Archives for May, 2008
Mark learning to skimboard
Now on YouTube. For those of you who are sure I am a horrible father, I did check out his injuries and they weren’t severe enough to stop him from trying out his skimboard for another half hour or so.
Worst Album Covers of All Time
via Warren Kinsella who has ensured that productivity went way down today at work.
I’m hiring
I am looking for a night position at the Centre. It is a stable 32-40 hours a week (actually 40 hours one week and 32 hours the next week) and is from 12:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. The wage isn’t bad and the benefits are pretty good. The details can be found online and if you have any questions, drop me a line at jordon.cooper AT salvationarmyscc.com
If you are interested, send in your resume. If you know of anyone else who might want the job, let them know about it as well.
9999
That’s the amount of e-mail I have in my Gmail inbox. The inner geek in me finds that very cool.
McGrowl
The Sorting Room
Congrats to Andrew and Debbie Jones on the opening of The Sorting Room.
The Sorting Room is the Community Interest Company side of our social enterprise. This opening marks the launch of a dozen micro-businesses, some of them from the small islands around Orkney. We are artists and artisans who want our creativity to inspire and we want our business to help transform society around us. The Sorting Room offers Orkney’s first free WiFi zone, a small performance space, a reading area with a small arts library, printing equipment, free coffee and tea, and classes in things ranging from pottery to blogging. And you can also buy products directly from the artists who make them.
Leeds to experience Toronto’s suffering
MLSE to purchase Leeds United. If I am a Leed’s fan, I am not feeling real good about my team’s chances in the future.
A Bridge Too Far
On the weekend Wendy, Mark, Maggi and I left Saskatoon and headed to the cabin to get away. Mark and I went exploring with Maggi and along the way Maggi realized it was far more enjoyable to go under bridges then over them. In case you are wondering, the video makes it look like there is a current but it just a channel between the marina and the lake and there was a bit of a breeze. Maggi was in no danger of being swept away. Wendy has more about the weekend on her blog.
The Kraft Dinner Sandwich
Warren Kinsella is blogging about a very important subject on his blog today, Kraft Dinner. He is asking how we prepare our own KD and I shared the ancient Cooper family secret. The Kraft Dinner Sandwich.
First of all, all KD works for one but it is the KD spirals that are made for such a creation. You cook up your KD (I prefer my KD a little undercooked) and then you only add butter, lots and lots of butter to it. No milk. Well you can have milk on the side but not in the KD.
After preparing your KD, you get two slices of fresh white bread and slap a little more butter on it. You then spoon about 3/4 of an inch of Kraft Dinner across your bread evenly. Some will fall out but’s that okay. The dog deserves some KD as well sometimes. You get your KD sandwiches ready, grab your side of milk, make sure your cardiologist is programmed into the speed dial, and make your way to the sofa as after you eat this bad boy of a sandwich, you will need to lie down as your body absorbs it’s goodness.
The Devil Plays Hardball
A documentary for CBC Newsworld :: It questions whether the mentor model is the best way to get people who are living on the streets off the streets.
Cameras were rolling as a well-to-do mother of four, a lawyer, an IT consultant and a film director paired up with homeless people for 10 months. The hope was to mentor their less-fortunate partners and turn their lives around.
The result was a good hard look at life on the street and the obstacles homeless people face as they try to find housing – or even temporary shelter. The documentary revealed stuff that’s very difficult to explain to people.
Filmmakers believe their work can have an impact. The documentary shows that not everyone is going to be contributing members of society, but we as a society have an obligation to look after those people and provide certain needs for them that they can’t provide for themselves.
Fences to keep out the homeless
From the Salvation Army website
The city of Port Coquitlam, B.C. wants to fence off certain sheltered areas from the homeless. They say it is a public safety measure!
The fences would stop the homeless from finding refuge in picnic shelters and under bridges.
The homeless are just looking for a warm, sheltered place to sleep. If approved, the proposal will cost the city $135,000 and critics say it will only move the problem around.
There are 200 homeless people in Port Coquitlam and no homeless shelters. Some say these dollars could fund a 30-bed shelter for a year.
Well I don’t know if it would fund a 30 bed shelter for a year but there are better ways to deal with a housing problem than building fences to keep them out of parks and bridges.
Long live the Phoenix Coyotes
If Dave Blondel had comments, I would comment here and tell him that the Winnipeg Jet’s logo was and is terrible.
PSA: Road Runner Warning
Yesterday at work I met someone who needed housing but he wouldn’t part with his part dog, part coyote (a coydog). I am a dog owner and have several dog owners that work with me so we decided to do something about the situation.
