It seems we have come full circle with communication technology. Once upon a time, all we had to communicate with folks far away, was the the postal system or a telegraph using morse code. Then, along came the telephone. Wow, press a few buttons and you can actually speak to someone far away. Cool! Then, came the cellular phone. You don’t have to be connected to a wire attached to the walls of your house… you can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world with this little gadget you can carry with you. Super cool!

But now, we are using those cell phones primarily to send cryptic text messages back and forth to people. At least that’s what the younger generation seems to use it for. My 16-year old son regularly accumulated enough text messages on his cell phone to drive the monthly bill up by 20, 30, and even 60 dollars. At 15 cents a message, that’s a lot of text messages that say nothing more than: “Wassup?”, “Nutn”, “me 2, wtf”, “ruok?”, “yup, wan2 gwan a d8 2moro”, “yes qt”, “gr8 cu l8r”

This amazing technology that allows us to speak with people anywhere is being used to text people anywhere anytime. Seems like a mismatch. It’s only a matter of time when a cellular provider offers a product that can be used only for texting.

My phone goes so far as to anticipate what the rest of your sentence might be. This morning, I tried to type “Enjoy your day” to a colleague who was taking a well-deserved day off. After I had “enjoy” typed, it inserted “toronto”. I ignored that and continued typing “your” and it inserted “mom”. Both suggestions were wrong and to be honest, made me feel a little creepy. Brrr…

While convenient at times, I despise the things. I guess I feel that way mostly because of how accessible they make you when you may not want to be. I’ve resisted carrying them since the nightmares started in the Blackberry days of my previous job.

What do y’all think? Could you live without your cell phone? Would you miss it if it fell into a toilet and got ruined? (Hmmm, that’s an idea!)

(This post was created using the web-browsing features on my Samsung M500 cell phone… NOT!)

The Bad: I dropped by to pick up my van, I paid for the service, I got in my van, and I drove home, just as I expected. What I didn’t expect was what I saw when I got out at my house. I stepped back to take a broader view of the van with the summer tires installed and noticed that they were not my summer tires. Not only were they not my summer tires; they were not anybody’s summer tires. They were winter tires. But not my winter tires. My winter tires were in the van behind the back seat. Canadian Tire, in their infinite expertise, replaced my winter tires with somebody else’s winter tires.

The Good: I went back into Canadian Tire with my van. Neil, the manager on duty, listened to my story with near disbelief. “I don’t know if I was given the wrong tires when I bought my winters in December, or if I got the wrong ones today when you changed them back, but at some point somebody gave me the wrong tires.” He was appalled that someone there made such a mistake, so he personally went looking for my tires. He came back without them. Yup, they must have made the mistake in December and I unknowingly went home with someone else’s discarded old winter X-Ice tires. So, he made an executive decision to give me new tires, and off he went to take care of the next crisis. The clerk proceeded to find my new tires. Hmmm…. of all the tires they have, there was only one brand with a full set in stock. Their best. Michelin Destiny. Another check with the manager and the decision was made. They were replacing my adopted X-Ice tires with brand spanking new high quality tires. “Come back in an hour, sir, and we’ll have your van ready.” I’m a happy camper.

The Ugly: I wandered back into the service area about 45 minutes later. I notice that the service agent was putting my winter tires back on the car! I called the clerk over and had him correct the near mistake. Man! So I wander around the store for about 15 minutes and come back to the service desk when I think the van should be ready. There’s a hustle-bustle about. I hear murmurs… “Who approved it? Why did you give him the high end Michelins? Did you check his receipt?” I approach the counter and they see me. “Sir, when did you say you had the winter tires installed? Last December?” They searched and searched, but could find no record of me purchasing winter tires, or having any installed, in December 2007. They could only find a record of me getting tires switched over in December 2006, but no record of a purchase of tires in December 2007. I apparently bought a headlight, but no tires. I insisted, I did buy tires in December. I bought them at that very store, and I had them installed there. In fact, it was the same employee who sold them to me. They searched again. More murmurs, more shuffling about. I asked again… “What’s the problem? Do you not believe that I purchased my tires here?” They clerk, who was so friendly and helpful before, could say nothing but “I can’t discuss this, sir. You’ll have to speak with the manager.” What the fuck?!? They think I’m scamming them. More shuffling, more murmurs. Now everyone working there and everyone waiting to be served thinks I scammed Canadian Tire out of 4 tires.

