2 comments June 22nd, 2007
Deb and I, checking the ally for PETA members just before we head out on another one of our weekly rodeo adventures. She ropes steers and I ride wild brahmas, and then take their horns.
Sure I’m green, but I’m still an Albertan.
Technorati Tags: Alberta, Suzuki Swift, Amos Lee, Rodeos
Add comment June 15th, 2007
As a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s post, and as well, a basket full of other interesting health bits, check out Connie Howard’s piece in Vue Weekly.
Technorati Tags: Vue Weekly, Connie Howard
8 comments June 12th, 2007
…Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine / I’m on the pavement thinking about the government…
The first time I moved to Edmonton I lived in a basement suite. 1978, if you’re asking. Another life, another time.
Anyway, I had no idea our tenancy in that little sunless domain could have been illegal.
Apparently, 90% of Edmonton’s basement suite owners have no idea either; or if they do, they’ve have decided the rules surrounding their subterranean suites are silly.
But easing up on below-ground suites makes obvious sense and should be one more piece to our housing shortage solution. At least a few of the city’s "working poor," currently living in our shelters, would jump at the chance to rent a basement suite.
So if you’re listening dear City Council…grow mercy.
If you’re interested, here’s what this morning’s Edmonton Journal had to say:
City planners want to ease rules on basement suites…Cheap housing needed quickly
SUSAN RUTTANsruttan@thejournal.canwest.com
If the city wants to aggressively promote secondary suites it should encourage them in new houses, not just older ones, a new report states.
The report from the city’s planning department says roughing-in the wiring and plumbing for a secondary suite in a new house would cost about $3,000. Building a basement suite in an existing house can cost up to $25,000.
However, the narrow lots of some newer neighbourhoods may make the addition of secondary suites - and the parking the tenant will need - a bigger challenge there than in older neighbourhoods with big lots, the report says.
City councillors are holding a public hearing Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. on loosening city rules to promote more secondary suites. Basement suites - most secondary suites are in the basement - are seen as a quick way to provide cheap housing, which is in short supply in Edmonton.
In some cities, such as Calgary, promoting more basement suites has caused controversy. The Wednesday hearing may show what Edmontonians think about the idea, but so far, only a few people have booked time to speak.
Edmonton allows secondary suites only if the house is next to an apartment block or row housing, or is in an industrial or commercial area.
It’s the tight restrictions that council is considering changing. The report recommends the city set up a team to manage inquiries, develop programs and enforce new rules for secondary suites.
Getting approval for a secondary suite under existing rules has been tough, the report states. Of 30 applications made in recent years, only seven were approved. Most are opposed by neighbours.
There are thousands of secondary suites in the city, 90 per cent of them illegal.
The average price of a single family home in Edmonton has risen to $426,000 in May. Average price of a condominium in May was $266,000.
Apartment rents also are rising and the vacancy rate is 1.1 per cent.
Okay, regarding the Bob Dylan references:
A special Grow Mercy prize goes to the first person who can tell me what album the song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" first appeared on.
Rule: You can ask one friend but you can’t Google. (Except Jeff H. and Gary F., no asking at all.)
Technorati Tags: Homelessness, Working poor, Basement Suites, Edmonton City Cousil, Edmonton Journal, Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
Add comment June 4th, 2007
The Coffee Encounter in Moose Jaw isn’t Starbucks, but the coffee is more than adequate and the atmosphere is pleasing with a bit of an old-world touch. More importantly, it has wireless.
Moose Jaw may not be everyone’s first choice for a week long vacation and it wasn’t mine either. I’m here on a bit of a "working break" keeping my wife company in the evenings while she’s down the road at Briercrest, taking an "addictions course" as part of her Counseling association’s annual requirements.
But here’s the thing about this town, (pop., 34,000 or so): Until a couple decades ago, Moose Jaw, quiet, upstanding, largely church-going, is now doing everything it can to market it’s half-mythical, half-true, seedy history.
The "history" goes that during the U.S.A.’s Prohibition era, from 1917 to 1933, the local police force "fell into the greased palms of organized crime — reputedly controlled by Capone," who was said to run gambling dens and houses of prostitution up and down River Street, the Jaw’s main drag.
Now it’s probably a stretch that Alphonse Capone ever walked the streets of Moose Jaw but it’s not entirely out of the question. There is the old dentist’s appointment book that has the entry "Al Brown," a known Capone alias. And there’s the local paper that, according to one resource I found, quoted a retired doctor who no longer lives in Moose Jaw as saying that he treated Capone for tonsillitis.
But regarding Moose Jaw being a major trafficking hub for bootleg liquour, the opportunity and logistics work. Prohibition after all was not a Canadian law and since a major railroad connected western Canada to Chicago, the little city was in a good position to be the centre that funneled bootleg spirits into prohibition parched America. For this there’s ample evidence.
And of course centrepiece of the evidence is what was discovered in 1985 when a truck fell through the street into a tunnel that lead to a network of tunnels connecting all the downtown hotels of Moose Jaw.
As Art Linkletter–who by the way was born in Moose Jaw–might have said, Little towns tell the darndest stories.
Technorati Tags: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Prohibition, Al Capone, Coffee Encounter, Art Linkletter
Add comment May 2nd, 2007
The combination of grey rain, the weekend’s adrenaline boomerang, the call to order of all committees in my head, has left me blue, well worse, purple really.
So isn’t it lucky I can go home and take a healthy plunge into a brimming bath full of rich gobs of Ivory suds. It’s the purity you know–that washes the blues away.
Soapy pure Ivory people are happy people with sunrise complexions, straight white teeth and an ah-shucks ebullience that tweaks your ear like an army of elementary school teachers.
