The Mongol Derby

Cheers to my friend Katherine Friedley who is about to embark on a 10 day, 1000 km endurance horse race across Mongolia! She is the only Canadian participant in this year’s Mongol Derby, billed as the longest toughest horse race in the world. Her race name is ‘Outlaw Kate’ and she will be riding for the race’s official charity MercyCorps Mongolia. For more information about this incredible adventure (or making a donation) go to TheAdventurists Mongol Derby website or read Aleesha Harris’s Vancouver Sun interview. In this photo, Kathy is riding another friend’s Icelandic pony, Dropi, during a recent visit to Hornby Island BC.

Happy Birthday Paul McCartney

From the first time I heard the Beatles as a young teenager, I knew nothing would ever be the same. It was a musical (and cultural) turning point for me and remains so almost 50 years later. 

Like most parents in the 60’s, mine were skeptical. My father in particular was not impressed. This largely had to do with the fact that his father was Scottish musician Hugh Roberton, conductor of the world famous Glasgow Orpheus Choir. Now that was real music, my father insisted, and if there was any doubt, Hugh Roberton had become Sir Hugh in 1931 as a result of his musical achievements.

Just the same, I persevered and the years went by. One day, shortly before his 90^th birthday, my father completely out of the blue and in his broad Scots accent announced that “the Beatles were wonderful composers”. I was astonished and reminded him that he certainly hadn’t thought so in the 1960’s! “No”, he said.”I didn’t then, but I do now.”

Sadly, my father died in 1993 so didn’t live long enough to see Paul McCartney become Sir Paul as a result of his musical achievements. Nevertheless, I think he would have approved of the honor.

 I’d like to offer this little story as my gift to Sir Paul today on his 70^th birthday.

Hotel Ware From The "Alicco" - Where Was The "Alicco"

One of the things I like to collect is old hotel ware and in my travels between Alberta and British Columbia, I’ve found three pieces marked “Alicco”.  The lettering has always made me think of something exotic, like Morocco  perhaps, and a dining room full of palms and lazy ceiling fans. But it’s probably a lot more likely to have been an ordinary cafe or hotel in some little Western Canadian town.

Does anyone know where the Alicco was?  If you know anything about it, I’d be interested in your comment or an email.

Remember the “Alicco”!

Canada Post and eBay

I occasionally sell items on eBay and this morning, a potential customer contacted me to inquire about shipping a clock (parcel weighs just over three pounds) to Portugal.  I headed to the on-line Canada Post parcel calculator for a quote and this is what I discovered:

·         Small Packet International Surface - $21.07 – no insurance option – would take   approximately a month and a half to arrive.

·         International Parcel – Surface – now coming up at $40.62 (but half an hour ago was $37.79).  This would also take a month and a half to arrive but you do have the option of buying up to $1000 worth of insurance.

·         Small Packet International –Air -$50.26 including $100 insurance but no option to purchase any additional insurance!

·         X-Press Post International - $77. 22 (half an hour ago coming up at $73!) – seven day delivery supposedly guaranteed and insurance.

Alas, I have used surface overseas mail before and there is no way these parcels arrive in the time frame Canada Post suggests.  The last one took almost three months! So for a difference of $10.00 ($12.00 half an hour ago), the only possibility would be the Small Packet International Air for $50, except for one thing – no additional insurance option.  Surely I was misunderstanding this.  How could the cheaper surface shipping be insurable but not the air mail? It made no sense.

So, I called the Customer Service 800 number and indeed, I was reading the webpage correctly. Only up  $100 insurance for the air mail parcel is allowed but up to $1000 on the cheaper surface option.  Why?  The best answer I could get was “because it was a Small Packet”, although the size of the parcel did not change for any of the other quotes. When the representative suggested my best option was the X-Press Post for $77.22, I asked who in their right mind would pay $77.00, and her answer was to say “that was none of their concern”!

And that is where the problem lies.  Have any of these rates been established by anyone using a single realistic thought? Perhaps Canada Post should be concerned about such ridiculous rates and policies, especially considering what a boon on-line auctions have been to postal systems in general, and since these rates have a significant impact on Canadians being able to compete in the world-wide marketplace. Sending the information on to my potential customer in Portugal, I felt like a complete idiot. In order to have adequate insurance, he either will have to pay in excess of $77 or be prepared to wait for months to receive his item.  Have I heard back from him?  Of course not!

And one final consideration...Ebay is now charging their final value fee based on the selling price as well as the shipping amount.  In part, the intention is to encourage sellers to offer reasonable shipping charges to their customers.  Since “reasonable” is not any part of Canada Post’s mandate, we clearly have a problem.

Set a "Made In Canada" price for gasoline

Although this is may be humorous image, the rising price of gasoline is no laughing matter.

Nothing irks me more than smiling newscasters always urging us to “get used to it”; always reinforcing the idea that there is nothing we can do about it. Then, there are their recommendations: Get a smaller car, don’t drive an SUV, take public transport, ride a bicycle, walk, carpool, work from home. And while I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with those, in the end, it’s not that simple. For example, the average person can’t just go out and buy new vehicle and public transportation, bicycles, walking, carpooling and working from home are only solutions if you are able to implement them. Yet day after day, the media works hard to instil the notion that it’s us who have to make all the compromises, never the oil and gas industry.

Along with a growing number of Canadians, I believe we need to set our own “Made in Canada” price for our own resources. If the NAFTA agreement is preventing us from doing so, then it needs to be changed as soon as possible. Instead of being given free rein to create economic chaos, the oil companies need to start making a few compromises of their own, such as making reasonable rather than obscene profits.

Interest on Utility Bills – A Penalty for the Poor

Following the news that the Ontario Energy Board approved Ontario Power Generation’s application to raise power rates in order to pay $18 million dollars in fines incurred by charging up to 60% interest on late payments, I emailed CBC Marketplace with a story suggestion. I propose an investigative piece on exactly how much utility companies across the country are actually making from interest on overdue accounts.

In my province, seniors, low income and even mid-income Albertans constantly struggle to pay exorbitant utility costs, especially power. Several years ago, a teacher I know in Calgary remarked that in winter months, the only time a number of her students were warm enough was when they were in school. And yet, these are the very people who routinely get another 24% – 30% added to their bills. The people who can least afford it!

For years, I’ve also suspected that utility billing cycles are not quite as random as the companies would like us to think. For instance, if your bill comes due on the 24th of the month, you live cheque to cheque and don’t get paid until the 30th, then you are automatically in an interest situation and I think this interest has become a gold mine for utility providers.

In our climate, I believe that heat and light need to be recognized as essential services and regulated as such. Higher than credit card interest does not belong on these services and it is time to stop penalizing people for being low income Canadians.

Psychic Fair

This is one of the best emails I've recevied in a long time!