On Christmas day, during the Prayers of the People at church S. and I inserted the announcement that a 'New Being' is enroute to our home - and actually has been for some 90+ days. We felt that it was important for the prayers to have some positive news in them - too often we are pray only for sick or the dead - this seemed like just the thing to add to the joy of the evening.
So wish us luck - I'm in serious Data Acquisition Mode - Full 5 here - 2 books down for the count and I've already made 2 hunting trips to the bookstore and my amazon wish list has even more. I started The Big Red Book of Baby Planning (not a book, but my hardcopy planning, shopping and note-taking journal) and am ready to take notes and clip ads and articles with wild abandon! Now it's not exactly a fair comparison because S. has no choice but to be the carrying end of this team but that's ok - I have a basement to finish and a nursery to build.
Merry Christmas - may the spirits alive around the world this night bring you peace and joy.
Friday, December 24, 2004
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Christmas Rundown
Recently a church where I live had the Christmas lights stolen off their building. The parish had gotten together and raised $400 to pay for new low energy LED lights (which are just becoming widely available in Canada) and spent a fair amount of time getting them all up for the coming Sunday.
That Saturday night someone stole the lights off of the church (you know - the old punishment for desecration a church was hanging!). It's Christmas time and you steal lights off of a church -somewhere along the way we've seriously missed the boat here - when Christmas becomes more about what you have hanging off of your house than it does being kind and generous with strangers, friends and family then we are in real trouble.
Sigh...
That Saturday night someone stole the lights off of the church (you know - the old punishment for desecration a church was hanging!). It's Christmas time and you steal lights off of a church -somewhere along the way we've seriously missed the boat here - when Christmas becomes more about what you have hanging off of your house than it does being kind and generous with strangers, friends and family then we are in real trouble.
Sigh...
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Hockey Smockey - I want my newspaper back!
If you're a hockey fan you're not going to like this, I'd skip to the next post...
In the interests of full disclosure - I don't play hockey, watch hockey (never been to a game), skate, wack frozen bits of rubber on ice or out front on the street, hip check people (except when attempting to dance), drink beer, or subscribe to any sports TV channel or web site (the concept of 'sports reporter' is a joke, I don't even read the section of the paper that says sports) - the only reason that I'm commenting on this at all is because this nonsense is invading the front page of my newspaper and my websites - that makes it fair game.
The NHL players recently offered a 24% pay cut for their players. Now let's understand some statistics; for a player making 17 million in 5 years that reduces their income from 3.4 million to 2.58 million dollars per year.
And now a couple of questions: a) why does any one doing anything need to make that much b) The 2002 average Canadian income for a two parent double income family with kids is $67,700 (2002 dollars Source: Statistics Canada) that means that this player makes 38 Times as much and he (note that this is a male-only sport at this level) gets to do what he loves to do - play hockey.
And they are offering a 24% cut - humm this is a little like the sales at Canadian Tire, Sears etc. An item comes in and sells for 59.99 - eventually it drops to $19.99 (or less) on sale. As these companies avoid (not absolutely but generally) selling anything at a net loss that means that the wholesale price was under $19.99 to begin with and they started at a 200% markup.
I wonder - if players make 3.4 million, and they've put themselves on sale for 2.58 maybe we should just wait a while and they will eventually drop to a level that makes more sense - maybe in the 200K range.
Please everyone that is worried about Hockey - get a life - go to the library, buy a book, build something, play soccer (most of the rest of the world does), play Quidditch (if you read you'd know what that is) , take a trip someplace warm (without hockey) the world will NOT end if you don't see Don Cherry (don't even get me started on him)
Sigh...
In the interests of full disclosure - I don't play hockey, watch hockey (never been to a game), skate, wack frozen bits of rubber on ice or out front on the street, hip check people (except when attempting to dance), drink beer, or subscribe to any sports TV channel or web site (the concept of 'sports reporter' is a joke, I don't even read the section of the paper that says sports) - the only reason that I'm commenting on this at all is because this nonsense is invading the front page of my newspaper and my websites - that makes it fair game.
The NHL players recently offered a 24% pay cut for their players. Now let's understand some statistics; for a player making 17 million in 5 years that reduces their income from 3.4 million to 2.58 million dollars per year.
And now a couple of questions: a) why does any one doing anything need to make that much b) The 2002 average Canadian income for a two parent double income family with kids is $67,700 (2002 dollars Source: Statistics Canada) that means that this player makes 38 Times as much and he (note that this is a male-only sport at this level) gets to do what he loves to do - play hockey.
And they are offering a 24% cut - humm this is a little like the sales at Canadian Tire, Sears etc. An item comes in and sells for 59.99 - eventually it drops to $19.99 (or less) on sale. As these companies avoid (not absolutely but generally) selling anything at a net loss that means that the wholesale price was under $19.99 to begin with and they started at a 200% markup.
I wonder - if players make 3.4 million, and they've put themselves on sale for 2.58 maybe we should just wait a while and they will eventually drop to a level that makes more sense - maybe in the 200K range.
Please everyone that is worried about Hockey - get a life - go to the library, buy a book, build something, play soccer (most of the rest of the world does), play Quidditch (if you read you'd know what that is) , take a trip someplace warm (without hockey) the world will NOT end if you don't see Don Cherry (don't even get me started on him)
Sigh...
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Open House Round-up
Well, the open house has come and gone and was a great success. We had lots of friends, good food and fun for hours on Saturday, some 30+ visitors actually.
It's interesting the differences in what we use from year to year - last year we had lots of left over mulled wine, this year we used 1 1/2 batches (we use 30 cup coffee perks to make it) .
It's great to catch up with everyone and see them getting to know each other - a New-Old friend of mine (long story maybe for another post) turns out to have gone to school with our next door neighbor's. We had a chance to visit with our SouthSide neighbor's more than we have in the weeks since freeze up)
Spook (the cat) was so tired by the end of the day - he'd been so scritched, hugged and entertained that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer - it's funny to see a cat try and stay awake just as he fades out.
S. was at a volunteer meeting in the morning and came home at about 1, we were opening our door at 3 so that left it to me to do much of the final cleaning and finishing off the tree. Apparently the Ladies at the meeting were surprised that her husband would do this - I'm continually surprised by this - isn't the idea of being married include splitting up the work even doing stuff you wouldn't normally do if needs require?
Humm - more to think about on that one later - for now I have Christmas shopping to do!
In the 2nd week of Advent 2004 - this is 5Life
It's interesting the differences in what we use from year to year - last year we had lots of left over mulled wine, this year we used 1 1/2 batches (we use 30 cup coffee perks to make it) .
It's great to catch up with everyone and see them getting to know each other - a New-Old friend of mine (long story maybe for another post) turns out to have gone to school with our next door neighbor's. We had a chance to visit with our SouthSide neighbor's more than we have in the weeks since freeze up)
Spook (the cat) was so tired by the end of the day - he'd been so scritched, hugged and entertained that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer - it's funny to see a cat try and stay awake just as he fades out.
S. was at a volunteer meeting in the morning and came home at about 1, we were opening our door at 3 so that left it to me to do much of the final cleaning and finishing off the tree. Apparently the Ladies at the meeting were surprised that her husband would do this - I'm continually surprised by this - isn't the idea of being married include splitting up the work even doing stuff you wouldn't normally do if needs require?
Humm - more to think about on that one later - for now I have Christmas shopping to do!
In the 2nd week of Advent 2004 - this is 5Life
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