trying to protect stupid people from themselves, and as a result encouraging more stupid people to try and book appointments, I have decided to mind my own business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">You have three choices for my involvement in your drama:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">1) You can take my advice and I will back you 100%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">2) You can tell me what you are going to do, then do and I will back you 100%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">3) If you say you are going to take my advice, or don't bother to do what you said you were going to do and come running to me when it goes to shite. My answer to you will be: "Not my circus, not my monkeys"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If experience is any sort of teacher, my work with some people just got a whole lot easier. </span><br />
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-32897152142887414592017-05-24T11:06:00.003-07:002017-05-24T13:47:36.514-07:00Momzilla: funny stuff that happens at weddings<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I pride myself on my dark and twisted sense of humour. I also think that no matter what feedback the "pays the same" this is especially true at weddings. With the nuclear family having been made into the real weapon of mass destruction a lot of people are opting for alternatives to traditional marriage. People my age have given far too much money to lawyers and you can only get married in some religions once. It's good business for me and my secular commissioner colleagues since non-secular church weddings often involve regularly attending church before hand and this does not seem to be quite as popular as it used to be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">There is an advantage to a church wedding however; seldom does anyone get all grumpy with the priest or rabbi about how the service is to be conducted. Normally the priest is using some hour hundred year old sacramental ritual that doesn't have a lot of flexibility, so you know what you are getting. There is a lot of sign of the cross making: spectacles, testicles, watch and wallet. Some Latin: my father plays dominos better than your father (say that out loud real fast, you'll get it) and icon worship that nobody really understands anymore. But all in all it's peaceful, lovely and pipe organs kick ass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">When getting married in an alternative venue, be it a community hall, an old barn or on the veranda of the Magrath Mansion, which is just down the street from my house. Often a new dynamic kicks it and it is: Momzilla.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This needs further definition: usually, but not always, Momzilla is the mother of the groom, she has really nothing to do on her sons wedding day, whereas the brides Mom is busy with pins and curling irons and generally fussing over her little girl. Worse, for a lot of groom Mom's she is divorced, somewhat bitter, single and the grooms Dad shows up with a date who is younger, hotter and despised by everyone. In extreme cases Dads date will look like she was selected off a foreign wives website, because, often this is true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">In one notable example; the date was smoking hot and just off the plane from Russia. It was obvious she already had her sights on something better than Dad. She was working the room. The grooms Mom was a very nice lady who had strong opinions after her third glass of wine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The person who gets to tame these circus lionesses, is of course, the marriage commissioner aka me. I have had many a groom mom offer me suggestions at the last minute, as her son is busy doing vodka shots with the groomsmen and there isn't really anyone else for her to talk to. I've had them change the script, which I promptly ignored, or suggest that the sunlight will be in the brides eyes and maybe we should rethink where everyone stands I nod my head and I promptly ignore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Mother of the bride is only ever a huge problem if she is someone of wealth and feels that in paying for this event she should get a major role in how it comes together. I have had Momzilla's attend the pre-meeting, the rehearsal and of course the ceremony. Often there are several pre-meetings and much fussing about what colour of tie I will wear. My new policy is if you are getting married in a venue that charges $1,000.00 or more just for the space, I'm not your guy, I only own four ties, A Guggenheim and three Gerry Garcia's. I also don't wear a tux. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Momzilla may not realize she is overcompensating, sometimes she just wants a simple and perfect day for her kids and other times she is so crazed with trivial details that she needs to find someone's balls to break, she's been doing it to Dad for a long time and he's already into the scotch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Sometimes though it is very good: recently I had an nice experience with a Mom, the kids had a little girl three weeks old and Mom wanted to be at the front with me, so I cut her into the program and let her say the non-legal bits while she held her first grandbaby. She was happy, which worked out all around. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This is an interesting ethical dilemma: lots of Moms are my age, single, attractive and professional standards are a bit of a grey area. But like they say, if I have to have a problem, this is the one to have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">How to avoid all this drama:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">1) It's your wedding do what you want. I did a biker wedding where everyone wore their colours including the bride and groom. I have also performed house weddings where the TV was on, of this I am not proud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">2) Figure out how to deal with Dad and his child bride from Thailand ahead of time, like maybe just elope, or tell him to leave her at home. He will get it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3) Give the commissioner a heads up if you know of some unmanaged family dynamic and is likely to rear it's head. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">4) Nobody can stop your wedding: When I ask the question if anyone knows a reason why you can't be married, the list is pretty short; not getting married in your parents church is not one of them. I have on occasion, spoken to Mom and Dadzilla and asked if is this is how they want their daughter to remember her wedding day? I am like a baseball umpire on this one, it ain't nothing till I say it's something and you can't argue with the ump. So don't sweat it we know the rules. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">5) If you are on a budget, buy your rings at a pawn shop, come over to my house with two witnesses and we'll do it right here in front of the fireplace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">6) Unlike priests, the commissioner generally does not attend the reception, I may have a glass of wine at a house wedding, but the expected standard is to perform the service, get paid and go. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Being a marriage commissioner is a lot of fun, since I also do house inspections, I had one couple that I married call me for the inspection, she was pregnant and asked if I was a Doula too? Fortunately she was kidding. They had a good simple wedding, bought a good simple house and had a nice baby. A great way to start life together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Second marriages are generally a lot simpler, most because everyone is older and has a "been there done that" attitude, which can make for an awesome party. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-79384847468071390022017-05-01T15:01:00.000-07:002017-05-01T15:01:47.265-07:00Climate change, science and phobia<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My last post was about the "Monkey Mind", that state between sanity and information overload. This topic occurred to me when a friend commented on Facebook that he couldn't tell if it was global warming or global cooling, to which I responded "It's always global something". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Global something, indeed, I am not a "Climate Change Denier" I am also not convinced that people are so bad for the planet that we should eliminate ourselves from it. We have to eat, we have to get places and in Alberta the only thing that keeps us from freezing to death is central heating and quarter inch thick pieces of glass. I actually do understand some of the science and the model of a positive feedback loop:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The more ice melts, the more dark sea water, dirt and rocks are exposed which absorb more heat, melt more ice, which causes more dark sea water, dirt and rocks to be exposed which absorb more heat and melts more ice. That is a positive feedback loop and climate change in a nut shell. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Science will also tell us that young trees sequester more carbon than old trees, so cutting old trees and planting new ones, like the forest companies do, is good for the environment. In nature, a tree will eventually release all of carbon it has sequestered when it dies or burns down. That's why trees are carbon neutral and if, you can make something out of the tree before it dies or burns, like lumber or paper, you are actually sequestering the carbon forever. So buying more paper and cutting down old trees for lumber seems like a good solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The worse thing about the climate debate are the people doing the debating, if climate change and carbon sequestration are well beyond the purview of elected or self appointed leaders from any party or group I </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">got to thinking: what motivates the folks in this debate and I have found some great medical phobia's that might describe the whole thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions</b>: Especially ones you don't agree with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Euphobia- Fear of hearing good news:</b> Most of the people in the climate debate are clamouring for bad news.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge:</b> This one is pretty obvious on both sides.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words:</b> This is why science is having such a tough time making inroads. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Hypengyophobia or Hypegiaphobia- Fear of responsibility:</b> Unless, of course it fits the election cycle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Next time you wonder why nothing but doom and gloom seem to be forthcoming on this topic, this might help explain a thing or two. The folks involved aren't just zealots, they have deeper issues. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's where I see it going: Climates change all the time, if not we'd be yielding to tyrannosaurus's on the highway and our beaches, deserts and mountains would be all wrong. We have survived ozone layers depleting, Chernobyl is the most natural place in Ukraine, nature just created a beetle that eats plastic, this critter will be popular until he eats a hole in your $400. MEC backpack. Carbon dioxide, like natural gas in the Turner Valley days is simply a compound for which we haven't found a use yet, but we will, of that I am sure, because while the science of climate change remains fuzzy over who we should blame, the science of fixing it, regardless of who's fault it is, is going ahead full speed. And that is the beauty of being human and loving science.</span><br />
