About the Ads

OK, I know there are ads everywhere, but I thought I’d try them out at the top here. I don’t think they’re too obtrusive, and I’m curious to see what Google will put if I mention anything political. Let’s see, I’ll just throw in a little US Politics-driven word association:

Bush
Idiot
Cheney
Quail
Quayle
Chicken-hawk
Halliburton
Diebold
Enron
WorldCom
Moron
War on
Terror
Terra
Firma
FEMA
Brownie
Helluva Job
Cronies
Craven
Lying
Crooked
Scoundrels

Well, I don’t feel any better, but that should have fed the search engine just fine. Gee, did I just SPAM my own blog?

24! (Not the TV Show)

The Winter Olympics are just about over, and the final medal tally is in. Canada won a record 24 medals. To put that number in context, it’s 1 less than the United States, and 5 less than Germany. No other country got more. What’s more, even with that Third Place in total medals, there were 11 fourth place finishes (often a hair-width away from a bronze) and 7 fifth places. With the next Winter Olympics taking place right here in Vancouver, you couldn’t have a better record or attitude coming into it. The only sore point: That medal count of 24 is just 1 shy of not only the US, but the goal that was set prior to Turin. Ironically, it would have been 25 if it hadn’t been for the poor performance in the one sport that Canada is defined by: Men’s Hockey. No matter, the Women’s Hockey team did spectacularly, as did Canada’s Women Athletes in general. In any case, congratulations to all of Team Canada!

Another Guy from Morgantown

I read that Don Knotts, who played the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on the TV Show “The Andy Griffith Show”, which aired the year of my birth (1960) to 1968 died yesterday. He was also in the very strange film ‘The Incredible Mr. Limpet” of 1964, as well as more than 25 others, including one of my favourites, Pleasantville, in 1998. In that year, Mr. Knotts, who is probably the only famous person born in my hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, was honored when they named a street there after him. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, which was the reason I was born in there too, since my parents were on the faculty at that institution. He was due to make another appearance in Morgantown in August of last year but had to cancel because of ill health.
Mr. Knotts was 81.

Mixed Messages from the Sky

“Spirit Bear”
Originally uploaded by Mussels.
Thanks to Matt for this appropriately metaphoric photo…

Another thing I’m going to have to get used to here is the seasons. Not just the quality of them (i.e. W = Winter = WET). It’s the length of them. I see by the calendar that today is February 25th. I know February, quite well, or at least I thought I did. February was the cruelest month for me; it was the depths of despair. The sole holidays of the month were Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, and if you’ve ever followed this blog you know my feelings about the pink-hearted and romance-inflicting holiday. As for President’s Day, in recent years its just been a grim reminder of how far that institution has fallen. That was the February that yearly visited me.

Vancouver’s February says ‘Hah!’ Besides the cessation of the rains (at least for the past week and a half or so), it has also seen the first harbingers of Spring. Yes, you read that right. Spring is indeed arriving in the second month of the year, tiptoeing in like an early theatre attendee. I have proof: A few days ago I saw a forsythia bush showing yellow blooms. Today I spied a small daffodil. It was sheltered by a bush, to be sure, but there it was. In Boston daffodils aren’t due for another 3 months or so. Just in case those classic signposts went by unnoticed, the California lilac’s purple flowers, which have the most amazing smell later on (something like cinnamon, particularly after a light rain or morning dew), are out everywhere. Granville Island is running a little festival this weekend called Winterupption, which suggests that Winter will continue after the events are over with. I wouldn’t bet on it. I’d say its the interruption is really a farewell.

I note that there is a section of another web site, Japan-Guide.com that is dedicated to the blooming of the cherry blossoms in Vancouver. It does mention that there are some species that do begin blooming in February here.

Before all of my giddy Spring Fever gets too out of hand, there is one sobering fact: It’s cold outside. The temperature today was about 3°C and a few very small snowflakes have been falling here and there. Not the dead of winter, but nothing remotely vernal about it. It’s just started raining now, and rain is predicted for much of the coming week. In the words of Emily Litella: “Never mind”.

Why you should never Google your Customers

At work today, I was forwarded an email sent to my company from one of our clients. In fact, it’s out biggest client in the US, the one that kept the company alive during the years of the dot-bomb, long before I joined up just three months ago. The email was about a PowerPoint presentation that needed some updating, because it was going to go all the way to a very key executive in the company (who they mentioned by name). Something about the name rang a bell, so I did what I usually do when I hear or read a name that I think I recognize: I googled them.

One of the top 5 hits was a listing for the person at a site I had actually been to once or twice, Buyblue.org. I knew of it, because it was one of the sites that advocated putting your money (as consumers) where your mouth was, politically. To buy blue was to buy from blue states, or at least, from blue companies. My first thought was that this guy, who is in the midwest (actually in a key swing state), had signed up. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “Here’s a case of an enlightened fellow, in ‘red America’, standing up for what he believes in, and with an unpopular cause, at that!”

Not so fast, I learned after a few minutes of further exploration. Not only did the company that this executive belong to give 100% of their campaign contributions to the Republican party, but this Executive’s father was the 15th highest fundraiser for George W. Bush. This fellow was cited in Buyblue.org for the same reason that Bill O’Reilly is cited on Mediamatters,org — as someone who is against everything they stand for. What’s more, the company which my boss proudly points out benefits from our little shop’s efforts that makes them a world leader, is mainly for Bush because of his policy on air and water pollution controls (obviously, more favorable to them than Clinton, who they had fought vociferously for much of his term).

I wish I hadn’t learned this, as there’s not much I can do. I only hope that if I’m called down there to do work on-site that nobody will ask me what an American like myself is doing in Canada. Maybe if I don’t say anything they’ll just assume I’m another Canadian. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

…All Kinds of Muslim Crazies Up in Canada
Speaking of Bill O’Reilly, he let loose with another one of his absurd outbursts about Canada (which he has been known to do from time to time). On this past Wednesday, reacting to the acquisition of Penninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. of Great Britain, which manages US ports by Dubai Ports World (and resulting clamor) he said that the real danger was the US’s neighbor to the North:

You know, we do a lot of business with Canada — this is what gets me — Canada has got the easiest infiltration in the world. All you do is have to show up in Montreal. You don’t even have to have a passport, and they’ll let you in the country as a refugee. You just show up and go, “Hey, I’m here.” “Oh, OK, come on in.” And we’re doing business with Canada all the time, and we don’t have any checks up there. We don’t have any Border Patrol up in Canada. I mean we have a few, but, you know, anybody can come down. I don’t hear any big screaming about doing business with Canada. You know, if Al Qaeda wanted to get here, it’s easy. They’ve got all kinds of Muslim crazies up in Canada running around. You see? So people get emotional.

So I guess he’ll be calling for a big wall between us and the US soon. Good. I’m worried about all of those Christian Crazies running around down there.