Feb 21st

It was a full moon this morning and 15 Birds were on the road, headed to Inglewood. Here’s what they said (more or less):

Members:

Brett Bain. His firm is working with a piece of software that analyzes email accounts, looking for malware and then, suggesting (or signaling a need for) a fix. He mentions that if you’re going to be hacked, hopefully, it isn’t the Russians. They can hack your ‘everything’ on your computer in about 8 minutes. Better your attacker be a North Korean (they’ll need about 20 minutes to ruin your life); or the Chinese (they can steal your identity in about an hour).

Sean Baylis.  

Jim Bladon.

Paul Boucher. One Password. One Password. Listen to Paul and use a service like One Password.

Ian Campbell. On that ‘other bank reference’ below (See Matt Litke), Ian thinks a second bank might just come in handy, if CRA gets grabby again. He also wonders why RBC never gave him a heads up. • Seems hearing loss can contribute to dementia and maybe, vice versa.

Matt Dart.

Don Davis .

Todd Dean.

George Doherty.

Don Doolan. St

Tony Fisher . Looking forward to his trip to Palm Springs.

Gord Forsyth. I

Mel Gibson. Mel finds being under the ‘Broker Link’ umbrella, interesting. New things to learn and smarter ways of doing what one usually does. • His granddaughter competed in the downhill event at the Winter Games in Red Deer.   Mel got to see her compete and then marvel at the resilience of the wheelchair basketball players.

Henry Heuver.

David Hicks. Whitefish is a good winter place to go for a family getaway. They enjoyed the family lessons on the hill. • Dave was caught up in that Hwy #1 closure the other day: a reminder to always have some emergency supplies/warm clothes for when (if) you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the wintertime.

Dan Kennelly. So it seems the engineering world is undergoing another evolution. Some firms are only hiring non-caucasian engineers. Fabricators (in Calgary) are desperately seeking skilled workers. Yet, some 40,000 local jobs are no longer in existence. Multi-national firms (like Imperial/Exxon) are showing signs of internal stress: the Canucks want to go this way, the Yanks are pulling that way.  

Matt Litke. Banking basics: with all the complaints one hears about financial institutions overselling or over-billing consumers, Matt wonders why so many customers deal with more than one bank, thus incurring multiple charges for account services etc.

Andy Lockhart.  

J.D. MacDonald. With all due respect to everyone else, JD is enjoying the fruits of this cold weather snap. Son Rise Plumbing is busy.

Michael McLennan.  

Ross Mikkelsen. His seasonal hiring has commenced and the number of applicants and the quality of same is like never before. This is good for Ross but as he says, it is a bad sign of where our economy is at.

Mike Mikkelson.

Brad Pachal. Caution is the best policy when buying things on the internet. He recently was asked to validate his RBC Mastercard while making a transaction. It seemed unusual – and though it turned out to SOP – it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Gerry Parcells.

Dwayne Vinck. Not unlike the software used by Brett to spot malware, the Kids’ Help Line has a series of protocols in place to recognize when an intercession should be made by a more experienced (or professionally trained) person. It’s based on the classic triage system to serve those most in need, time wise.

Bob Wiggins . Kudos to Paul for good minuting.  

Chris Wright. 

George Roberts. 

Associates:

Gregg Callander.

Alumni:

Ken Eades. 

Bill Hoogstratten. 

Bruce Roblin. 

Chris Wright