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-37148979993557356462017-04-05T09:31:00.000-07:002017-04-05T09:31:24.558-07:00Monkey Minds. Avoiding manufactured discontent.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was frustrated by the radio, I have it on all day as I work and it seemed like every station had exactly 12 songs that they played over and over again. Katie suggested I tune in CKUA, and I did briefly as I got an ear full of very obscure classical lute music. The more I listened the more I noticed that they don't repeat any music and play everything from classical lute solo's to Corb Lund and rap. The other things I noticed was there is no news, no mindless banter by a bunch of talking heads and mostly no opinions, or advertising. I tuned every radio I own to this station. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This blog is not about mindless banter, (or is it just that?) it is about the thought process behind avoiding mindless banter and how I stay in touch with a world that is about as out of control as it could be. We are endlessly barraged with fears and cures: You have this problem, buy this to solve it. And it's not just products, it's opinion: Here is the problem, this therefore, is the sensible opinion, all others have to be wrong, because this is how sensible people think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This is how climate change skeptics are kept under control and religious opinion is held to a minimum. It is basically refined censorship by public outing. A friend of mine recently made a comment on twitter about how being an MLA was the best job most MLA's would ever have. It was a GREAT job, I'd probably never do it again, but it was great. He was vilified for his opinion. Now you might agree with him or not, but opinion is never wrong. The reason I am being so selective in how I ingest and now post to media is a lot of my opinions are a lot harsher than his, but so long as the thought police stay busy manning photo radar I'm pretty much free to think what I want. Which includes not buying into manufactured discontent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Some things make me go hmm, like the Canadian media filming so called refugees from New York stepping through a muddy ditch on their way to safety in Canada. The hmm, part was a lot of the footage was filmed from the American side of the border as I guess the camera angle was better. Absorb that: This isn't about a not my president movement, this is about creating a nonexistent refugee crisis in Canada. Hell we could solve the problem by fixing the broken fence or installing an electric one. Refugees don't show up at the border with visa gold cards and Mountain Equipment Coop luggage. Point being, there is no such thing as an American refugee, just send them home, we don't need to process them or feed them, we need to hand cuff them and escort them back to the taxi that dropped them off. If we shot one the problem would be solved. These people aren't escaping oppression. They are escaping a duly elected Republican they didn't vote for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">But our media colleagues, who tend to kind of morph together have whatever opinion is on the teleprompter or handed to them by the advertisers, have us thinking we have a refugee crisis with Americans desperate to escape a duly elected Republican President they don't like, we don't. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Our own system is no better, I have only ever had two conversations with party politicians where they had anything good to say about the other party. Those two, by the way, were Ralph Klein and Pam Barrett. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So by divesting myself of the background noise of media, I am free to form my own opinions, look for good stories and find inspirational acts by others and there are lots today for example:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Kirsten Palten, a Swede, just ran 1,840 km across Iran to prove it was safe, it was. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There is a nun in the USA who, at age 86, has competed in 40 Ironman triathlons. They call her the Iron Nun and for those of us who went to catholic school they were all Iron Nuns. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Heterosexual men in Holland are holding hands in support of LGBTQ people, that's nice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The point is: I don't have the disease and I don't need the cure. There is a very good reason my TV has an off button and I have an MLB and Netflix subscription. So long as the beer is cold, the Cubs are winning and Longmire making new episodes, I'm happy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My solution to all this is, for me, called mindfulness and like Kirsten Palten demonstrates, the truth is not the same as the story we are being fed. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, it's much simpler than a conspiracy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">the Buddhists call it Monkey Mind, the inability to focus on what matters because we are being bombarded by useless things disguised as important things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If your house is on fire, you have an important thing to think about. If you are mad because Sarah Hoffman called Brian Jean a sewer rat, you are thinking about a useless thing. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-46608729599028038492016-12-22T13:50:00.001-08:002016-12-22T13:50:06.964-08:00Government revenue rule one: Only tax things people can't live without. Where DID all the smoke from the Fort MacMurray wild fire go anyway? <span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">As we enter 2017, it's time to gaze into the old crystal ball and make a couple of predictions about the Alberta Carbon Tax:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">As a strategy, taxing something people cannot live without, like carbon, is a brilliant way to provide a secure stream of revenue to government. Taxation of things that are optional, like beer and cigarettes always results in less demand for both, carbon though is beautiful in that we cannot live without it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Can't live without it you say! I'm a free range organic Vegan I don't need carbon. Right, name one thing you, as a free range organic vegan, consume that does not, at some point, ride in a truck? Trucks are fuelled by diesel, gasoline or propane which is a carbon constituent, therefore no option exists, if on the other hand you only eat food that naturally falls off trees you might be different. And never forget that eating local isn't an option in Alberta in winter, unless you have a potato fetish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Not heating your house is not an option, wearing an ugly sweater will just make you look goofy and will not save the planet. Heating with wood isn't an option, if we encourage people to do that there won't be a tree within 100 miles in five years. This would be detrimental to photo radar as they would have no bushes to hide behind, and the smoke would cause all sorts of health complaints, especially from those who don't have wood stoves and who's homes are poorly insulated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">So carbon, is by it's nature the ideal constituent for taxation. Everyone uses it every day, aside from water there is no element more commonly consumed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The hue and cry from the population will lessen over time, people will adapt and they will complain and in 2019 likely vote for the person who agrees that a carbon tax is bad. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">That person upon taking office will realize what a great deal this tax is and will be loath to cancel it sighting the shortfall in government revenues that need to be made up in a diversified economy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">And the prediction:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The carbon tax is going to be replaced by a general sales tax. "We got rid of the carbon tax but we really need the money, so here's a three percent sales tax" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Premier Notley could have saved a lot of angst by just being honest and going straight for the sales tax, but that would have missed out on the whole diversification boondoggle and looked like a cash grab. The carbon tax is a cash grab, but one with moral and pure intent that cannot be argued against because the climate is changing and we have to protect the children, ignoring that Alberta, indeed Canada is already basically carbon neutral thanks to the Boreal Forest that covers so much of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">There is no talk of planting more trees to sequester carbon, nor are there incentives for the reduction in carbon, just a nuisance tax that will eventually be organic, much like the GST. The GST is, of course, another tax Conservatives swore they would get rid of but somehow never did, the same thing will happen here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">It's still the green phase of the election cycle, yellow starts next year and red in 2018, The Premier knows she has two years for people to get used to the idea and if she does lose the next election, which is a strong possibility, don't expect this thing to go away even if she does. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Merry Christmas<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-86041514739515984172016-12-08T14:46:00.000-08:002016-12-08T14:46:42.431-08:00Cute old houses with dark secrets<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like old houses, I don't like the lack of basement headroom or wonky old wiring and plumbing, but an old house in reasonable shape usually has a nice yard and parking that is lacking in a new home. A lot of things about old houses are either inconvenient or inadequate, if you have power bars plugged into extension cords, or the bathroom light switch is behind the door you know exactly what I mean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Take this furnace for example:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFXh-WmyMj5_hik89EbuHXbMzM7KI22VQBcka5D0sUQMUhn4F6rXvYwOvcJ0hSNiJNziS4QazDttyyFd84Fxa3Jfm_m6uAdjSb3LoX8bvqWuJUcUdlyDMx66yVAhY9474humlxQGQeBjM/s1600/BE159E40-B29F-4785-AC07-24E7D0FD33A9-5073-00000B2F06731E53_tmp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFXh-WmyMj5_hik89EbuHXbMzM7KI22VQBcka5D0sUQMUhn4F6rXvYwOvcJ0hSNiJNziS4QazDttyyFd84Fxa3Jfm_m6uAdjSb3LoX8bvqWuJUcUdlyDMx66yVAhY9474humlxQGQeBjM/s320/BE159E40-B29F-4785-AC07-24E7D0FD33A9-5073-00000B2F06731E53_tmp.