Snowed In Birds, Oct 4, 2018

G’day gents,

I apologize, it took me a minute or two to clutch in that because George wasn’t there I needed my phone for something more than eye candy and I started taking notes.

I missed the detail on Dwayne Vinck’s succinct, smart rant on the new Canada Bend Over Free Trade Agreement – but that might sum it up. Sorry, Dwayne.

One note ahead of the rest – Dan  reminded us that Ward 11 Councillor Jeromy Farkas will be speaking at Birds on the 18th. Invite a guest if you like. If you’d like to know a bit more about Monsieur Farkas, I recommend you visit this link:  http://www.calgary.ca/citycouncil/ward-11/Pages/Ward-11-bio.aspx

We pick things up with Jim Bladon – who talked about a terrific addition to ATB’s BoostR series of events. This one will start in Calgary with a tour of Village Brewery, then the “hopped up” travellers board a bus and head to Banff. Back in Calgary by 11pm.

When: October 20th, 2018

Where:  Please meet at the ATB Branch of Arts & Culture,  102 8th Ave SW, Calgary

Event Schedule: 

You’re in? 

Register HERE by October 12th.

Don Davis – The conclusion to the Telus We Don’t Give a Damn Series: The Davises had no phone service for  11 days. One tech found nothing wrong. A second tech, an “outside” specialist found the problem and fixed it even though he initially told Don that he “wasn’t allowed to fix anything inside ’cause he’s an outside guy”. Eventually, he fixed everything. Don and Pat got their bill…but surprise, surprise, no discount for the missing days of service. Pat called, and not only did she get a credit for the missing days, she got her home phone service dropped from $46 to $20 in Calgary. On a roll, she thought she’d ask about their Victoria phone and she got that one down to $12 a month while she was at it. Coda : Inspired by Pat, I phoned Telus today and asked about my home phone service which costs $50.96. After that call, Telus gave me the “loyalty package” and my home phone bill will now cost $21 a month.

Ian Campbell – recently held a successful wine and cheese event at the relocated, improved Market Mall Clinic. He’d been hoping to attract a few of of the medical folks from the building and did. He also thanked the Birds who showed up to take peek and swill some free plonk. Adding to Ian’s story, George Doherty had a great anecdote about Karen – Ian’s Market mall clinician and the compassion she showed hugging a client having trouble. At one point while Karen and this patient were talking, the patient was evidently struggling, and Karen just hugged it out with the patient. Pretty much stopped time in the office, and more than a few people were choked up by Karen’s compassion and the situation.

Dan chimed in with an eyebrow-raising stat: “…hearing aids are the third-largest purchase in most people’s lives after a house and a car…” That quote came from this article in Scientific American if you wanted to read more on how the technology has entered the 21st century:  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hearing-aids-are-finally-entering-the-21st-century/

Henry – told about how Foothills Landscaping was doing y’know, landscaping before the snow brake was applied this week. Now…snow clearing. Foothills has bought a sweeper to clear parking lots. They like to stay off the streets as much as possible. Henry also noted that Jack Anderson and his family performed an incredible act of philanthropy recently. They donated “…an entire working ranch — land, buildings, a 1,000-head herd of cattle and all — to the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine.”  Foothills had done a lot of work on the property… many tons of rock for landscaping. It was always a pleasure to work there. The Herald story on the donation is here: . https://calgaryherald.com/business/local-business/entire-working-ranch-with-1000-head-of-cattle-donated-to-u-of-cs-vet-school

Michael McLennan – deep into hunting season. His dogs had 25 miles on them Monday morning according to their GPS collars. Pheasants next week. he loves his new Benelli shotgun. The technology in them is so amazing that there’s no kick at all, even to a 12 gauge shotgun! They’re mighty fine looking toys… https://www.benelliusa.com/super-black-eagle-iii  Pheasants are up next. Bye bye pheasants, we hardly knew ye….