I owe them 20 bucks (some sort of government tire disposal tax). So as I’m paying that, I insist one more time, “You guys think I’m lying?” The clerk said, “There’s no record of your service, sir. We are just being careful, but the decision to give you the tires was already made. Have a good night.” I was fuming. I rushed home, got online and went through my VISA statements. Yup, there it was. $570.09 on December 1, 2007, right next to the $43.29 at the same store (this one was for the headlight). I quickly called them up, asked for the manager, and told him I found evidence of my purchase. He asked if I could bring that in sometime, and I suggested “right now”. The store was closed, but he said he’d wait outside.

I arrived 5 minutes later, online printout in hand. I approached him and showed it to him. I told him that Canadian Tire managed to take a mistake and turn it into good service with the decision to take care of their mistake, but then turned around and ruined that by all but accusing me of stealing four tires. I was never so humiliated and I really didn’t appreciate the public display of doubt that served no purpose but to make me look bad. He said they were just being careful and couldn’t understand why their records didn’t show that purchase. I said “I don’t care about your records. I don’t know about your records. Maybe someone got lazy and entered Joe Schmo for my name and 555-1234 for my phone number. But I bought those tires here and someone in your store messed up and gave me somebody else’s tires. So, why do I feel like a criminal?”

He couldn’t apologize enough. I really couldn’t fault him. He was the one who made the decision to right the first wrong. Then he made the decision to upgrade the tires because the others weren’t available. He did what he thought was right. He apologized again and said he would talk with the manager the next day. I just might call and give the manager shit too.

So…. how was your day?

Six or seven years ago, my birthday was like any other day. By any other day, I mean nobody said “Hey! Happy Birthday!” The morning came and went. Got ready for work, went to work, had lunch. Nothing. Neither my wife nor son remembered the big day. I was actually kind of enjoying it, really. I thought I was chalking up a little piece of emotional blackmail to place on my side of the scales that are already weighed heavily in my wife’s favour. After work, I brought my wife to a hair appointment and returned to the house, awaiting her phone call for me to come pick her up.

When my son and I got home, he went outside to play and I sat and watched TV. Suddenly the door burst open. “Dad! Dad! Look outside! At that house down there! There’s a guy dressed up like Mickey Mouse delivering a bunch of balloons! It must be somebody’s birthday!” He went back outside, door slamming behind him. “Yes, buddy. I must be someone’s birthday.”

The phone rang. It was Donna. “Can you come pick me up?” I called out to Garrett and we drove across town to pick up Donna. When we got there, Garrett went inside to wait with his Mom and I waited in the van. I was parked nose in to the storefront. I could see the front cash directly in front of me. A few minutes after getting there, Donna appeared at that front cash with the lady who did her hair. They were ringing up the sale. Donna whipped out the VISA card and was signing the receipt when she eyed the date on the piece of paper. She got this horrified look on her face, looked straight ahead, and then slowly turned her head toward me. Clearly embarrassed, she mouthed the words “Happy Birthday”. I smiled broadly and mouthed “Thank you” right back.

She and Garrett came out and she stammered how sorry she was and that we had to do something for my birthday. I said it was no big deal, not to worry about it. But she insisted we go out for supper. So, off to Pizza Delight.

We got there, all smiles, and were escorted to our table. Donna occasionally muttered “I’m so sorry” as we walked over and sat down. The waitress came over and we ordered pizza. Just as the waitress walked away, Donna looked at me and said “I don’t feel very well. Really. I think I’m gonna be sick. You and Garrett stay here and eat…. do you mind if I wait for you in the van?” No problem, I said. And off she went. Garrett, who was about 9 at the time, was fidgety and sensed his Mom wasn’t well. “Can I go out with her?” Sure, I said.