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a Rheem gravity furnace. It's called a gravity furnace because it does not have a blower fan and depends on the physics of hot air rising and cold air falling to heat the house. In 1940, which is approximately when this old girl was installed, this was a pretty good system, even if the power went out the house would stay warm. Gravity gas furnaces were upgrades from the old gravity coal furnaces that occupied the neighborhood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My grandparents were the last people on this street to switch from coal to natural gas in, I think, about 1975. My Grandma was afraid of gas because she thought the house would explode and no amount of pointing out that none of the other houses in the neighborhood, which had gas furnaces, had exploded would convince her. Grandpa would run out of coal every time it got real cold and at 30 below zero we would go to the Starkey mine for a load of lump anthracite coal. We shovelled the coal in and hauled ash pails out. Grandpa would jiggle with the dampers to create heat and as a young kid I thought about it not at all except when I was shovelling coal or hauling ashes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">All the people in the neighborhood had, by this time, switched to natural gas with furnaces like the one in the picture. These monsters gobbled up the whole cellar, which was, in those days just a place to store coal and huge furnaces. They were a still an upgrade and a boon to everyone except the coal salesman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The first gas furnaces worked exactly the way the coal ones did. Gravity, which the Rheem brochure called "smooth heat".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">So here we are looking at an original gravity furnace in a house just down the street from where my Grandma's house used to be. Gas furnaces are safe Gramma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">What does a house inspector say about a 76 year old gravity furnace? A couple of things: it has been recently professionally serviced and the heat exchanger was tested in 2014. Furnace technicians can often go their whole career without seeing one of these, just like new automotive technicians can work their whole career and never see a carburetor, but the home owner did find someone who could service this unit still. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The key to gravity furnace operation is that the cold air has to have an easy path to the furnace so the hot air knows where to go. With a blower, air does, more or less, what it's told, with gravity, woe be tide the person who closes a door in a room, because the heat would magically, stop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">A small child could, and often did, sneak into the central cold air return ducts, in those days they were built of heavy sheet steel, riveted together and covered in asbestos. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Our parenting skills, like duct work and furnace technology has changed and we hardly ever let our kids play hide and seek in the cold air returns anymore. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Change the behemoth furnace? Possibly, yes but not absolutely necessary, it's a small house with four large cold air returns and when we looked at it, the house was warm. All the interior doors were open. The big issue is terrible energy efficiency, expect at best about a 50% efficiency, compared to a new furnace at 95%. Upgrading to a high efficiency furnace would probably cut the gas bill by more than half and cost $6-8,000.00 to do so. Part of the reason it is so expensive to upgrade to a modern furnace is none of the ducting is compatible and there is probably going to be asbestos in the system which requires professional abatement to remove. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Old houses like this, particularly in a blue collar neighborhood tend to get upgraded by amateurs, cheap to buy, handypersons often do creative things to make the house more liveable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Speaking of upgrades: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcsW2sD8Y_OpK8YwXqsSVOZjKuhku0Ur3UeSV-71t1F3Ptzb7zShyphenhyphens6jq9wOUqLxsIg1Dexsh_GIvgXLrBlj3XHfwYWWKrGb7yUjLG4n-0ASDzdFo9QQe0nblccubuwMN5M4VwvKNy8k/s1600/939EC031-7E92-44BD-AC32-13C4640370E5-5073-00000B2F000F094B_tmp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcsW2sD8Y_OpK8YwXqsSVOZjKuhku0Ur3UeSV-71t1F3Ptzb7zShyphenhyphens6jq9wOUqLxsIg1Dexsh_GIvgXLrBlj3XHfwYWWKrGb7yUjLG4n-0ASDzdFo9QQe0nblccubuwMN5M4VwvKNy8k/s320/939EC031-7E92-44BD-AC32-13C4640370E5-5073-00000B2F000F094B_tmp.png" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This is some pretty creative plumbing, that black thing on the steps in a drain line from the bathtub to the soil stack which is itself conveniently located in the middle of the stair run. Lack of access might be a reason the furnace has never been changed, it also tells me the house was probably built before there was a sanitary sewer on the street so the sewer was done after the home was built, or maybe it was remodelled, but based on the style of door knob in the picture, I doubt it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">That drain line did not need to run over the tread, but I guess it was a "what the hell" moment and the owner didn't have any 45 degree elbows to run it along the back of the stairs and didn't feel like driving to Home Depot to get two, beer may also have played a part in this decision. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The basement is dry but useless except to hold the furnace and hold up the house. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPf35nb8fKgjwt6fubpumdu7rGj87PFcANRRbV2BazltprDBYcXHrfbhPCUAzffzwgFOOP8scaCvWqvxyE3zvljJsLZtfsX9uM6mOt7IMvVwU5MDdClDAQi5L3s6UVxoMdaAKqggeFrwo/s1600/364F8A38-408C-4728-85E5-FE86EF5D8FD4-5073-00000B2F24301D0A_tmp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPf35nb8fKgjwt6fubpumdu7rGj87PFcANRRbV2BazltprDBYcXHrfbhPCUAzffzwgFOOP8scaCvWqvxyE3zvljJsLZtfsX9uM6mOt7IMvVwU5MDdClDAQi5L3s6UVxoMdaAKqggeFrwo/s320/364F8A38-408C-4728-85E5-FE86EF5D8FD4-5073-00000B2F24301D0A_tmp.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The block wall is not original, nor is it particularly well done, but it's a basement and there are some jobs that can be done badly without effect; nobody is going to see it or want to improve it, so why bother to point the mortar? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">This house is probably the cheapest liveable bungalow in a neighborhood you'd actually want to live in; nice lot and the main floor is well decorated. The folks who asked me to look at it with didn't want to go downstairs and once I convinced them to, they were sure that a media room was not in their future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The comments:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">1) There are cardboard boxes on the basement floor and they are old and dry, this is good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">2) The gravity furnace works after 70 years, this is good, although in the face of the new carbon tax this furnace will make the owners mad every time they get the gas bill. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">3) The electrics were upgraded to a 100 amp service, this is good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">4) There is one electrical outlet in each bedroom, not good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">5) There are two outlets and a gas stove in the kitchen, the fridge is on an extension cord, not good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">6) The house is loose; it is doubtful there is any insulation in the walls, maybe insulbrick under the siding, essentially if you looked at modern building envelope sealing techniques, you would find none of them here. It needs a monster furnace to keep the place warm because heat loss is so high, but if you keep the water away from the foundations and learn how to hand roll window putty, you could keep it alive indefinitely. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">7) </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">The deal killer? There is old wiring in the attic, worn insulation and very brittle wiring because of people putting 100 watt blubs in enclosed fixtures and cooking the wires. You can live with the furnace, but the wiring has to go. I didn't take any picture of it because I was busy trying not to disturb anything. I could write a book on why you should not put 100 watt light bulbs in old style fixtures. </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">The wiring is unsafe and must be replaced. I know several electricians who love to fish wires through tight spaces, they do good work but they aren't cheap and once you start the process of upgrading you have to do it all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The attic was insulated with wood shavings, probably an R5 rating, which for my purposes was ok because if the insulation was any deeper I would not have been able to examine the wiring, I just wish an electrician had checked the attic when he upgraded the panel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">$190,000 is not a lot of money for a detached house, we can expect to spend $20,000 on upgrades and have a house worth maybe $200,000. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The costs look like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Electrical </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">$6,000.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Furnace: $7,500.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Plumbing: $1,500.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Insulation: $2,500.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Fixing holes: $1,500.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Beer: $1,000.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Total: $20,000.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">After all this you still have a house with old windows, no insulation in the walls and a goofy kitchen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I make jokes about some of these things only because, I know how to fix them; for the average person this home is probably way too big a project, there are old renovations to redo and new work to be undertaken, much of it without any satisfying effect of praise from your house guests or your spouse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Get it inspected: buying and old house is not for the ill prepared or shallow of purse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Doug Elniski</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Elniski's BestHomes Inspections Ltd.</span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-24813658686153805292016-11-28T14:56:00.000-08:002016-11-28T14:56:02.086-08:00 How not to cause grief when altering the smell of things. <div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This primer, (you will get the joke later) is for people who enjoy the fragrant smells of things like essential oils, marijuana, it's mask incense and all sort of things we spray, diffuse or burn to make our homes or ourselves smell better than burnt popcorn or diapers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">First, there is no better air freshener than cleanliness. A little ammonia, bleach (although never together) or possibly some baking and your house will smell pleasant and clean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">When I walk into a property and I smell anything else, I am on full alert!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">What is wrong with scented candles or air fresheners? In a word, lots. Odor masking is a fanatical activity in our society, drag a dog turd in on your shoe or drop your hockey bag in the closet and people immediately break out the heavy artillery. Smoke dope and then try to mask it with scented incense and problems lingers in a different form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Our olfactory senses are out most easily fatigued, they get used to bad smells quicker than we get used to, say, not being able to see in the dark or living beside a train track. Things that smell bad to some don't bother those frequently exposed, which in large part is why people are able to work in hog barns to make bacon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">As a kid I grew up in the smelly end of Edmonton, my neighborhood, was downwind of the Stock Yards, Canada Packers, Gainers, Swifts, Burns, Alsask Processors and the Edmonton rendering plant. We kids knew what kind of critters had walked the stairway to heaven by the way the air smelled. Tuesday was the worse as that was hog butchering day at Swifts. The rendering plant, which boiled dead horses to make soap and leather, always had it's own unique smell depending on the age of the corpses. The stock yards, used to haul manure about once a month and that day was always putrid, even by our own rather low clean air standards. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">What we learned, however, was to live with it. Being kids of parents who couldn't afford to live anywhere else, what choice did we have? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">We did not have NIMBY committees complaining about the smell since most of the Dads in our encampment worked in one of the aforementioned plants. Except mine, he was a bus driver.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The point is we got used to it, my uncle the lawyer moved away as soon as his legal practice allowed and their new house in the south always smelled fresh and clean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Smell was thusly considered, a fact of life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>To today:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">When I enter a property and I smell anything super scented I always wonder what is being covered up here? And I add sourcing the smell to my list.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">A backed up sewer is easy to smell, as is excessive marijuana or tobacco use, so is a lack of proper ventilation. Often the best way to make a home smell better is to clean it and open the windows. Heavy scents seldom achieve their desired outcome. Mildew, dirty laundry, full garbage cans and unclean fridges all contribute to bad smells. Dogs, cats, babies, teens and men in general contribute as well. Women usually smell pretty good so I give them a free pass on creating bad smells, I don't however, give them a pass on creating pleasant masking smells. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Here is how your air freshener works:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The common ingredient in ALL air fresheners is some kind of oil and it does not matter which kind of oil because they all do the same thing. The oil is usually diffused by heat in a candle or other heating appliance and diffuses itself by air movement throughout the space. Spray air fresheners also contain oil that is diffused by a propellant when you press the spray button. In either case the same things happens:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The minute particles of oil, ultimately, being heavier than air collect on surfaces where they leave behind an oily residue, often so fine you can't even tell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Try to repaint:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The most popular paint is latex which is water based and as you know from science class; oil is lighter than water and tends to float to the top. The result for your walls is that when you repaint, the latex cannot make good contact with the surface as the oil on the wall is trying to stay on top. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">You might recall that it is very hard to paint latex over oil (alkyd) paint for this very reason. There is a lot of chemistry involved in paint making so likely there are those who won't agree about this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">People don't like oil paint because of the way it smells and that you need turps to clean it up, yet it's ideal for repainting a wall that has oil paint on it already. But then unless you painted that wall yourself last time, how would you ever know what kind of paint is on it? In practical terms you can't be sure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">So use a primer and take advantage of it's ability to dry on any surface and create a firm base for oil or latex top coats. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The poorer the surface adhesion is, (the more oil present) the heavier the primer needs to be and you will still run into trouble if you are not judicious in how you apply the primer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The best solution? There are many, all really involving removing the oil from the surface. Finger prints or your dog rubbing on the wall also contribute to the problem. I have had great success washing walls with Tri sodium phosphate. In fact any time I have not pre-washed a repaint job I have regretted it. Ammonia can be used but it's very harsh and like TSP MUST be rinsed off. Ammonia is an urea (cow pee) derived product that has remarkable properties. Any time you see a cleaning product labelled "with ammonia" save your money and just buy the ammonia. DO NOT SNIFF IT, you'll learn why not about 2 seconds after you do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Bleach will kill mould, ammonia and TSP won't, but as a base solution for eliminating bad, or good smell residue TSP cannot be beaten. Use it before you paint wash and rinse your walls then apply a proper primer and buy good paint. This is the best way to combat the olfactory war being fought on your walls between the competing interests of oil and a new paint job. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I have seen places that were so perfumed with scented candles that the new paint would not stick to the wall at all or where it did you could knock it off with a fingernail. It's very disheartening to go to all the trouble of painting only to find out that your paint won't stick. We used to find this to be a universal problem in kitchens and bathrooms because of the grease and oil loads in those rooms, thanks to the use of scented candle air fresheners and such we have successfully made this a problem for the whole house. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">And the house inspector asks: What are they trying to hide? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">There was a recent civil lawsuit in the United States involving a homeowner suing an inspector for not reporting that the previous owner smoked, the homeowner lost. It however a clue when you get a highly scented home that the owner is trying to mask something. Fresh air is the best, no matter how many "spring time fresh" dryer sheets I use , my laundry always smells better when it's dried outside, now anyway. When I was a kid, not so much.</span></div>
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<br />doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-85803723302707122992016-11-24T09:41:00.001-08:002016-11-24T09:41:18.473-08:00Making your homes value go away in a hurry, scary renovations.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My friend The Real Estate Ninja, says that smoking in your house will cost you $10,000.00 in resale value. Since she was a real estate broker I have no reason to argue with her position on this issue at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Recently I attended to a residence for another friend, (it's nice to have more than one), and what I found was quite impressive. Impressive in a bad way mind you, impressive that everything the home owner had set his hand to was done badly. Not a single repair or improvement was done well, legally or made much sense. Fortunately it was largely contained to the basement, he had virtually left the rest of the house alone, including, I'm sad to say housekeeping and maintenance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The place was a great house, nice area, nice little crescent and good curb appeal, yet even though the house had been on the market for over six months and every other house in the neighborhood had sold for more, the owner did not understand that his mishaps were keeping his place from being sold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Staging professionals will tell you that clean and uncluttered sells. A good smell is golden and well done renovations are pretty much a licence to print money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This house had none of these.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Rather than write a thousand words I am going to let the pictures tell the story:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8oG-oCqNKdXxcL6Isn2bEIjKYSBDV4BlK_zWPnlXcaDjuixt02mdwfVq_P9ERmEF_Z78wz-U6bjs___5VilFbjpEbzxnKo3sOm8XdHI16It89JkC2xqFHetF9ogdltbffRuykXtEnvw0/s1600/IMG_0498.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8oG-oCqNKdXxcL6Isn2bEIjKYSBDV4BlK_zWPnlXcaDjuixt02mdwfVq_P9ERmEF_Z78wz-U6bjs___5VilFbjpEbzxnKo3sOm8XdHI16It89JkC2xqFHetF9ogdltbffRuykXtEnvw0/s320/IMG_0498.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the dryer lint screen, an early warning sign that things might not be quite as good as they appeared. It led me to take a much closer look, lint is a great fire starter and by having a plugged filter he was asking for a lint related fire in the dryer duct. Major red flag.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyemjolGMG5C_B33wxgtRLbZwCi87IG1wUubd-lRfX3b8x3tJNZcynEp_BFKsCdMCGbxXWjNGkLBDeSX6Ax083xelaMmdJhWqdgwJ0rc_C3br7HZiD5YdQGuWHrl_bzEr1_ADORekhy48/s1600/IMG_0481.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyemjolGMG5C_B33wxgtRLbZwCi87IG1wUubd-lRfX3b8x3tJNZcynEp_BFKsCdMCGbxXWjNGkLBDeSX6Ax083xelaMmdJhWqdgwJ0rc_C3br7HZiD5YdQGuWHrl_bzEr1_ADORekhy48/s320/IMG_0481.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The range hood wasn't much better, there was enough grease here to deep fry a turkey. A flash fire on the stove and it is going to set this device on fire too. Another red flag.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now we know the owner isn't a clean person, or maybe they don't know about such things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lets see how this translates into handy work:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtZOp_-atBhanscMzS2kketK1ZQSy2Ied1AnXuwWIMkBBP8Ps8CfDnLu-q-ZcNIVLpeOUgxS8R9v4Opw9GCBcWMJ4dryq37yjlmvemwrN03hqqxJoRlLd5pAyMJjWUbcv7mobF2zHKPw/s1600/IMG_0517.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtZOp_-atBhanscMzS2kketK1ZQSy2Ied1AnXuwWIMkBBP8Ps8CfDnLu-q-ZcNIVLpeOUgxS8R9v4Opw9GCBcWMJ4dryq37yjlmvemwrN03hqqxJoRlLd5pAyMJjWUbcv7mobF2zHKPw/s320/IMG_0517.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This little gem is an attempt at insulating in the garage ceiling, trouble is the pink foam has no protection from fire, it needs to be covered by drywall. The owner went to a lot of trouble to use that board to hold it up there so maybe he's going to come back and finish the job, I have my doubts. Third red flag.</div>
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Onto the basement:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ20ukGjgeF6Twg-YMnytc5VZ3tP-Jz2T3xuV82q3tcwXf3NlNmd0KgISbbxDBpAPyswkZooZRf8HjXmy2WmAj4xViTjZ24pZVHhveiAJLCTKaodNHZ7x9u-Bm9AQLuuFxr3CgHRcMO5I/s1600/IMG_0520.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ20ukGjgeF6Twg-YMnytc5VZ3tP-Jz2T3xuV82q3tcwXf3NlNmd0KgISbbxDBpAPyswkZooZRf8HjXmy2WmAj4xViTjZ24pZVHhveiAJLCTKaodNHZ7x9u-Bm9AQLuuFxr3CgHRcMO5I/s320/IMG_0520.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nice drywall work, there was probably three times as much filler on the walls and needed and sanding it off is a nasty job so he left it as kind of a random textured effect that paint did not fix.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5YrMuYdHBczUtntaCacvmpHVldV1h3-0r6GZECrPGU3XtrToAH0CDxsjqveEJ03qkNTzvdkVZl79-A91KfdwqV2oHGqSP0gWNWLYqeuJjnwRA5rQAn9_EY2yogJezzsZ0qLsaRQB4vVU/s1600/IMG_0523.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5YrMuYdHBczUtntaCacvmpHVldV1h3-0r6GZECrPGU3XtrToAH0CDxsjqveEJ03qkNTzvdkVZl79-A91KfdwqV2oHGqSP0gWNWLYqeuJjnwRA5rQAn9_EY2yogJezzsZ0qLsaRQB4vVU/s320/IMG_0523.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is either a bad heat duct install or a bad drywall cut or some new way of having heated floors. There are a lot of good drywall installers in this city who need work, I guess he thought he'd save a few bucks doing it himself, how hard can it be?</div>
