Birds & Rabb-le, August 9, 2018

Esteemed gentlemen…oh wait, wrong group.

Gents,

Ross …you missed French toast. Again. I ate your helping. Need to feed the beast before the Ride to Conquer Cancer. ? Gord asked about the link to my Ride fundraising page. Here you go: http://www.conquercancer.ca/goto/pauboucher. Thanks in advance to anyone who can contribute to the Alberta Cancer Foundation via my page. Sean, Ian and Todd, please send me YOUR links so I can post them.

Rick Rabb – visiting from US. Now a US citizen. He apologized for the orange menace. He’s in the great brown North to visit his youngest son Ken, who had a baby in July. His son, you may know, runs the man van program out of the Rockyview Hospital.

Brad  – signalled, that like Ross, his suppliers have signalled coming price increases on…everything, but particularly glass products including fibreglass, and drywall. Not just an “uptick” either: 10-15% higher. Also of note, he’s started work at Mike Mikkelson’s.

Jim  – Spent some quality time out in K-Country swinging his….clubs. Naturally, it’s a good course. Both 18’s are open & in great shape. Shout out to Gary Browning for rebuilding. Your Alberta Citizen discount makes your “pay to play” $88 reg, $99 weekends with Alberta discount. Only downside – no beer cart, despite over 700 people a day. It’s a huge missed revenue opportunity, and a bit of a mystery frankly why they’re not serving up.

Jim also mentioned talking with Barry Elbert, a golf course developer. He was talking up a very cool promotion at https://www.mickelsonnational.com/. You can register to play four holes (the only ones built right now) and great prizes. One is a trip for two to the Masters.

Brett – Computers rising in price too (since every material in them is being affected by tariffs flying in one direction or another). Computers and tech products on the higher end by up to 20%. The Big players peg their dollar quarterly, so prices could increase pretty much quarterly. Buy now.

Andy asked about getting a new Mac to replace his existing Mac-laptop-a-saurus. That note about price increases was definitely an “act sooner than later note” BUT, in Andy’s case, if he doesn’t purchase a Mac from the Canadian Apple Stores (Chinook or Market Malls), or a Refurbished Mac online, he might be best off to purchase in Arizona. Again, refurbished via the online stores, or in person at a US Apple store. The link to the Canadian Apple Store’s Refurbished section is  https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/browse/home/specialdeals. I can personally attest to the quality of the refurbished product and it comes with the original Apple factory warranty.

JD – Got a shout out from Dan K for good work done. JD added yet another notice from suppliers, this time received July 15th. Tariff related 12% increase stacked with another 10% coming in October. Very few alternative suppliers. Business is good just now. Here’s to hearing that again more consistently.

Andy – taking a course this weekend from a New Zealand texture and carving specialist. Observing   hair puling between Canada and “Saudi Barbaria”. Among other things, observing the Saudis deliberately trying to hurt Canada economically. Perhaps we have a lever….the 11% of Canadian oil supply we currently get from them. Might Eastern Canadians have an alternative supplier? Hmmmm?

Gerry – reminiscing with Rick about flowers out the back of the truck. Life’s good. Grandpa is the title that matters right now.

Michael McLennan – has a law firm client getting rid of office furniture – beautiful desk, filing cabinets, all high quality. Call Michael at  403.235.3515  for info. The law firm is McConnell – McInnis. Partner taking it over but scaling down to 1 man show from current operation.

Matt Dart – Mexico –  Recommend you avoid the Ibero Star resort they stayed at. “Meh” in almost every regard. Also a comment on the Google photo app. Both Google and Apple are making your photos searchable by keyword once you’ve uploaded them to their respective clouds because the Artificial Intelligence tech they have at their end “recognizes”, “catalogues” and “indexes” the photos using various data points. The bottom line is instead of scrolling through the 237 pictures you took on the beach, you can just search using the words “ice cream”, and anything that the mighty AI has recognized as ice cream should come up.

Matt “won” the car conversation and the family got a Honda Pilot. After several purchases at Calgary Honda, just for kicks, Matt checked out Okotoks Honda and they got a MUCH better deal on their trade-in ($4k) vs Calgary Honda.

Don Davis – great time in Victoria. Booming tourism. they’re coming from every direction…Port Angeles and Seattle and the high speed ferry from Vancouver to Victoria among others.

**Good medical tip: Don was scheduled for knee surgery but after six months of using 10.0% Diclofenac In Diffusimax10 (I think I got that right), his surgeon checked the X-Rays and said “no surgery for you!”. Keep doing what you’re doing. There’s a lot of great information on this class of drug online, but as always, ask your doc or pharmacist for qualified advice. Here are a couple of links to more info I found while checking the spelling:  https://www.consumerreports.org/drugs/diclofenac-pain-relief-cream-you-should-consider/  , and this interesting page from the Mayo Clinic  https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/diclofenac-topical-application-route/description/drg-20063434

Final tip from Don : The Victoria Symphony plays a regular summer gig called Splash in downtown Victoria. 40-50k people attend and spread out over the leg grounds and stay all day. Great event to take in.

Dan Kenelly – Cranbrook visiting relatives. Economy is down 40%. No one from Alberta seems to be going past the lake to spend money around the area. Witnessed a large Indian (the brand name ?) motorcycle convention.

Also a patio/bar/home bar note: Empress Gin.

Travel tip : Call ahead for road conditions around that Radium, Golden, Louise triangle.

Henry – Story you couldn’t make up about a land deal made with the city. If I got this right, the city has a chunk of property east and behind Henry’s property. They wanted to purchase a couple of small pieces on the edge of the property from Henry to provide better access. SO…their first tack was to suggest to Henry that he donate the land.

Uh, no.

They then came back and suggested $2000, to which Henry countered with a still below-market-value price of $5,000 per acre.

Crickets.

Then, they came back and paid Henry’s price. Patience is Henry’s tip there.

Gord – Retired professional golf tourist. Headed to Radium which prompted some Radium-Golden Highway horror stories from the group.

He did find some time to finish the book Red Notice by Bill Browder. Russian high finance and skulduggery. As a great read on similar subjects, Andy then recommended Dark Money by Jane Meyer about the hidden billions that are being used to shape the radical right in the US and elsewhere. Both titles are links that take you to the respective Amazon page for each book.

Dwayne – Picking up on the Saudi Arabia thread, he told of working with a small service company doing work with Saudi Arabia. Most of their clients are Canadian so impact sound be minimized, but everyone’s watching carefully.  

Cooking/iPhone Tip : When soaking the cobs of corn before barbecuing, take the iPhone OUT of the bag before adding water to the cobs.

His new iPhone is waterproof. He he.