Weekly update for Nov 30 - Dec 6 (December!!!???)
hello all a friend of mine recently sent me a message asking to resume my weekly posts. I'm must confess that, although I had all the good intentions of continuing my posts, somehow life seemed to have gotten in the way and I tripped over it. Now where is that broom? So without further adieu, here is a post for the ahem... upcoming week which is already some 70% over, hey let's all look at the bright side tomorrow is Friday. Now I must say that at this very moment 9:07AM I should be practicing my job interview questions as yours truly has a job interview tomorrow morning. Am I nervous? Not really as having had several job interviews now I pretty much know what will be asked of me, but of course as tomorrow morning rolls around the butterflies will take flight in my tummy, although come to think of it I've never really felt any lighter for it :)
Alright, so my last entry was back in Oct just before the great Canadian Federal redundant election, remember that? Yes $300,000,000.02 (that's six zeroes folks) spent to let Mr. Harper know that as Canadians we really don't see any other alternative at the moment, but to keep him in Ottawa as we have other things to attend to such as working hard, working harder to keep our jobs, looking for jobs, watching other people lose their jobs, wondering when we'll lose our jobs and paying our taxes, did I mention working hard? Oh yeah and posting status reports on Facebook :) Of course, I duly did my duty and voted on that day, and no I'm not going to say so don't ask. Even as I walked to the cardboard shield of the polling station I somehow felt that my vote would do absolutely nothing to change the course of this election or so the polls said. Of course the highlight for me was to watch the spectacle on CBC during the live, captivating coverage of elections 2008 hosted by Mr. Mansbridge. I like the CBC and Mr. Mansbridge, but what I saw that evening kind of boggled my mind. The set looked like something from "Who wants to be a millionaire?" and the whole spectacle looked like a "American Idol" wanna be. I suppose they are trying to appeal to a younger audience and give the whole election coverage some panache, but in the end folks the whole thing boils down to a bunch of people counting little pieces of paper and the whole country watching little numbers changing on the screen and wondering what it all means. In the end it didn't change all that much other than somehow spur the Quebec government to call an election and so here we go again, the Quebec populace will now have to don our Winter jackets, boots and tuques and go out to our local churches, community centers and schools (how many election ped days is that anyway?) and go vote for a new Quebec government. Now let's get it right this time, let's actually make a change, everyone vote for the Walrus party... no wait the Pigmy party... no that's not it.. oh yes the Rhinoceros party, this will certainly shake up the Quebec legislature, literally and figuratively.
I believe in my last entry I had mentioned the economy and in the last few weeks it has finally tanked and so did the price of a litre of fuel. The last time I checked at the local corner gas station it was somewhere around $0.87/lt. Now that the US has a new president and the whole country seems to have to put their fate and resolutions in his hands we shall now see if he can make the radical changes in both the foreign and domestic policies and increase consumer/investor's confidence to kick start the US economy. This is extremely important for the entire world economy as what happens in the US's backyard will ultimately affect what goes on in your own yard. In my own opinion things will get worst before the world sees the economy get any better. Some analysts have said that the recession will last throughout 2009 while others have speculated that things should pick up by next Summer (Jun/July 2009) I tend to agree with the latter, I believe today's markets and governments are much more careful now not to repeat what happened in the 30's and the 80's. With the global economy there are more intertwined factors and so a shift in one country's economy can and does seriously affect the economy in another country, both positively and negatively. This is the case here in Canada, the US started feeling it first and ultimately hit Canada several months later and so too will the economic upturn. I only see things getting better sometime in the Fall of 2009 for us, that is if the President Obama's vision can become a reality. Again, these are just my gut feelings, I don't really have any basis for them so don't go making any rash decisions on the rantings of a neo-econophyte*, I just like talking and writing about this stuff.
* Not a real word :))
OK so let's have a quick recap shall we?
Canada has elections and doesn't get a new goverment.
The US has elections and gets a new and potentially radically different goverment.
and... the Alouettes didn't win the cup, the only grey they will be seeing is if they drink Earle Grey tea. Now I will admit I'm not a huge sports fan, in fact the only two sports I really watched with any interest was baseball and F1 racing, but now with the Montreal Grand Prix getting the Denver boot put on its collective wheels and Montreal having lost its beloved Expos oh so many years ago and and the Alouettes losing to the only province that up to recently was the most prosperous in Canada, well what can I say? It's just too much for a man to take, I'll go sulk now in the corner and make another coffee.