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Skills of the owner included electrical wiring. Now I am scared!</div>
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This one is funky, apparently no drill was handy when the third wire was run this will make putting the drywall on a bit tricky, one screw into the romex and it's be a shocking experience. </div>
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This, by the way, is virtually impossible to do, the box is too deep and I have no idea how he managed to put the faceplate on wrong, but he did.</div>
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There are a bunch of things going on in this junction box, technical enough that this alone will tell any good inspector that this work was NOT done by anyone qualified nor was it ever inspected.</div>
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Next is plumbing: This is supposed to be a trap for the basement basin and it is supposed to be a P trap, not much P going on here, I bet he paid $20.00 for all the unnecessary fittings in this picture.</div>
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I like this one, I find these plastic shower cabinets short too, creatively he solved the problem by installing the shower head sort of in the ceiling, the ceiling BTW was regular drywall which really likes getting wet. </div>
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Speaking of getting wet; if you thought this was a heat duct that wasn't hooked up you'd be wrong, this is the vent for the bathroom exhaust fan in the basement, it terminates in the basement, right next to the electrical panel. Nice....<br />
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Here we are: take a pretty house, do bad work and watch it not sell. Personally I'd lowball the offer, rip all the work out and spent $15,000.00 redoing everything right, Then I'd put the house back on the market for full list. I figure there is a quick $25,000 sitting here to be made. <br />
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My friend is not handy and could not see herself taking on a project like this, so she passed on the deal, it's still out there though.<br />
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Do yourself a favour: owning a hammer does not make you a carpenter, nor a screwdriver an electrician. Do it yourself work attracts a lot of attention from home inspectors as you can see, for very good reason, so if you do it yourself, do it right, get permits and have it inspected. We know when it hasn't been......<br />
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Doug<br />
Elniski's BestHomes Inspections Ltd. <br />
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-42603673971612450402016-10-12T14:19:00.002-07:002016-10-12T14:19:50.509-07:00CHABUDUO: The human element in failed construction or pretty well anything else.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Chabuduo:</b> a Chinese phrase I was introduced to recently that means, in rough translation: It'll do, close enough, or close enough for government work. It is the general expression of malaise that overcomes people when there is a disconnect between what they are making and the person they are making it for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The Austin Lounger Lizards, my favorite blue grass band have a line in their song <b><u>Industrial Strength Tranquilizers</u></b> "If we're good and work real hard, we save our pay until we are able to afford the kind of crap they make us build" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can hear the song here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk9fc8quDVw</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The point being, in Central America, the Caribbean and a lot of other places, buildings are constructed with a Chabuduo attitude toward construction, either because the $35.00 bze a day labourer knows he will never be able to afford one, or because developers are too busy selling granite countertops than solid and well designed structures. A lot of the dilapidated buildings we see, and a lot of the things that fall over in Hurricanes are classic Chabuduo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Look at the following failed Haitian structures: These are aftermath pictures from Hurricane Matthew:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we see here is the complete failure of buildings that probably weren't any good to begin with, s</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lapped together with what was at hand, unfit from day one for human habitation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Chabudou attitude caused as much damage as did the storm itself. When you employ either of these ladies for a day labour job in your nice home, you need to think that this is what they go home to. Your house because it has a gable roof and is well constructed, survives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The choice is very simple, build to the Dade County building code in hurricane prone locations, or build to and live with the Chabudou style of building and watch it fall down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now I am not suggesting that everyone gets the gable roof house in Dade County, we already know that isn't possible, however if you build in a hurricane prone place like Belize or anywhere on the islands ask yourself if you know enough about building to be able to spot Chabuduo at work in your home. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We import so much stuff from China that is broken when it gets here, or shortly there after that it's no wonder they have a word for it. I always think about some Chinese worker assembling LED Christmas lights and think, "how safe are these really?" Do workers in China really care about your Coach purse or Nike runners? I doubt it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We have a company in Canada that specializes in selling a real cheap house brand of tools made in China, they offer a great return policy because on some items 60% fail. Which is the same as if I built ten really cheap condos in Belize and only six fell down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>What does Chabudou look like on the job site?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It looks messy, piles of crap, tools lying around soon to be lost of stolen. Scaffolding that you would not climb yourself and lots of people standing around not doing very much. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My favourite place to find Chabuduo class workmanship is either the electrical or plumbing systems, site built waste traps that you can't clean, one outlet per room with every outlet in the house on one circuit and often by the time you spot it, fixing it is virtually impossible, or at least very expensive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">People make expensive assumptions about construction quality and since knowledge of such things is generally not widely held there is a lot of room for Chabuduo to set up housekeeping. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>What to do?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">1) go back and look at the pictures and decide which you want after the next hurricane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">2) manage your construction project, or if you can't hire a reputable third party to do it for you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">3) Inspect new construction more than at take over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">4) Read your contract: know what the builder has promised and make sure your guy knows what's in it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">CHABUDUO: It's everywhere, you have to do your diligence to prevent it!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Doug Elniski</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">www.Besthomesinspection.com</span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-72282824278901167582016-10-05T15:04:00.003-07:002016-10-05T15:12:36.352-07:00Firing badly. It's gonna cost you.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Managers tend to be myopic thinking about costs and HR people are more concerned with the rest of the employment lifecycle to give termination much real deliberation. They think they know the correct way to proceed, but in reality they probably don't. Few organizations have good downsizing or termination strategies and they have a lot at risk as a result. For the sake of argument I am going to call every dismissal a firing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">When firing an employee, you lose:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">That workers relationships with your customers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">That workers proprietary knowledge and experience</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The inevitable "who's next" amongst the rest of the team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Companies who fire senior people without forethought risk all this and more. The inevitable vacuum is problematic, word of mouth will create rumours as to the reasons and the likelihood of bigger, hidden issues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Surprise firings of senior people speaks to bad planning and rash decisions. The long term effect on the employee is usually nothing, the long term impact on the business can be very real in terms of dollars and cents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">There are ways of doing this that protect the organization and, frankly, not a lot of HR people see the bigger picture, neither does the CFO or the supervisor. It behooves the most senior executive to understand what the impact is likely to be and plan to mitigate it long before the act occurs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Now sometimes, organizational restructuring happens and in these cases the best advice I can offer is to fire the assholes first; everyone in the company knows who they are and if you don't then you don't know your business. Get rid of the assholes, bullies and sycophants. Most of your staff will be grateful that you did. When you, instead, terminate the most popular manager you have, you will find, as a consequence and after time that your staff never really stop staying in touch with the good guy and sooner or later, someone, or more will leave your organization to go work for the good guy at his new place. </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Some of my best recruiting comes from exactly these circumstances, believe me, people are more loyal to each other than they are to the business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Your lawyer probably isn't going to be much help, few lawyers look at firing s from the perspective of anything other than contract.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">You might get some carefully drafted language in the fired managers separation agreement that says they can't recruit, but just as nature abhors a vacuum, so to will your existing workers ignore an agreement they are not part of and recruit themselves into the good guys business. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Understanding these dynamics is useful for post incident consideration, but there is more: As the CEO or VP here are a few thoughts to keep in mind that should influence your decision making and firing methodology:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">1) Who's the to be fired manager sleeping with? Are you breaking up any extracurricular relationships, real or implied? I know we'd all like to deny this happens, but come on, you know it does, and it does. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">2) Is the to be fired manager financially stable? This is a tough question, a lot of times people are looking for "one more severance cheque and then they can retire" other times they have problems that are very real.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">3) Is the to be fired manager likely to be vindictive or spiteful? Loonie tunes shoot up post offices, other people just go postal on social media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">4) Does the to be fired manager have family in the company? This is tricky and tough, if you chose to fire everyone with the same last name expect a human rights complaint. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">5) What were the circumstances of their hiring, were they recruited, by an associate in the business? If they were so good that you stole them from the competition, why aren't they that good now and have you questioned the judgement of the person who hired him, who else did that person hire?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">6) What kind of job did they have before? If the hiring was a promotion, why?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">7) Is their health good? If you are terminating someone with health issues, what is your plan to mitigate liability?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">8) Are they armed? Don't assume anything in this regard, an accurate shot and a quiet burial have been contemplated by more than a few unstable people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">9) Do they know anything that can hurt you? Are they privy to any corporate behaviour that is not 100% above board? That government inspector your manger took fishing suddenly comes into play. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">10) How will they get home after the firing? this is important because whoever drives them home needs to keep notes, some crazy shite is likely to be said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Each of these topics needs consideration beyond the basics of you not wanting that person to be there and at the end of the day it's all about money and security. Properly done, a firing, while never pleasant, can be structured in such a way as to mitigate the risk to the organization. I am not particularly concerned with the employee, I am more concerned with making sure the business does not suffer as a result of the firing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I was fired by an incompetent idiot who didn't know he was doing me a favour and another time by a guy who really cared. There is a lot of honesty in the termination process and so there should be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">There are a million ways to die in the west and about the same number of ways for an employer to pooch a firing. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-13895838625705972912016-09-20T10:03:00.002-07:002016-09-20T10:17:10.696-07:00Damn it, they might be right, a hat trick in fact.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Before people go off on some Calgary sized outrage like they did about hats. I want to be clear that I do not support everything the provincial government in Alberta is doing, this blog however is about the stuff I think is going well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>One: Religious Education:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Normally when I talk about David Eggen I like to remind the universe that I kicked his ass in 2008 and gave the seat back to him in 2012, today however I want to acknowledge that he has taken on a very significant challenge and is doing the right thing by ordering an inquiry into the conduct of a publically funded school that does not wish to adhere to the guidelines of his ministry, I refer, of course to the Independent Baptist Christian Education Society who run two schools in the Edmonton area. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I'm completely in favour of freedom of association, of speech and of placing the individual ahead of the state, where the line is blurred however is when a publically funded institution, such as a school board chooses to go it's own way based, in this case, on Deuteronomy quotes about who God thinks you should be able to sleep with. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The year is 2016 and as a society we have changed our definitions of what many tings mean, we did not do this by accident or by insight, this occurred because different people, with very different ideas made compelling arguments that work. Such are the ways of the school act and the Gay Straight Alliances. I suspect in ten years the GSA's will be about as cool among kids as debating club or band, but for the moment, it's got all kinds of knickers, bloomers, thongs and jockeys in a knot about what this means to our kids and the future. Frankly I think it means pretty much nothing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">It's time to just accept what is and be done with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">If you want to have a school that does not believe in math, for example, because your ancient warrior God declared that "all a man needs is a bit of cyphering to get a fair deal in the market". Public scorn and outrage would be universal, such a school might exist, I don't know but certainly not within the public system, as long ago people recognized the importance of math and Algebra, (to the chagrin of kids everywhere) so we teach it without giving it a thought. And as a tax payer I am looking forward to the day when I can teach the Pythagorean theorem to my grandsons. If I want them to learn about religion well, that's up to their parents, not me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">In the case of the Baptist schools, Minister Eggen should expend the resources necessary to settle this issue once and for all. Religious freedom is great as long as we do not expect the public to pay for it. The Catholics might, justifiably, worry that this is the thin edge of the wedge and indeed it is, I was educated in the Catholic school system and can find no compelling personal reason why I would continue in that belief system, you might disagree and that's fine but as a friend recently stated </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">"Canada has no national religion, we are not a "Christian" country, we welcome all faiths, more or less equally, and people are free to bow to whatever divinity they choose" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Education should be the same, secular, based on standards with the ability to respond to the educational requests of the families. The Edmonton Catholic school board offers Delete repeated word education period. The Edmonton Public School Board has Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and I have no idea what else, and they manage to get along just fine. I can find no Catholic school program for Muslims, some girls schools yes, but nothing geared toward other religions, which is exactly the same thing as the Baptists are doing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Minister Eggen can make his mark if he does not cave in and deals, once and for all, with the issues of religious schools, If the public system can teach all these religions, why not a Catholic program, it could be done and we could eliminate this two school board mess and save a whole bunch of money that the government can spend on something else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Two: Sustainable "green" energy</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">We are not all going to be like newly minted (I was going to say child, but the guy is in his early 20's and that would be rude) MLA Horn from Stony Plain and ride our bikes everywhere; we are going to drive and play with snowmobiles and such. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Carbon taxes are wrong, but sustainable green energy could be the shot in the arm Alberta needs! By definition, cogeneration of electricity and heat is a very green idea and guess what? Fort Mac specifically and Alberta generally is awash in green power that doesn't flood valleys or go off when the sun sets, this could be our moment and I think the NDP got this one right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">By delaying the introduction of alternative energy we are really just biting off our own noses to spite our faces, lets cogeneration everything we can and make people think of Alberta as an energy superstar. This does not mean swapping your dually for a Prius, but it does mean that our internal efficiencies can rise quite dramatically. It really makes no difference if we export a molecule or an electron, except that if we are turning our gaseous molecules into electrons and being efficient about it we will have a much easier time of selling our fluid molecules. So bravo on this one, just try and get out of industries way once you decide what you are going to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b>Three: Showing up in New York.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Good on the Premier for travelling to the big apple to score some positive points on Alberta and energy. Attending a conference on climate is old hat I know, but we have a different face of Alberta now and like it or not, the NDP need successful industries to support their ever expanding social agenda. Rather than the constant battles of old rich guys against the youthful protesters who are funded by other rich old guys, let's show these folks we mean business and in the spirit of TRUE Albertans, let's rise to yet another challenge and show the world we have </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">1) a plan </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">2) implementation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">3) Industry support. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Now the coal guys aren't real happy, but even with thermal coal, there are gasification options that look awfully green to me, It's not a question that coal is "bad" per se, let's use of our technical brain power to make it cleaner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Now, of course if the NDP were committed to my ideas, which they probably aren't I'm guessing, the next agenda item would be nuclear power. That has the least emissions of all and is very clean, it's expensive, but it sure works in France and let's be real, if the French can do it safely, I'm pretty sure we can too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">So three thumbs up for the Provincial Government this week, the concepts are all good, lets see some action. </span></div>