I had met Cleopatra earlier in the day when it’s owner needed to go to the hospital and made the dog lay down outside the Centre. Sure enough that dog/coyote stayed and waited for him to come back. Cleo never acknowledged another soul other than our staff who she let pet her. By this time I was getting lobbied by my staff to do something. After looking into it some more, I was confronted with the fact that the dog had no teeth, had arthritis, and is 15 years old which cut down on the likely hood of being attacked by her. Like i said I was getting a fair amount of internal pressure to do something but the local dog pound was less than helpful and I couldn’t permit other dog kennels to keep her for free.
By a rather strange coincidence, a grocery store donated some soft dog food. As one friend said, “Do you need a clearer sign that we need to do something?” Later that day Wendy went to Dollarama to get a short and a long leash as well as a collar. By the end of the day we had put together a bed for the dog, found a safe place for her, gotten food together, and made a friend. It isn’t an ideal setup but one that keeps everyone happy, safe, and out of pretty cool wind tonight.
Of course I did have to say that if we got complaints from road runners, saw any ACME anvils being delivered, or heard of any TNT deliveries, the coyote was going to have to find other places to stay. One thing I have learned if that you never ever want to run afoul of the powerful road runner lobby, especially not in an election year.
Street to Homes
Today I spent part of the morning with a manager from the City of Toronto who was talking about their Street to Homes program. Basically the outreach teams for the City of Toronto go out and find people who are sleeping on the streets and find housing for them in a wide variety of housing solutions using a housing first philosophy. It was a good use of my time and from the perspective of work, I walked away with six pages of notes and ideas that I want to implement. Just as the City of Toronto stole ideas from around North America, there were a lot of ideas to steal from them.
One of the ideas that I need to think more of was the idea that street outreach is a profession best done by professionals with training. Their experience was that volunteers are well intentioned by often misguided who do more damage then good. They did find that volunteers did an excellent job of community development within established communities and focused their efforts on this. It made me rethink what we need to do with training and resourcing people at the Centre.
If you are looking for affordable housing and resources, the City of Toronto has an amazing website for housing at www.toronto.ca/housing/ with more information to print out than my laser printer could handle today.
Contextless Thoughts
- I can’t figure out what Hillary Clinton is going to accomplish by keeping her campaign going until the Democratic convention in August. Jason Cherniak has some reasons on why she should stay in the campaign but in the end he is arguing for a Canadian type political convention rather than an American one (one with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson all in it). I agree but I think we are both biased towards one system rather than the other. Either way, I wonder if this nomination may be decided with the courts deciding if the Florida and Michigan delegates get seated (you know those states that Hillary won without having Obama to campaign against).
- Bill Simmons says that KG’s habit of choking in pressure situations could keep the Celtics from winning the NBA championship. Of course he isn’t the only guy to choke in big games :: Now, Garnett isn’t the only NBA star who has struggled in big moments. Wilt was famous for it. The Mailman choked so many times I once wrote, “You know you’re watching ESPN Classic if it’s 2 a.m. and Karl Malone looks like he’s about to throw up.” David Robinson was an extremely nice guy who played like one in big games. C-Webb passed the basketball like it was a hand grenade in the clutch. Clyde Drexler always seemed like he’d just downed too much caffeine. Even one of my favorite Celtics, Kevin McHale, got the yips. In Game 2 of the 1984 Finals, his legs shook after he missed that free throw before Gerald Henderson’s famous steal.
- Good story about Dale Jr.’s relationship with his dad in ESPN Magazine. While I am excited about the Indianapolis 500, I have to admit I am becoming a NASCAR fan. I find myself turning left when driving just because I can. Also when watching a NASCAR race I find my literacy deteriorating and George W. Bush’s presidency making sense.
- Can someone please tell me how the NDP are both pro-green agenda AND calling for lower gas prices. Wouldn’t lower gas taxes lead to higher consumption creating more demand AND creating more emissions. Look, I hate filling up the tank as much as anyone but…
- If I was Stephane Dion and the Liberals, I would reach out a little bit to Canadian bloggers this summer when selling the carbon tax.
- The only was an English soccer team was going to win a major tourney on penalty kicks was for another English team to be in the game so they could lose.
- So is college for everyone? A professor at a small community college argues that not everyone will make it and wonders why everyone needs a college education.
- It’s time to upgrade to Firefox 3
- Lifehacker has ten ways blog easier :: It missed the obvious suggestions of 1) reader better books and magazines 2) start covering more NHL hockey games 3) spend more time writing original well thought out content (do as I say, not as I do)
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The Agenda Inside the Clinton White House by Woodward Bob October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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