OK coffee in hand...
So Halloween came and went and this year my darling little daughter was dressed as a cat, uhm no dog.. uhm goldfish? No, actually she went to school dressed as a cat with the whole face painted gig going on and everything provided by my wife and when she came home she announced that she wanted to go out trick o' treating as a dog, so a face wash and a few brush strokes later and voila! she's looking like Wishbone wearing a Winter coat :) I was able to keep a promise to myself and built a dummy, hah and you only thought God could do that! I called him Fred the dead guy and put him on the front porch wearing a turtle-neck, ripped jeans and a tuque. The thing about Fred you see was that his head was actually one of these novelty candy dishes and when the kids approached he would speak. I wasn't there to see the effects first hand, as I took my daughter out on what ended up being a 2 1/2 hour Halloween ordeal. In any case my wife said the dummy was a great hit and the kids were terrified of it... ha ha I'm terrible aren't I, next it will be a chain-saw wielding Santa on the roof!! (insert evil laughter here)
Alright, so what do we have in store for the upcoming week? Well, as aforementioned, Quebec residents have the dubious honour of going back to the polls and it seems the snow that fell on Montreal will be staying. CNN and other American and world media outlets will be watching the unfolding of the economic crisis and President Obama's continuing selection of his cabinet that will "hit the ground running" in January as he put it. Good-luck Mr. President
For those of you who don't follow it, NASA's shuttle endeavour is up in space docked to the International space station that is now a huge assembly orbiting the earth once every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 250 nautical miles. The space station got an additional bathroom and a water recuperation system that will allow up to 6 astronauts to recycle perspiration and urine into potable water (and you thought being an Astronaut was a glamorous job) reducing the station's requirement for water brought up from the shuttle and Russian re-supply vessels. See you can learn so much from this blog :) The shuttle will be returning to earth this Sunday. The shuttle fleet will be mothballed in 2010 so NASA has a very ambitious schedule to launch and finish the construction of the International Space Station, one of the most complex international projects ever undertaken. On a side note next year NASA plans on sending a shuttle to the Hubble Space telescope on what will be a final maintenance flight to fix the aging telescope.
So I hope you enjoyed this entry as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hopefully, now that I know at least one person reads this stuff, I will endeavour to post some regular entries.
Alright, so my last entry was back in Oct just before the great Canadian Federal redundant election, remember that? Yes $300,000,000.02 (that's six zeroes folks) spent to let Mr. Harper know that as Canadians we really don't see any other alternative at the moment, but to keep him in Ottawa as we have other things to attend to such as working hard, working harder to keep our jobs, looking for jobs, watching other people lose their jobs, wondering when we'll lose our jobs and paying our taxes, did I mention working hard? Oh yeah and posting status reports on Facebook :) Of course, I duly did my duty and voted on that day, and no I'm not going to say so don't ask. Even as I walked to the cardboard shield of the polling station I somehow felt that my vote would do absolutely nothing to change the course of this election or so the polls said. Of course the highlight for me was to watch the spectacle on CBC during the live, captivating coverage of elections 2008 hosted by Mr. Mansbridge. I like the CBC and Mr. Mansbridge, but what I saw that evening kind of boggled my mind. The set looked like something from "Who wants to be a millionaire?" and the whole spectacle looked like a "American Idol" wanna be. I suppose they are trying to appeal to a younger audience and give the whole election coverage some panache, but in the end folks the whole thing boils down to a bunch of people counting little pieces of paper and the whole country watching little numbers changing on the screen and wondering what it all means. In the end it didn't change all that much other than somehow spur the Quebec government to call an election and so here we go again, the Quebec populace will now have to don our Winter jackets, boots and tuques and go out to our local churches, community centers and schools (how many election ped days is that anyway?) and go vote for a new Quebec government. Now let's get it right this time, let's actually make a change, everyone vote for the Walrus party... no wait the Pigmy party... no that's not it.. oh yes the Rhinoceros party, this will certainly shake up the Quebec legislature, literally and figuratively.
