Early Birds For Snowbirds Feb 13, 2020

Mike Mikkelson – chaired today in Dan Kenelly’s absence and started by noting the protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. He ran into one trying to turn onto the (ironically named) Reconciliation Bridge. Definitely frustrating. He talked about the disruption to CN passenger and Freight traffic out East.

Later in the day as I was preparing to write the minutes I came across a great editorial that very diplomatically (Oh Canada!) expressed the sentiment boiling under the surface across the country (throw them in jail already!). Worth a read: A protest is a constitutionally protected right. A railway blockade isn’t.

Don Doolan – was back after a bit of time in Montana listening to his neighbour ***ch about Trump. Same neighbour, or neighbor, in this case, likes to take Don snowshoeing. Don: “Snowshoeing is hard!”. ????

This neighbor thinks of himself as a trapper, although last year, the only thing he trapped was a skunk.

Ross Mikkelsen – added to the protest conversation by noting the consequences to freight shipments being delayed. He’s in the unusual position (for this early in the year) to have pretty much all Barbecues Galore’s stock, BUT the knock-on effects of prolonged logistics issues are going to hit retail hard. Getting parts (made in China, never mind the rail issue) is going to add cumulative hardship.

In China, Ross has learned that the government is going to allow people to go back to work -IF- they have the right mask. Guess who sells the masks? Yep, your friendly neighbourhood repressor-in-chief Xi. So, in effect, the government will dole out the masks-as-work-permits, which on the one hand is good. With the Chinese government, there’s always that other, often unseen hand though. So it’ll be interesting to see how that all works out.

Brett Bain – told the story of Vicki trying to book a flight to Phoenix via Westjet in March. She was shocked to discover it would cost her $947. She can go anytime, so she thought she’d look a little later in March and it was around the $1000 mark every time. Andy wondered aloud if maybe it had something to do with March Madness, then revised to suggest that the grounding of the Boeing plane had more to do with it. A quick check of Google Flights does show the best prices flying out and back on the weekend though. See below.

Brad Pachal – thanked Paul for a quick tip on iPhone photo settings. He takes a lot of photos for work and they were being preserved in Apple’s new format, which, naturally, won’t open on any non-Apple device.

The ????tip was to check the camera settings. I’ve put three screenshots that show you what to check for at the very bottom of the minutes.

Brad also mentioned that he was talking to a door supplier. That supplier was telling him the same thing that Mike M. had discussed in passing which is “big” commercial work is sporadic at best. HOWEVER, for Brad, as a small contractor who is consistently working, it’s worked out in his favour. He’s finding he’s getting MUCH better and more personalized service.

Brad also noted in passing that the old Rona/Totem in Midnapore is 100% shut down. He thinks he saw a Hutterite trailer at the store entrance last week hauling out stacking/shelving.

Tony Fisher – lives in Jeromy Farkas ‘ riding. Farkas has become the “ David ” to the council’s “ Goliath ” during his term. (I was going to say Nenshi’s Goliath , but that seemed a bit easy.).

In any case, he’s been sending surveys around his ward basically asking if his constituents think he’s on track with the various things he’s pursuing. (Magliocca’s just the latest issue he’s taken a “head-on” approach to). He wants to know if his constituents care as much about accountability as he does. For example, following up on an internal city recommendation to phase out the “transition” allowances for councilors on the way out. It’s a $50,000 “Golden Handshake” you can read more about here: https://globalnews.ca/news/6279900/calgary-municipal-politicians-transition-allowance-scrutiny/.

In the grand tradition of finding absolutely the LEAST flattering photo of the “villain-de-jour”, I offer this courtesy of the CBC:

Michael McLennan – passed on thanks to JD and Son-Rise Plumbing for fixing his house last Thursday.

Michael’s business horizon might be consumed by 3D printing and additive manufacturing at the moment, but the shop still carries Epson film scanners. The scanners are perfect for anyone who doesn’t want to go the chemical route to developing old negatives…and who doesn’t have a darkroom just sitting idle in the basement these days, huh?

TRS Officeware carries one of the Cadillacs of the Epson film scanner line – the Perfection V850 (this is what happens when engineers name products), but Michael could point the way to one of their other options for smaller projects.

Michael also told us about a great business that’s provided him with excellent quality kennels for his dogs ( you KNOW they’re good, Michael adores his dogs). He’s lost a dog recently, so sold the dual kennel (powder coated, excellent quality – new for $900). However, he wanted for sure to give a shout out to Nikanda Sport Dog Equipment at https://www.nikanda.net/?fbclid=IwAR1sZn1mUKy93bpZULER2CLZsDR5r1CzIXWJOOeYeMzr1QKga4iU1oa1tQs. If you find yourself wanting a great kennel for a sporting, or even just larger, dog, they’re an excellent shop!

