Last year, my classmates organized a 30 year high school reunion for the class of 1982. They suggested the theme be wearing clothes that are from back then and bringing items from the last classes we took together. Believe it or not, I still have several pieces of the vintage clothing and some notebooks and sports equipment I used all throughout my high school years. My proudest possession is a pair of vinyl binders that held up like new. They are filled with every flier and all the promotional pamphlets of the time’s events. Things like this prove to have great sentimental value that grows each year.
I heard the term tote mixer the other day and it brought me back to my youth. You see back in the sixties, the term toke was connected to the smoking of a particular herb that did not fall under the category of health food. I automatically thought it was a party of sorts when I heard the word used with mixer. Well, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the mental trip back to my good old days. It brought a smile to my face for hours. Now, I will make it my business to find out what tote mixer really means.
In the world of fashion, there is a very suspicious trend that leads me to believe that there is a definite planned obsolesence going on. I feel it is pretty obvious that the designers and manufactures artificially create different styles with direct attention toward dating the current ones. Be as it may, this trend is emerging in every industry from automobiles to wedding cake toppers. I remember when you bought a new car, it remained styish for at least seven or eight years. Now, they change design, seemingly every six months. For a century, the wedding cake topper was a bride in a white gown and a groom in a black tux. Today you don’t know what to expect atop the cake.
When my uncle used the analogy of walking a thousand miles over land compared to being on a jet plane and walking on the plane while it travelled 550 miles per hour, I truly comprehended the utilization of event management software. At first I was a bit lost trying to visualize software accomplishing so many of the manual tasks involved in putting on an event. He further explained how the coordinating of the exhibitors and badges being printed for them as well as the attendees was expedited by the software. It took a while for my non-analytical mind to get the picture. I guess it is better late than never.
When I first heard the term “Manitoba Carpenters” I presumed it was the name of a new Canadian hockey team. Sure it seemed a bit odd, but so did names like Sox and Orioles in US baseball. As far as I’m concerned, sox can smell and birds fly. They don’t hit and run. Thus, why can’t carpenters skate. Then I found out why the name is heard so often. I was touring BC when I stopped in this brand new library that appeared to be built hundreds of years ago. I mean this in a complimentary way. The creaftsmanship in the panelled walls and shelving and tables was incredibly fine.
Along with being a natural power activist, I have a second passion. I love to see how efficiently and creatively living quarters can be designed. I have repeatedly been told that Vancouver interior design is the Rolls Royce of industry. I am planning a trip up to BC to experience first hand the supposed prowess of these designers. I already have searched on line and have seen some remarkable work. I just know that there is nothing like the actual thing. I want to feel the design as well as view it. My friends say that once I get there, I may not want to return. My options are open.
Whenever I hear mention of carpentry, I automatically think of the Manitoba carpenters who worked on my sister’s home. They turned a seemingly hollow sun room into, what looked like, a deluxe suite at a five star hotel. They make me think of the carpenters of old that had no power tools and took painstakingly hours and days to shape the raw woods into magical pieces. I remember reading Follettt’s “Pillars of the Earth” and visualizing how difficult the handling of the gigantic beams were. These guys had to be powerful with finesse, a combination not often found.They were definitely a special breed.
It takes an extraordinary amount of planning and decision making to come up with the perfect wedding decorations. It would be great if the whole world had the luxury of a wedding planner like in the movies. I love when they show couples struggling to get by and yet, they somehow have the means to hire a planner. Trust me, in real life these people aren’t cheap. As a matter of fact, I don’t see the point of having one at all. I feel that this event is the most personal day you will ever have and the couple should orchestrate it from beginning to end by themselves.
The next time you feel like screaming or even crying because you are struggling making a living from your small business, try thinking about other parts of the world. In more than half the world’s population, you wouldn’t even be allowed to own and operate a business. You would be totally void of any sort of financing to start a business. In the civilized world, you have the natural born right to own one. You have access to tools like business loans, personal loans and even an unsecured business lines of credit. So, stop whining and get out there and bring in some financing to support your dream. Keep working, because in a free society , hard work and perserverance do pay off.
One of the ways to exhibit confidence in the American economy that would certainly spur job growth and speed up our path to recovery is to have more unsecured business loans available. After all, our greatest natural power and resource is our entrepeneural minds. Faith in ourselves has gotten us to be the world’s strongest and most progressive economy. Why not put our money on what has proven to be our strongest facet, ourselves. It will be those with this faith that will be responsible for our climbing back to the top. Waiting for foreign help or loans is like throwing dirt on our graves.
I must really get under the skin of some people. I can tell you that I can even annoy myself at times. It isn’t easy living with an obsession, even if you know you have it. I have been trying to back off on the environment thing lately, but some abusive behavior is very difficult to ignore.I was in Mumbai last month, and there was one of those over-the-top Indian weddings going on. The wedding decorations alone easily were worth what I had earned in my lifetime. The outlandish lighting for the four day event could have supplied power to an entire community for a week. I was bursting at the seams holding my tongue. I have decided to avoid such activities in the future, since keeping my mouth shut is no easy task.
I am most certainly aware that some percieve me as an off-the-wall eccentric. When people discover how immersed I am in supporting and sometimes enforcing the use of natural power and such, it sets off the WEIRDO button in their head. I would love to be able to take these souls to a luxury wilderness resort in BC where they are diligent in their power usages and respect for the beauty that surrounds them. Once they experience the show that Mother Nature displays for them, I’m more than sure it will recruit many more of them to my way of thinking.
Every once in a while it’s great to step out of your element and get involved in something totally unrelated to your norm. Fighting for conservation and clean fuel sort of shields my existence from time to time and the escape is essential to my sanity. So when my son asked me to look at these wedding cake toppers for his reception, I jumped at the opportunity to escape. We had a ball looking at some on line and even going down town to see some in bakery windows. He settled on getting one made with him and his bride on their Harley. It came out incredible.
Mother Earth has been more than generous to most of us. She provides food, water and resources for all of our needs. What do we do in return? We reap. We harvest all she has to offer and above all we abuse. we have people living in 20,000sqft homes with only two or three family members. We drive powerful cars that burn gas at an alarming rate. We pollute the air and destroy the ozone layer. Need I say more? I was at a Burnaby condo where this couple and their two children lived like royalty in only 1800sqft. They were happy as clams and said the move from their 6000sqft home was the smartest thing they have ever done.
It atarted in my third grade class. I was almost eight years old when a major volcanic eruption occurred. I remember hearing reports stating that the greatest polluter of the Earth was the Earth. From fires to earthquakes to floods, all these natural phenomena realeased spores into the atmosphere that polluted it. I couldn’t, even at that young age accept that we, the human race, weren’t equally as guilty. I set out and bought, My mom paid, four 3 ring binders and supplemental sheet protectors and began my life of pollution protection. The plan was to amass irrefutable evidence that we had a hand as least as large in harming the planet as the planet itself. Decades later, Im filling my twenty-first binder.