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<br />doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-35935280836665569872016-09-16T09:49:00.007-07:002016-09-16T09:49:53.783-07:00The guy with the sign is a more effective speeding deterrent than the person sitting in the photo radar truck<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are two images and a bit of a lesson in consequences:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The vehicle in the top picture is out generating revenue by taking pictures of motorists speeding, the guy in the bottom picture is warning drivers that the guy in the first picture wants to take a ticket of them speeding. Which is the actual deterrent?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6RlIXUKomj4Ku4EB6bQsf76WBMvWHfiznQnZAUNRzoj2d5zZT24QMkeKcFtFPCCqWNlP4QZgns9kNCUXc6dqDIdF1dlewbruDX0qhOcWjhQL237uvWFNqXJUxehjIWIckXiPaCnXSUk/s1600/li-wpg-photo-enforcement-fi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6RlIXUKomj4Ku4EB6bQsf76WBMvWHfiznQnZAUNRzoj2d5zZT24QMkeKcFtFPCCqWNlP4QZgns9kNCUXc6dqDIdF1dlewbruDX0qhOcWjhQL237uvWFNqXJUxehjIWIckXiPaCnXSUk/s320/li-wpg-photo-enforcement-fi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiNBROymrxbyuSUT-IgKFMPyGtlOR5zsMthgW-4xxQv75rqT-_cdRXwW5DWq90QCDjVt53S95A7Cm93u6VqPOcnVCSBHVdiK8wW5Bhpzw-pOf7bQfEuls_HxGQr_mj9ksSaQvmgx1XANE/s1600/photo+radar+guy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiNBROymrxbyuSUT-IgKFMPyGtlOR5zsMthgW-4xxQv75rqT-_cdRXwW5DWq90QCDjVt53S95A7Cm93u6VqPOcnVCSBHVdiK8wW5Bhpzw-pOf7bQfEuls_HxGQr_mj9ksSaQvmgx1XANE/s320/photo+radar+guy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A very wise man named Aubrey Daniels wrote a book 30 years ago called </span><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Performance Management </span></u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">about how to positively and negatively reinforce behaviour so that behaviour would either be repeated or diminished. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His correct contention was the feedback and consequences, either positive or negative were the determining factor to whether or not a particular action would change. Key to this premise were two factors:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Certainty</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Immediacy, i.e. a correlation between the action and the consequence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniels, contended, correctly, that the key to either getting more of what you want, or less of what you don't want was to deliver a consequence that was certain and immediate.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Imagine going bowling in the dark and having your score mailed to you three weeks later, not only would this limit your enjoyment, but you would also lack any sort of feedback to determine if you were getting better, worse or if you made that railroad split ten pin bowlers are so proud of.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So too it is with photo radar in Edmonton. The guy in the bottom picture is FAR more effective at getting people to slow down than the radar vehicle because:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">1) He has created an immediate and a certain consequence to not slowing down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">2) Photo radar has no close proximity in time and space, you get a picture in the mail three weeks after you drove 56 in a 50 zone past an unmarked photo radar truck you never saw.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">From this one can only assume that the delayed consequence for speeding, getting a photo radar ticket in the mail is not a reliable deterrent or an effective means of creating consequences for the behavior we want; people driving at the speed limit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The issue is further muddied by the unclear consequence the purveyors of photo radar desire: Is the goal of photo radar to get people to drive at the legal speed limit or to punish them for not driving at the legal speed limit? This is not the same thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In certain areas you will see large signs that display the speed of your vehicle, indeed the Alberta Motor Association has created an traffic control group for tow truck drivers that include a portable sign to show how fast you are going, people see the sign and they slow down, or speed up to the correct speed. Nice and simple.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Photo radar on the other hand has no such attributes. You may not be aware you were speeding and get getting punished for something you do not even remember doing. If you get stopped by a real cop for speeding, it happens when you are speeding and you get a ticket or a stern warning. Immediate feedback and a certain consequence. All of this is wrong and missing with photo radar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Governments have deliberately missed the boat on consequences, and one can really only attribute this to their addiction to the revenue behaviour creates. Photo radar is cheaper to do than actual traffic enforcement and brings in the dollars. I think the cheapest way would be for the guy with the sign to stand on any busy road, people would slow down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So I am led to believe the real purpose of photo radar is revenue. Some would argue that if you don't speed you won't get a photo radar ticket, true, but it is not the fear of photo radar that keeps me from getting a ticket, it is driving with common sense to the conditions that does. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Photo radar is, in and of itself no deterrent at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Taken in another direction. a big source of government revenue is gambling. Oh we wax poetic about the damage done by VLT machines, if we really wanted people not to gamble, I could fix the problem in about five minutes: Every time you put a dollar into a VLT and lose the machine would shout "LOSER!!" people would stop using the machines in short order. But since VLT gambling revenue is important to government, they'd rather spend money on gambling addiction treatment to show they are doing something about the problem than make the process of gambling itself less rewarding. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In order for consequences to be effective they need to be immediate and certain. Any other form of consequence and I respectfully suggest one should: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">a) Find out who make the money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">b) Well, really the first one pretty well covers it.</span></div>
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<br />doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-52611442284848516612016-09-14T07:55:00.000-07:002016-09-14T07:55:38.621-07:00Find your passion: bullshite. <div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This will not be your typical political diatribe or some long winded complaint about the price of beer, or how school children now occupy seats in the Provincial Legislature because all of these things are things that will pass, mostly without long term meaning or significant impact. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Today is my 56th birthday and it's pretty much exactly the same kind of day that it is most years, except when I was seven and it snowed. I'm being nostalgic for a life I have enjoyed, people I have loved, people I still love and people I don't even know yet who I will probably love in due course. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For those not familiar I have been an executive, was the 773rd person in history to have a seat in the Alberta legislature and now, I am wearing Carhartt bid overalls and about to leave here to go build a small shed for a friend. All of my adventures to date, including the statement "one more severance cheque and I can retire" are summed up in my preference for Carhartt's over button down collars and cuff links. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Smattering of grey, white and pink paint, will tell you stories of the work I do for those I care for. Broken finger nails and a hole in my sock speak to what's important. And it's not what I long thought it was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My car is an old Mercedes ML320, I uses it like a truck. My truck is an older GMC 3/4 ton that I also use like a truck. I like trucks. More to the point however, I like what trucks let me do, they let me haul quantities of things that I can skillfully assemble into something necessary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I should have stayed in trade school, but who knew. I confused legislative advocacy as being more important than weather-stripping a cold door and assumed the executive role that determined the fate of so many would never back fire and determine my own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Thank you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">When my house is sold and the legal sabre rattling of divorce is settled, I will be in Belize; I will build, I will inspect and I will fix. My tools are good, my talents are many and as long as I have both my tools and, more importantly, my talents I will carry on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My tools were stolen recently, and during the process of replacement, I had a tough time finding things that fit well to my hand, and were automatic extensions of me. Tools are a very personal thing, this is why price is never an issue when buying a hammer for example. I still have and use my Dad's old 16 oz. Craftsman hammer, I also have a 22 oz. Estwing, a 16 oz. Estwing and a couple of others. I use Greenlee electricians tools for maintenance because they are just so comfortable, at $500.00 for a set of 21, they damn well better be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Being an Advocate and an Executive have led me to the point where I have very good tools and now it is my life intention to use them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Being by nature a minimalist, I allow myself the luxury of picking a few good things, instead of random piles of crap:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Purdy paint brushes, they ARE better than anything you get at the dollar store.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Estwing hammers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Makita cordless tools</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Milwaukee 12" mitre saw, the king of saws!