Coaching, Christmas and other stuff
Posted: December 19, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentCoaching, Christmas and other stuff.
excellent commercials….still wiping the tears away from the Apple video.
Monday Morning Smile LXVIII – Door-toDoor No More.
Posted: December 16, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Canada Post, carrier pigeon, dilbert, dog sled, door-to-door delivery, marathon, monday morning, monday morning smile, pony express, postman, war time runners, wells fargo 2 Comments
Well, everyone always did want a white Christmas. And boy did we get some white! I think I shoveled the driveway four times. And being the good Canadian boy I am, I shoveled the ice rink in the yard first. Skates before cars.
I saw the big news from Canada Post over the weekend. Individual door-to-door mail delivery to end! What !?
The end of an era, the end of the bottomless source of “Postie” jokes, of “going Postal”, of sidelong glances as your kid starts to resemble the good looking guy in shorts that comes by every day…..But also the end of the era where seniors, shut in their home, look forward to a fleeting moment of brief human contact when the mail carrier comes by. Such is Progress…. (will kids now email Santa?)
So in honour of the letter that you might not ever get. Here is a list of alternatives you might use.
1. Carrier pigeon – used during war to transmit messages. As early as the 6th century B.C. in Persia, right up to the second World War. More incredibly pigeons were used to transport medicine bettween two British hospitals up until – get this – 1983! Want to know why they stopped? Because one of the hospitals shut down.
2. Dog sled – granted a little more difficult to use here in the sunny south (only -10 Celsius today), but in the far north postmen used dog sled to meet their appointed rounds. The last mail run by dog was as late as 1963.
3. Pony Express – Many a Hollywood movie was made about the Pony Express. Mail was delivered coast to coast in just 10 days. It was dangerous work in those days. The service only lasted 18 months, but the myths and lore will last forever. Well after ponies were put out to pasture the Pony Express logo was used by Wells Fargo, the stagecoach company. And yes, it is the same Wells Fargo that today is the largest Bank in the United States.
5 runners – “Runner” were originally men who had the dangerous job of taking messages between Fronts during a war. Adolf Hitler was a runner in the first world war – and was injured twice. The most famous “Runner” was the legendary Greek messenger Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens with news of the victory. This is of course is the inspiration for the Marathon, introduced at the 1896 Athens Olympics, and originally run between the town of Marathon and Athens. (by the way, it is thought to be historically inaccurate, but a good story nevertheless).
So who is the most famous mailman? Hmmmm, well all I could think of was the (in)famous Cliff Clavin from Cheers.
BTW: the postman’s creed which is over the U.S. Postal Office is a translation from ancient greek text describing the Persian system of mounted couriers from 500 B.C.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds…..
Monday Morning Smile LXVII – Rider Nation !!
Posted: November 25, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: canadian rangers, CFL, dilbert, grey cup, monday morning, monday morning smile, Regina grey cup, rough riders, saskatchewan Leave a comment
Well it’s official. Winter has started in Canada. Know how you can tell? Snow Flurries – perhaps. Temperatures that start with a ‘minus’ – maybe. The official start of winter is the building of the rink in the front yard. Yep. you know it’s official when you drag out the boards, hammer in the stanchions, and fasten the end boards in the quintessential Canadian experience – the backyard rink. Bring on the cold weather!
You know what else in Canadian – the Grey Cup. Congrats to the Saskatchewan Rough Riders who dominated the game.
So what is it about Canadian football that is different from the glitzy marketing machine of the American game? Sure, there is the wider field dimensions, 12 vs. 11 men per side, a bigger ball, and a few other assorted rule differences. But here are the real differences between a CFL championship game and a Superbowl game.
1. Cheerleaders in snowsuits, gloves, and warm hats – just like their mothers always told them to wear in the cold. Won’t sell calendars but is truly Canadian.
2. A halftime show that features – get this – flying snowmobiles!! Sure, super group Headley was playing (and were great by the way), but it was the flying snowmobiles in the background that were the all-Canadian show.
3. Team Horses that walk into a local hotel, right up to the front desk. How cool is that. The Stampeders rode their horse Justin into the Beer Bros. bar, a Bank of Montreal and the Ramada hotel on Thursday as part of Grey Cup week festivities. (not to mention that only in the CFL are there ‘team horses’!)
note this tradition started way back in 1948 at the Royal York in Toronto no less. Calgary fans imported their infectious Western football hysteria and it has continued ever since. Gotta love it.
4. Part of the opening ceremonies include branches of the Canadian Forces of course – nothing unique about that. However, part of the Forces include the Canadian Rangers. The red sweat-shirted troop are a volunteer force operating exclusively in the far north, with a significant portion of the force made up of Inuit, Metis, and other First Nations men. Reconnaissance, search and rescue, and military presence is handled by a group of hardy men that know how to survive in conditions so harsh that you and I might last 5 minutes.
And of course, Dilbert on sports…..
Monday Morning Smile LXVI – Forever Young – unfortunately
Posted: November 12, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
How was everyone’s Remembrance Day? Can be emotional can’t it? It brought tears to my eyes seeing a 90 year old man openly weep for people that died almost 70 years ago. Good friends and comrades that did not return. In a breaking voice this veteran said that he’ll always remember them as young, cocky, good looking men, that never grow old – unfortunately. For those young men, today, a country weeps for you.
The weekend in general was a good one, with inevitable leaf raking of course. “Baba” turned 90 on the weekend, so we had a nice little birthday party. Oh, the things she has seen! From those early beginnings in a one room stove-heated cabin on the Saskatchewan prairie, through the rationing of the war years, the optimism of the 50’s, “Trudeau-mania in the 60’s (the first Trudeau, not the current one), the oil crisis fueled inflation of the 70’s, and on, and on….oh, the things she has seen!
Hmmmm, so over the last 90 years are our lives better? Look no farther. the list is here!
1. Refrigerator – Baba started out with an ice box, and probably didn’t have a refrigerator till after 1950. Is life easier because of this? Is your beer cold? Beer Food was stored in an insulated box with a shelf for a block of ice. Refrigerators became widespread in Canada in the 40’s. Of course this put Ice delivery men out of business, but created a market for MayTag repairmen.
2. Television – the boob tube, the idiot box, the babysitter – it comes by many names, but nearly everyone watches it. When Baba was born women had an average of 3.5 babies, Canadian women of today average less than 2. Why? because men are watching TV. Ladies, you’re welcome.
3. The television remote. Brilliant, brilliant invention! The first TV remote control by Zenith corporation was marketed under the name “Lazy Bones” – and that says it all!! The TV remote of today requires an advanced degree in theoretic physics to use. The “Lazy Bones” changed channels and volume – ahh the good ‘ole days.
4.Credit card – the first widespread card was “the Diners Card”, still in use today. In Baba’s day, if you needed a cute frock to impress a lad, you saved up and bought it. Today, you decide which of your 5 credit cards you will charge it to. There are 71m credit cards in Canada, almost 6 per household. A good thing for those of us who work at Banks!
5. Air conditioning – now Baba never did get air conditioning till she moved to a retirement home. But then, folks of her generation are made from hardier stock than the rest of us young’uns. Air conditioning in its current form was first made by Willis Carrier (yep, the Carrier company that makes Air Con to this day). Office air conditioning was thought to be wasteful and promote employee laziness. Then, a test showed that typists increased their productivity by 24% in an air conditioned office. And voila, fast forward to today – folks won’t go outside if it’s too hot.
Well, that’s enough for now…there are many others…the calculator, penicillin, antibiotics, the internet, and on and on….
But for now, it’s happy 90th birthday Baba!
MondayMorningSmile 