I believe in my last entry I had mentioned the economy and in the last few weeks it has finally tanked and so did the price of a litre of fuel. The last time I checked at the local corner gas station it was somewhere around $0.87/lt. Now that the US has a new president and the whole country seems to have to put their fate and resolutions in his hands we shall now see if he can make the radical changes in both the foreign and domestic policies and increase consumer/investor's confidence to kick start the US economy. This is extremely important for the entire world economy as what happens in the US's backyard will ultimately affect what goes on in your own yard. In my own opinion things will get worst before the world sees the economy get any better. Some analysts have said that the recession will last throughout 2009 while others have speculated that things should pick up by next Summer (Jun/July 2009) I tend to agree with the latter, I believe today's markets and governments are much more careful now not to repeat what happened in the 30's and the 80's. With the global economy there are more intertwined factors and so a shift in one country's economy can and does seriously affect the economy in another country, both positively and negatively. This is the case here in Canada, the US started feeling it first and ultimately hit Canada several months later and so too will the economic upturn. I only see things getting better sometime in the Fall of 2009 for us, that is if the President Obama's vision can become a reality. Again, these are just my gut feelings, I don't really have any basis for them so don't go making any rash decisions on the rantings of a neo-econophyte*, I just like talking and writing about this stuff.
* Not a real word :))
OK so let's have a quick recap shall we?
Canada has elections and doesn't get a new goverment.
The US has elections and gets a new and potentially radically different goverment.
and... the Alouettes didn't win the cup, the only grey they will be seeing is if they drink Earle Grey tea. Now I will admit I'm not a huge sports fan, in fact the only two sports I really watched with any interest was baseball and F1 racing, but now with the Montreal Grand Prix getting the Denver boot put on its collective wheels and Montreal having lost its beloved Expos oh so many years ago and and the Alouettes losing to the only province that up to recently was the most prosperous in Canada, well what can I say? It's just too much for a man to take, I'll go sulk now in the corner and make another coffee.
OK coffee in hand...
So Halloween came and went and this year my darling little daughter was dressed as a cat, uhm no dog.. uhm goldfish? No, actually she went to school dressed as a cat with the whole face painted gig going on and everything provided by my wife and when she came home she announced that she wanted to go out trick o' treating as a dog, so a face wash and a few brush strokes later and voila! she's looking like Wishbone wearing a Winter coat :) I was able to keep a promise to myself and built a dummy, hah and you only thought God could do that! I called him Fred the dead guy and put him on the front porch wearing a turtle-neck, ripped jeans and a tuque. The thing about Fred you see was that his head was actually one of these novelty candy dishes and when the kids approached he would speak. I wasn't there to see the effects first hand, as I took my daughter out on what ended up being a 2 1/2 hour Halloween ordeal. In any case my wife said the dummy was a great hit and the kids were terrified of it... ha ha I'm terrible aren't I, next it will be a chain-saw wielding Santa on the roof!! (insert evil laughter here)
Alright, so what do we have in store for the upcoming week? Well, as aforementioned, Quebec residents have the dubious honour of going back to the polls and it seems the snow that fell on Montreal will be staying. CNN and other American and world media outlets will be watching the unfolding of the economic crisis and President Obama's continuing selection of his cabinet that will "hit the ground running" in January as he put it. Good-luck Mr. President
For those of you who don't follow it, NASA's shuttle endeavour is up in space docked to the International space station that is now a huge assembly orbiting the earth once every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 250 nautical miles. The space station got an additional bathroom and a water recuperation system that will allow up to 6 astronauts to recycle perspiration and urine into potable water (and you thought being an Astronaut was a glamorous job) reducing the station's requirement for water brought up from the shuttle and Russian re-supply vessels. See you can learn so much from this blog :) The shuttle will be returning to earth this Sunday. The shuttle fleet will be mothballed in 2010 so NASA has a very ambitious schedule to launch and finish the construction of the International Space Station, one of the most complex international projects ever undertaken. On a side note next year NASA plans on sending a shuttle to the Hubble Space telescope on what will be a final maintenance flight to fix the aging telescope.
So I hope you enjoyed this entry as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hopefully, now that I know at least one person reads this stuff, I will endeavour to post some regular entries.
posted by Stefano at 10:20 AM
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