And the removal of dust and grime is the bonus. That and looking and acting like Andy Griffith.
Technorati Tags: Ivory Soap, Andy Griffith, Blues
6 comments March 29th, 2007
It’s been strange and shaky week. I’ve gone from not sleeping to sleeping in. The weather has been moody to suit. Never had this much trouble coming off a holiday. Wanting to care, but not. Caring too much, wanting not to care. And so it’s come to this rumination:
I suppose if there was one item not worthy of either retention or divestment, it would be a rat’s ass. It’s just one of those things most of us can get through the day without giving or having.
The complicating issue is that in order not to give a rat’s ass, one must first be in possession of a rat’s ass. Of course most of us deal with this as follows: I could give a rat’s ass, but I don’t; but if I did, I would, if I had to, go and find a rat, remove ass, and not give it.
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Procuring rats’ asses so as to then be in a position of either giving or keeping a rat’s ass is a messy and rabies-ridden business. Better to stay clear of the whole Rat’s Ass business.
But as I outlined earlier I think we can handle the whole not-giving-rats’-asses in the abstract. With the exception of exterminators, this works for most of us.
So here’s my admission: Over the years I’ve given countless rat’s asses. I’ve found that the spiritual discipline of not giving a rat’s ass–or if you prefer, "So do not worry about tomorrow…, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own."–is the hardest to cultivate and the easiest to give up on. I find myself not giving a rat’s ass about not giving a rat’s ass. And that double negative brings a big weighty positive.
I need help and I admit it. First step.
I remember a church baptismal service, where, during the prerequisite testimonial, one candidate, after a few preliminary remarks he was trying to read off of a sheet of paper, remarks he had obviously been coached in, simply threw up his hands and said, "The reason I’m here is because God has me by the short and curly’s!" The pastor blanched and the audience cleared their throats. Besides being a great testimony, it was a wonderful moment of not giving a rat’s ass.
Technorati Tags: Rat’s ass
2 comments February 14th, 2007
Hey guys and gals. It’s Valentines Day! Buy that lady in your life some Bubble Duds…with the nylon reinforced, Lollipop cuffing.
Happy Valentines Day!
Technorati Tags: Bubble Duds, Vintage Clothing, Valentines
2 comments February 5th, 2007
Here’s a post I never thought I’d do…I’m going for traffic, obviously not tone. Forgive me when it’s all over.
So anyway, at the end of these LA conferences we are always given a day to relax, sightsee, and generally become the tourists we are.
There are always options. This year there was golf, symphony, Santa Monica or Paris Hilton.
Okay, I made the last bit up. What happened was that a group of us that chose to traipse around Santa Monica pier stumbled upon the Socialite filming her new movie, with the oh so clever title, ’The Hottie and the Nottie.’ Just like it says on her chair. How tedious…
(…but hold on Steve, don’t cast that stone. After all, remember, after the security guard told you where you could stand, you, like any unabashed paparazzo, were snapping pictures at every "sighting.")
Okay, anyway, after an interminable amount of time and hairspray, Ms. Hilton popped up and pranced (Left: Yes, she actually did prance.) to a carnival-like set under a great black screen.
Then, in the company of a midget dressed as a mime and a girl that resembled Oz’s Dorothy, she did all of 20 seconds of dialogue before the requisite, "cut."
Do you suppose there’s a chance this one may go direct-to-DVD?
From there, we unwound by riding the 84 year old Santa Monica pier carousel. The same carousel where Paul Newman and Robert Redford perpetrated their "Sting."
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I did find something redeeming about Ms. Hilton. Last fall, as reported on the Daily Dish, Ms. Hilton thrilled a homeless man in Hollywood when she handed him a $100 bill.
Apparently, the cheeky panhandler raced up to the wannabe singer’s/actress’ car as she was leaving a McDonald’s and asked her for $100.
Bystanders heard him drop his price to just $1, but, with cameras from TMZ.com focused on her, Hilton decided she was feeling generous. She reached into her bag and handed him a crumpled $100 bill…and posed for a picture.
As someone involved in fundraising for the homeless, LA certainly holds the most promise for a guilt-induced giving campaign.
Bless you for sullying yourself and allowing me to purge. (smiley face here)
It’s good to back in snowy Edmonton.
Technorati Tags: Paris Hilton, The Hottie and the Nottie, Homeless, Venice Beach, Santa Monica pier Carousel
1 comment December 21st, 2006
One close-to-Christmas day at Starbucks:
The lady at the counter was trying to decide how many gift cards to get, presumably for her colleagues or friends or both. Well, she hemmed awhile but it really didn’t take her that long to decide; but I still felt a swell of indignity rise within me.
And the swelling continued as I mulled over my perfectly good reasons for stewing. My God, who would pick the morning coffee-rush to do Christmas shopping? Why didn’t she know what she wanted before she came? Why was she paying with a credit card? She knows it takes longer that way. And why didn’t she at least have the card ready instead of forever fishing around in her purse. And that last minute addition of an extra gift card that caused the clerk to re-tally her total, well, that was really pushing it.
Why was she so inconsiderate to me?
And so, as I waited, I decided to practice meditating. See how pious and self-deprecating I am? See how I’m taking on this great slighting, almost martyr-like, turning it into a spiritual testing, and rising mightily to the occasion. 
See how I’m overcoming her obvious lack of respect for me, as I stand, straighter now, five persons back. See how my Christ-like forbearance is shining through my serene smile? Isn’t this good for me and the new morphic pattern I’m creating in the world? Isn’t the world just a bit better because of my tranquility in the face of such adversity?
Please spike my coffee with lorazepam. Danke schön.
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