Royally Speaking

When I joined the air force in 1961, it was the Royal Canadian Air Force. Then some dummy got the bright idea to join all the services, so I ended up in Air Command. The navy got Maritime Command and the army was Land Command. (Original eh?) That was in 1968 and we were given new uniforms, badges. etc. Most people hated it, especially the navy. In the late 80's, the air force got their uniforms back, sort of. I don't think the army and navy did. Now they are going back to The Royal Canadian Air Force, The Royal Canadian Navy, and The Canadian Army. The army doesn't have royal in front because it is made up of different regiments, like The Royal Canadian Regiment, The Royal 22nd. Regiment, etc. I would be even happier if they went back to air force ranks instead of army.

The French population of Nova Scotia will now be able to get vanity licence plate. Nova Scotia in French and English and the Acadian flag on the side. Sounds all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the $50.00 cost to get one. They call it a donation. Wonder if you can get one without a donation. I shouldn't talk, I have a Veterans plate. It cost me $5.00 extra.

On the front page yesterday, they told us about civil servants getting bonuses. They call it Merit Pay. Of 1700 workers, over 1000 receive it. The purpose is so they don't want to lose good people. Give me a break. With their fringe benefits and pay that is 50% higher than the street, no one is going to leave. What do you take us for?
The top business leaders say the same thing. Give me a 10 million bonus or I'll leave. Yeah, right!

There is this Mayor in a village in Quebec, who gave his ex-wife a birthday present yesterday. They were divorced a year ago. He has a construction company and in the middle of the night, he brought a 17 tonne bolder and put it in her driveway. He said that she always wanted a big rock.


Jack Sakalauskas
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The Best of Times, Worst of Times

Sun again today. This is the second day in a row. It is quite windy though.

So the Utility Board had their open forum about the size of city council, and who gets up to speak, but the Mayor. Well yes, he says. City council is too large. It should be 15 not 23. He must figure he is on the way out anyway.

Yesterday, they had a council meeting. There is a big scandle going on, about the rock bands that come to the city during the summer. It seems that everyone got paid up front. They all got paid before the tickets were sold. The promoters, bands and everyone else who has their finger in it. They didn't need to worry about selling tickets, there was no more money to be made by doing so. This broke all the rules, and the Mayor had agreed to the whole thing.

Last evening, someone put up to vote to fire the Mayor. That didn't go anywhere. 17 - 3 to keep him. Maybe that 17 were in on the entertainment deal. And hey, there are lots of bands coming this summer. Did I fail to mention, the city pays when there are not enough tickets sold? I get to pay, even though I don't go to these shows. Entertainment for the masses. After all, you are not allowed to feed the christains to the lions. Then again, maybe we are being fed slowly.

Down behind my house, there is a shopping mall, and beyond that, the Forest Hills Parkway. At one end of the mall is Canadian Tire, with their own parking lot. After the store closes, the lot fills up with trailers, race cars, camp chairs and lots of beer. Soon, they are racing up and down the Parkway. The mounties get a lot of complaints, and what is their answer, "We're not interested in that."

The evening before yesterday, one of those guys must have run out of beer. Brandishing an axe, he robbed the Subway store in the same mall. I remember hearing a car just screaming out of the parking lot. I just happened to look at my watch at that time. Found out yesterday the robbery had occured just four minutes earlier. Guess we know who was in that car.

The mounties could have prevented that robbery, or even caught them in the act, if they had answered the complaint calls. They always seem to be conveniently ten miles away, doing rounds. Yesterday, all was back to normal, cars racing on the Parkway, everyone drinking beer and the cops doing rounds ten miles away.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

Colour Outside The Lines

Yesterday it rained and rained and then rained somemore. Right now it is foggy, wet and cloudy. I won't be rushing outside to start my cable trench.

You can read a newspaper from twenty years ago, one from today and one from twenty years from now and you will always read "Canada can do more to eliminate poverty." This article is about poverty in Canada not the rest of the world. Lets be truthful, that is not going to happen.  In my opinion, a lot of it comes down to lifestyle. It's not the amount of money you make but how you spend it. If you can't afford milk, then why are you smoking? Another reason for poverty can be intelligence. Not enough on the ball to make right decisions. A prime example of that is people without even a down payment buying a half million dollar house. When I read this article I looked to see who wrote it. It was written by an MP, member of the opposition party. So this is nothing but grandstanding, digging for votes. He knows nothing can be done but its an easy way to blame the government for something. All the parties do it.

In Halifax we have twenty three councillors and the mayor. That makes a total of twenty-four. In cities of the same size in the rest of Canada there are usually sixteen to twenty. Halifax and Dartmouth amalgamated a few years back hence the twenty-four. There has been some stink raised over this, so finally council put it to a vote. The outcome of the vote is that greed overcame common sense. As soon as they heard the word "less" they voted against it.  "Council sticks with status quo" is what the headline read. Actually it was a tie vote 12 - 12. It was defeated because it was a tie. For the life of me I can't see the advantage for the councillors. It's not like they would be fired. If a seat was vacated, they just wouldn't have an election for it. These guys can't be that bright. If they saved all that money, they could have given themselves a raise.

I heard this statement yesterday "Some people choose to colour outside the line." I think it is supposed to be taken as a compliment, like thinking outside the box. I don't think they realize that most people who colour outside the lines are usually four year olds or so.

My Facebook entry for today is: If you go into the woods and are wondering if there are any bears, just look around and see if there is any toilet paper.

You know where that came from. Watching the Charmin ads.