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Greenlee tool pouch</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Craftsman and Snap-On mechanical tools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Bose sound system</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Apple Ipad and phone</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">All of which nicely fit in heavy duty totes that stack in my truck, either one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I don't care whether you consider my life a random collection of actions or not, I do know however that I will not be seduced by the "dark side" of so called achievement, fame or glory. I've had all those and, thank you very much, they have done little to improve my life more than being able to drive a 3 1/2" ardox nail into a board in one blow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I don't know who said there is as much dignity in plowing a field as writing a poem but they were right. I think we are distracted by this nonsense called "your passion" I think our passions are tarnished by our concerns about what other people will think of them. There is no calling that everyone will approve of and be so careful about picking what you love based solely on what you think it MIGHT be, it is more important to be clear minded about these things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm not going to apologize for where I am today, what I have or don't have because in every interaction I realize now I am at best half responsible. Failure in love or work is never a completely one sided thing, it's best to forgive, remember and move on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If it all ends for me tomorrow, there will be those who are saddened, those who rejoice and those who don't give a shit. As tempting as it is to try and reconcile with each group, simply let it known that I am doing what I love and if I had been smarter I would have figured this out a long time ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Drive your truck, fix your sewer, make laws, advocate, help people die, help people live, help yourself live, whatever. Nike, despite their child labour indiscretions, were right: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Just do it. </span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-73436913979110400482016-08-07T19:20:00.000-07:002016-08-07T19:20:17.280-07:00Managing expectations in Belize<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A recent Huffington Post report says the Red Cross has only managed to build six houses in Haiti since the earthquake in January 2010 and they have spent a half a BILLION dollars in donations doing so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/04/red-cross-haiti-report_n_7511080.html (why the hyperlink isn't working I don't know)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the story is to be believed, and it should not be entirely trusted, this reads like gross mismanagement of a half a billion dollars but there is more to it than this I suspect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we start at the bottom and work our way up, security of tenure is the absolute foundation. No NGO is going to build houses on land that offers no security of tenure and it becomes especially problematic in places with a lot of poor people. We can give them, tin, we can give them lumber and let people build their own, or we can solve the tenure issue and improve lives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not as easy as it sounds. Belize has a tenure system based on the Westminster model, that, like all things hundreds of years old, moves slowly. Too slow for the single Mom and her six kids who have no house. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The solution needs to be two pronged: Short term and immediate aid, which has already started and longer term security of tenure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The economy of Belize is in crisis but even this needs to be kept in perspective: In a comparison between sovereign Canada and sovereign Belize two numbers stand out, and in the case of Belize, potentially offer hope. I use the word sovereign, because the debt numbers I am using do NOT include, Canadian provincial or municipal debt. In Belize they do not have provinces, but do operate a district system with limited ability to borrow. To keep it level:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Belize</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Population: 351,700</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total debt: $1.2 Billion </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Percentage of GDP: 75</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Per capital debt: $3,639.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unemployment rate 10.1%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Per capital income $8,500 bze (pegged 2-1 to the US dollar)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2015:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Population: 36,000,000 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total debt: $1.42 trillion</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Percentage of GDP: 91.5</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Per capita debt: $39,634.00</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unemployment rate 6.8%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Per capita income</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$48,250 cdn (floating to the US dollar) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the Surface it looks like Belize should be helping Canada out.</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> The challenge in a sovereign economy of only 120,000 workers, is the amazingly low absolute upper limit on total dollars. This is true, whether we talk of government taxation or personal debt. In Canada, there is much more capacity and willingness to pay taxes and take on personal debt. The average Belizean worker has no such capacity. The tiny place looks better on paper than Canada, but this is absolutely not true and when we deal with expectations this has to be front and center in the minds of those contributing to the recovery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A sheet of plywood is $20.00 in Canada and takes the average worker an hour of his labour to pay for it. The plywood is also $20.00 in Belize and it will take the average worker NINE hours to earn enough to pay for it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">That is the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are no good ways for people to replace their losses in Belize, no insurances, for the most part and a very limited capacity to respond by the government. They are responding, and advising people to make good use of the materials they have at hand. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Hence the need for NGO's and foreign assistance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The other issue, and a particularly troubling one from a housing perspective is the lack of skilled workers, this makes coordination very difficult indeed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Do we rebuild the houses where they were and worry about tenure later, or do we build in new places where we can offer tenure and raze the old? My preference is the latter, for those who's homes are beyond redemption, but for those who's homes can be repaired, they should be repaired and while we are at it, we should teach some skills. I'm a carpenter by trade and I have a love affair with the techniques used in Belize. Imagine 1955, you needed a house or a garage you built one. It might not be square or level, but it's "good enough" and Belize is largely built around the "good enough" motto. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The approach should be: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Inspect it all and repair what can be repaired, local labour and material where at all possible. Do not fall prey to the notion that the home needs to be brought up to the current building code, just fix it so it's liveable, get people indoors don't worry about tenure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Build new as can be funded, be it Habitat for Humanity, Rotary or the Red Cross as funder. New builds will require tenure, once the new is built, assign the housing to those in need. Make they pay something for it, be it time building or a stipend rent. A simple Mennonite style house, perhaps 20' x 24' could be built for $10-15,000.00 usd. This isn't a granite countertop McMansion I'm talking here, it's safe, dry shelter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We could do a lot of good if we had about a hundred million dollars for this, the employment as well as the improved conditions will require serious commitment and coordination. It's all doable and will produce results, unlike the American Red Cross and Haiti which has managed to build less than six houses in seven years.</span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3883029754187346681.post-75154419346689636392016-08-05T22:17:00.000-07:002016-08-05T22:17:08.626-07:00What about the poor? Hurricanes are indiscriminate<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like to use a little poetic licence in my writing, the odd quip, pun or witty remark. This blog will have none of that for I wish to address, a more serious and underreported subject: How did the poor fair in all this? I think to make my point most effectively I need to take off my lens of political correctness, because honestly, most of the poor in Belize had nothing before hurricane Earl took it all away and they still have nothing, some maybe a little less than nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The Cayes, Placentia and parts of the Cayo are playgrounds for Ex-Pats. The poor in Belize are lucky enough to have a roof, whether it is a gable or hip is quite secondary, they aren't the people who live ocean front, unless it's in a mangrove swamp, they are the people who clean your house, rake your gravel, wash your clothes and live at least three blocks away, in conditions nothing short of appalling:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A mother and six children lived in the house in the background, they got out unhurt, when their house started to collapse from the forces of nature. A woman, raising six kids in Canada would have little disposable income, in Belize she has none is probably lucky to afford school fees for two or three of them. Squalor doesn't have to go with the scenery, how is she going to fix her house?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Imagine sitting in this house when the roof and the walls vanished, what little you owned was suddenly wet, or gone?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> There is no home inspection solution for this situation, there is no single or multiple failed component here, a tent would have been as durable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having a house is only good if you can get to it, In this case, the structure appears to have survived but the area is now so littered with debris and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">broken that it is not safe at all. Every kid in Belize is barefoot, let's hope tetanus shots are available.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least the evacuation route is clearly marked, by the looks of the house in the background they tried very hard to protect what they had, it does not appear to have been successful for what the wind did not take off the top of the building, flood water is going to take from the bottom.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We will persevere friends, there will always be poor folks in Belize and help will come where it can and for the most part will be appreciated. The best thing the average home or business owner can do right now, is hire and pay local people to clean up your mess so they have some money to deal with their own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In my home country, Canada, we have similar conditions on some of our first nations reserves, the big difference, is there is no social safety net in Belize, everything is very personal and for this we should be eternally grateful, because the lady with six kids will get a house, if I have to harass my Canadian friends in Rotary International to NOT build a playground and instead build something that helps one family, I will. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The ex-pats will pay me for my services and I am happy to oblige, but we cannot forget that the country runs, not on the cold beer on the beach, but on the efforts and commitment of the people who live in conditions we cannot imagine and for the most part, do not wish to see.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Help out, all kindness, like politics is local</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Doug Elniski</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">BestHomes Inspection Limited</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Belize CA</span></div>
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doug elniskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13353562018404744665noreply@blogger.com0