I looked around the restaurant. All eyes were glaring at me. They all saw the three of us walk in. Some of them probably heard Donna say “I’m sorry”. They saw us whisper to each other, and then they saw Donna leave with a distressed look on her face, immediately followed by our son. I could read their expressions…. “You bastard! What did you say to them, you sumbitch?”

The waitress showed up with the pizza and looked at the empty seats. I asked her to box it up so I could take it with me. Her mouth said “No problem sir.” but her eyes said “You bastard! What did you say to them, you sumbitch?”

I hung my head and left. Happy Birthday, Stevie-boy, Happy Birthday.

I stole the above paragraph from the introduction section of CurlTech, a curling school website because my legs are too sore to write something original. Seriously.

On Friday night, I played the game for the first time. The social committee at work organized it and we figured it might be a nice night out of the house. It wasn’t serious play, really. We played three different teams, each game was limited to 45 minutes with beer and pizza served during the night. We actually only played a total of 8 ends because time ran out. So, in total, I threw 16 rocks and did some sweeping for my teammates. I actually had a great time and thought I did half decent for my first time out.

My first time is probably my last time. When I got up on Saturday morning, I couldn’t move my legs. I have never, never been so sore. For the life of me, I don’t understand how walking back and forth the ice a few times and sliding a couple of stones around would make my upper thighs so stiff and sore I find it near impossible to descend a set of stairs or lower myself to a toilet.

Go ahead, laugh. But it ain’t funny.

But I must say… imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

Thanks Hillary. Say hi to Bill for me.

Whether I’m passing up on a piece of Bill Gates’ fortune by not taking part in his email experiment or I’m not assisting some terminally ill child get into the Guiness Book of Records or I’m not helping some family find their abducted child or refusing to fill in some silly survey about myself or I’m testing fate thus guaranteeing death or dismemberment or simply refuse “make someone’s day” by forwarding a cutesy message to all of my dearest friends with the request that “I’d better get it back”… I’m simply not gonna do it. I simply read the messages for the entertainment or warm fuzzy feelings they provide and delete them.

Until now… THIS E-Mail chain letter is true. It is the only chain letter I’ve read that has passed my scrutiny. Only read on if you dare have your life changed forever. This is the chain letter of all chain letters.

If you don’t forward this post to 17 of your best friends, 4 of your enemies, and 2 people you haven’t heard from in 9 years, fuck all will happen. Oh, and you have 4 minutes and 33 seconds to do so.

But I’m not really a Christmas hater, it’s the “this time of year” part that really bothers me the most.

You see, it’s only November 15th. Christmas is almost six weeks away. So, it’s NOT Christmastime and hence using the term “this time of year” does not, or should not, mean the same thing as Christmastime. So, when I see Christmas decorations up in the stores or in my neighbourhood at “this time of year”, I get a little irritated. But that irritation has nothing to do with other people extending the festive season for themselves. It has nothing to do with the Christmas music in the walls of the malls. It has nothing to do with whether or not I like Christmas. (For the record, I LOVE Christmas.) I don’t even have strong feelings over the commercialism or have any passionate tendencies about putting Christ back in Xmas. The Christmas hype translates in to my family getting excited about Christmas which, in turn, translates in to work for me.

There’s 12 100-liter Rubbermaid containers in storage, holding all forms of Christmas knickknacks, lights, garland streams, candles, wreaths, stuffed animals, noise makers, placemats, tablecloths, miniature villages, train tracks, bulbs, decorations… you name it, it’s there. And it grows every year. I’m sure it’s 14 containers now, actually. This means work for me. I have to tug them down from the rafters, slug them in to the house, and lug them around to their destinations. What’s worse, is that many times over the years, I’ve begrudgingly toted our totes only to find shortly after becoming engaged in the activity of decorating that I’m alone. Yes… alone. My wife would be on the phone talking with family about how “we” were decorating for Christmas. Our son would be left the house with his friends.