Ross   Mikkelsen  – has had a busy September. Trade show in Europe..then a couple of weeks galavanting in Greece. Wrapped up with a furniture show in Chicago talking tarifs. The existing 10% tariff will be moving to 25% Jan 1 unless Trump plays nice. The comment is that Americans have NO idea what they’re in for when prices go up after Jan 1. Every company that can has ramped up production to try to beat the implementation.

Ross also noted that Amazon is opening more of those “Go” grocery stores that don’t have checkouts. There’s a pretty cool 2 minute video on YouTube that demonstrates what might be the future of food retail. It’s a potential game changer:

Andy Lockhart was a tip machine today!  1st tip – don’t install the snowblower on your tractor in a foot of snow. However, if you are enough of a doofus to do that, then remember that there is at least one thing that will make your life easier when dealing with snowblower-clogging wet snow: Silicone spray (or even cooking spray) will help to prevent the chute from clogging.

#2:  Andy’s in for blood work every 3 months. Don’t show up early…they’ll turn you away. He was a few days early if I recall correctly, and they relaxed their restriction for Andy, but there was a guy who literally arrived 15 minutes before his 3 month period was up and the personnel actually made him wait the 15 minutes before they took him in.

#3: Insurance claim in Arizona following a break-in is going sideways. First, they insisted on original receipts. Andy told them – “I bought the place furnished”, so, ah….. Then, they said, OK – we’ll accept photos. Andy said they didn’t have those either. So that’s where things stand. The tip? Take pictures of EVERYTHING in your place just in case.

Finally, #4: General Door came out to tune doors on the garage and Andy was impressed. They did three doors that now run “slicker than snot on a doorknob”, charged him for an hour and the total came to $145.

Sean Baylis apologized for missing last week after getting stranded in Inglewood by a train for a half hour…which led him to a stock tip that the railways are a pretty good stock right now. :-).

He also relayed that they’re into a busy fall event schedule.

More from Sean : His son – Playing with the Royals minor midget triple a team. As he’s done in years past, Sean’s offered ad space opportunities for Birds businesses in the blue line magazine. Drop him a line at  sean.baylis@rbc.com  if you’re interested in knowing more.

Paul Boucher – thanked the Birds for mentoring & modelling how to care for people around you and how to be open and hospitable. It led to a great experience hosting a friend’s son who’s on his way to Whistler for a job a the Fairmont property there. He mentioned that a bartender in one of those high-end hotels keeps a safe on hand to stow cash from tips varying between $10,000 to more than twice that. A month ! One of the other conversations led to a book recommendation – Jordan Peterson – 12 Rules of Life.

Bob Wiggins: extended the conversation about the hospitality industry by talking about CRA auditing the industry and Bob’s son needing dad’s tax planning advice to fly under their radar. Bob also tied back to an earlier conversation about “simplifying”. It was easy when he and Dorothy were moving every two years, but now, after 37 years in this house….well…let’s just say after he described the situation, I thought of George Carlin’s “stuff” routine.

Gerry Parcells:  concluded the story of Gail losing her purse two weeks ago. Gerry saw the purse in a dream – and off on a road trip to the cottage they went, where he looked exactly where he’d seen it in his dream, aaannnd, didn’t find it. So much for that. BUT, he was looking through a pile of other stuff when he thought he saw something at the bottom…and sure enough there it was.

Andy 2nd round – planting a seed. Roger was back serving up breakfast today but he mentioned that he’s retiring in November. Andy thought we should have our ducks in a row to send something back home with Roger on November 12.

Finally, an anecdote from Tony Fisher – and he told it better than I’ll write it, but here goes. The day the snow started falling, he spotted a lady walking across the parking lot of their building in the NE. She was wearing a long coat, looked to be about mid-40’s. Then he realized…”wait a minute, she wasn’t coming from the road or sidewalk, she was coming from the building !”. Sure enough, they followed her tracks through the snow back to a spot where they found her shanty-lean-to up against the building. That’s where she’d been. Made me think of that old chestnut of a quote “There but for the grace of God, go I.”