Andy Lockhart – was back after 3 weeks that went like this: YYC-YVR-PHX-North Carolina-PHX-YYC.

He enjoyed some great time in North Carolina with some fellow artisans, refreshing some knowledge and creating a few things before heading back to Arizona to hit the golf course. He did mention that it was cooler than they would have thought, seldom rising above the mid-60s. It was cool enough that on one day there was a one-hour frost delay.

He also noted how, as Canadians, they NEVER get paired with the locals. They usually wind being paired up with other snowbirds. Turns out this time, he was paired with a guy he’d played hockey with for 20 years. Nice to make Norm’s re-acquaintance

Sean Baylis – regaled us with a rich “market digest”.

Among the nuggets today:

JD MacDonald – Thanks to Mike M.

JD stocks bits and pieces from all sorts of manufacturers, and he’s noticed some strange calls lately. Strange as in calling tech support in one and being told to call back tomorrow.

Strange as in being told that parts for the patio heaters for a client (Cactus Club) won’t be available until NEXT Tuesday. Who does THAT in the Amazon era?

He’s experienced a similar delay from a German manufacturer for a client in Springbank.

Mel Gibson – was at the Larry Kwong Chinese New Year dinner, and although they had 140-ish people out for the dinner in the private event room, there were *2*, count ’em, *2* people in the rest of the Regency Palace restaurant.

Mel flagged the current re-write of many of the rules governing the insurance industry in Alberta by the gov’t. Among the changes that might prove particularly onerous to apply is one requiring owners of 300-400 unit buildings to confirm *tenant* insurance coverage in every.single.unit.

The benefit of that isn’t clear, and it’s a huge “make-work” prospect for owners and naturally, insurance coverage providers, but there it is.

George Doherty – talked about discovering that his blood pressure medication was in short supply at his regular pharmacy. He was only able to get half the regular amount and the pharmacist told him that the shortage was due to last at least 6 months and he might have to look at switching his medication.

That’s a potentially significant issue with travel insurance among other things, so George went to Shoppers Drug Mart on a hunch.

Monsieur Poirot-Doherty was correct. Shoppers had LOADS of his medication. The pharmacist there explained that Shoppers buys in bulk and supplies their whole network, giving the bigger players a HUGE leg up over the neighbourhood pharmacies. He also explained that Shoppers is attempting to hire only pharmacists with the qualifications to alter prescriptions (not just issue them).

George recalled how as a practicing pharmacist, he was part of a movement to allow that sort of thing to happen, but it turned into a turf war between the doctors and pharmacists, with doctors holding the line in the end. Obviously, the balance of power has shifted and it’s a positive evolution for consumers and pharmacists, but a potentially negative one for doctors until some structural changes to the way health services are billed occur.

2nd Round

Andy tied back into a business development conversation (Prospect! Prospect! Prospect!) that stemmed from a SAWS meeting that he and Brad attended. It turns out the 2nd generation owner of Black Forest Wood Company (Bay 7, 603-77th Ave SE), Dylan Thomas, has become a huge proponent (based on their success and hard data) of every type of social media marketing. The shop has three solid pillars for its business to begin with: retail, school, and door manufacturing. However, You can see the extent of their social “footprint” across every platform on a page dedicated to their social media presence on their web site here: https://blackforestwood.com/pages/our-social-media. They have 715,000 followers on Instagram. To give you an idea of the potential worth of that sort of influence. If you wanted to buy an ad on the Black Forest Instagram feed, it would cost roughly $3200 (it’s roughly $3400 per million followers according to an estimate I heard recently). That’s a potential revenue stream that has nothing, yet everything to do with their brick and mortar business.

Ross – turned to Sean and asked what he and RBC thought of Tesla…and the answer was basically “meh”. RBC’s not a fan. Feels they’re overvalued in a similar way to the Cannabis stocks in Canada last year. There are more and more conventional manufacturers (who can manufacture at SCALE) entering the EV market…and finally, Tesla doesn’t make any money.

Because Tesla’s often considered hand in hand with tech stocks, Sean mentioned that RBC has added a letter to the tech stock acronym FANG. it’s now FANGU – for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google and…Uber. Analysts think that millennials in cities will rideshare before they ever own a car…and that makes Uber a solid bet.

Final 2nd round note was from Tony – who noted that he’d attended this year’s RV show. Speaking with an oil exec there, they discussed the fact the show was up 17% in traffic and then the conversation turned to the oil exec’s purchase of a motorhome. He was sort of sick of plane travel…didn’t necessarily want to travel into the States beyond Montana and Idaho and though the motorhome was perfect for that.

Montana and motorhomes always bring some slightly post-apocalyptic survivalists to mind…but maybe that’s just me.

Anyway – that was it – the only thing left are those iPhone camera settings you may or may not have a reason to look at below.