In recent years, besides putting up the tree and the outside lights, my wife and son typically do most of the decorating. However, I don’t escape unscathed. I have to get up and say, That looks nice; No, please don’t use scotch tape on the painted walls; No, you don’t need a 3-inch gyproc screw to hang that wreath; No, I’m not cranky; Yes, I DO like Christmas; No, I will not use a staple gun to put the lights around our windows; You don’t need a 4-inch framing spike to hang that stocking; No… I said I’m NOT in a bad mood.

Oh… I just love this time of year.

I’ve learned something over the last couple of days. Actually, I’ve learned several things. I’ve learned that you can really piss people off if you give any hint of an opinion to either side of a controversial social issue; I’ve learned that people are very passionate about their views on those issues and will argue their points supporting them even if the discussion does not directly involve said issue; I’ve learned that you can disappoint people because of those views; I’ve learned that making a casual statement supporting one side of certain issues spurs others to believe you are passionately standing on that issue.

My last posting was about some news items and blog postings that had caught my eye that day. The web-cam image in my sidebar had the typical RDF weather conditions in St. John’s and struck me as blogworthy. A couple of CBC News feed stories perked my senses, one about a St. John’s woman treated unjustly by a Universal Studios employee because she was breastfeeding her child in a public area of the them park and another story about Ottawa’s plans to impose heavy fines on smokers who smoke within 30 feet of a bus stop. Finally, I read a blond joke that I hadn’t heard before. (Insert double-take here… HOLD the phone Steve… back up a couple of sentences.)

Did I type the word “breastfeeding”? Uh oh. Steve! You are such a moron!

Take this post as kind of a qualified retraction of my opinion. Firstly, I’m not that passionately opinionated about the issue of publicly displayed breastfeeding. I have been witness to it on several occasions in my lifetime. It attracts neither disapproval nor matter-of-fact approval from me. It does attract the same kind of curious, looking-out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye whisper-to-your-companion kind of attention as would a homosexual couple openly displaying their mutual affection in public. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Ok, I’m not gay-bashing, I’m just saying… oh, no… am I digging another hole?) It’s simply not ubiquitous enough to blend into the background unnoticed.

The real point I so poorly attempted to make was that folks should not be offended about others noticing you doing something that challenges the currently established social or cultural norm. For example: Yesterday, living together outside the sanctity of marriage was considered “living in sin”. Today, marriage without this “test drive” is uncommon. So, yesterday, it might have been common for people to have been met with social pressure or criticism for shacking up outside of wedlock. Today, it’s met with a shrug. No big deal. Yesterday it would have been unreasonable to expect premarital cohabitation to be accepted outright. Today it would be unreasonable to be morally questioned for the exact same thing.

This young lady was simply doing the natural thing. She was providing her child with life-giving nourishment in the way that biology intended. It would be hard to argue that she wasn’t doing what was best for her child. But… and there is a but… she did so in a city that was not her own, in a country that she was a guest in, in a culture that is not openly accepting of this oh-so-natural act of love. While it is arguable that the Universal Studios employee was being unreasonable in her stance (this is evidenced by the public apology issued by the company), it is equally arguable that it was unreasonable for this lady to expect that what she did would be automagically accepted by all who observed her behaviour.

So, ladies… feed you children to your heart’s content. Line them up two by two and sell tickets to the show. Sell the extras to Tim Horton’s and Cracker Barrel for all I care. Unless I feel strongly about it, you’ll not see me write about this anytime in the near future. I’ll keep my posts benign and limited to non-controversial topics like genetic engineering, stem cell research, religion in schools, religion in general, vegetarianism, affirmative action, capital punishment, right-to-life, the seal hunt, corporal discipline, cloning, gun control, circus animals, euthanasia, censorship, hunting, sex education, gambling, and whether Miller Lite has great taste or is less filling.

This is the image showing for mid-afternoon on St. John’s's ( or is it St. John’s’ ? … or St. John’s's’s's?) Webcam. Rain Drizzle and Fog. Typical. I hope that camera is waterproof. St. John’s is certainly the place to test it.

In other news today, a Florida theme part has apologized to a St. John’s woman for asking her to put her tits away. She was breastfeeding in a public area and was approached by an employee who told her she needed to cover up or leave. C’mon folks, I know breast feeding is “natural” and people have rights to nourish their children in the way God, nature, and biology intended, but for God’s sake… get a room! I mean, pissing is natural too, but if I whipped it out and tinkled in the wishing well at the mall, I’d be arrested faster than you could say “shake more than twice and you’re playing with it.” Sure, the kid needs to eat, but, like, show a little modesty. There should be some sort of garment or blanket or something that can be used to allow this sort of thing in a public place while keeping the puppies out of direct view.

Meanwhile, smokers in Ottawa can face fines of up to $5000 for smoking within 30 feet of a bus-stop. Holy smokes! FIVE GRAND?!? Now, I’m not a smoker, but this is ridiculous. People are outdoors and they are not allowed to smoke? So… I’m waiting for a bus and I’ve got to take 15 paces that-a-way to have a puff? What if I’m just walking past a bus stop and happen to be smoking? Must I put it out, walk 60 feet and then spark it up again? I don’t know, though. It might make sense. After all, you wouldn’t want the breast-feeding mommy sitting on the bench at the bus stop to breath in that second hand smoke, right?

And now for something completely different: A new blond joke (at least new to me) from my pals over at Steel White Table.

Three blonds were walking in the woods one day. They saw a set of tracks and started to argue about what kind of tracks they were. One thought they might be deer tracks. Another was certain they were wolf tracks. The third blond insisted that they were rabbit tracks.

They were still arguing when the train hit them.

The conductor was breast feeding and didn’t notice them standing there.

You see, I’m a firm believer that all things are relative. You can adjust your attitude by simply adjusting your perspective on the here and now. Sure, you could say that your day is going roughly, but compared to what? Compared to someone who has just lost his job and fears he may not be able to feed his family? At least you have a job, right?

But that’s a little extreme, right Stevie boy? Yes, I agree. You could ALWAYS invent a situation worse than the one you are experiencing. “Ouch, I stubbed my toe!” “Hey. Be thankful you didn’t get it frozen on a food-less trek across the Arctic and have your feet frozen and get gangrene in them and have them amputated from the knee down. You’d be wishing for a stubbed toe then, fella!”

That’s not how I approach it though. I dig into my personal experience, or the life of someone close to me. I once worked at McDonald’s. I was a manager there for almost five years before I got smart and went back to school. I’m not knocking the work; I learned a lot about work ethic, dealing with people, customer service etc. But it is a pretty shitty place to try to make a living. You work like a dog for every penny you earn. Besides my experience at McDonald’s, my last job had me working 70 to 90 hours a week for almost 18 months straight. I stressed out beyond my limits and saw no rewards for my labours. Only criticism, promises of more pay or bonuses that never came, and missed out on a lot of family time.

So, when I compare my job today with my jobs then, things aren’t so bad. I work basically, 9ish to 5ish. The environment is clean, there is free coffee, and it doesn’t smell like a deep-fryer. The pay is a little bit better than it was when I worked at Rotten Ronnie’s. The hours are much better than my prior office job. I have my health and so does my immediate family. Things are good for me. Sometimes the work is hard, but not as bad as it was.

You see, I didn’t need to reach into the bowels of my imagination to imagine a fate worse than death to find that relativity that re-positions my perspective. I simply look to another point in time of my own life. I remember when things were worse than they are today, or I put myself in the position of a person close to me who has it worse than I have it.

Things don’t look so bad. They could be better, but they certainly could be worse.

Have a great day folks. Be thankful for what you have.