It's hard to believe that a kid who looks the way this one does is capable of some of the things that he is. Just a few days ago, he and a buddy of his went into a salon in Vanderhoof. They strode up to the nail technician and peircing expert to make an appointment. While this young hooligan distracted the woman, his partner grabbed her purse and left the building. The moment she finished making the appointment she noticed her purse was missing and called the boy back inside. He came, but when she told him that she was calling the police he took off running.

A Good Samaritan came out of his store just across the alley and ran after the boy. He didn't catch him, but he did retreive the purse. Unfortunately the deposit for the day had already been stolen - a sum greater than $600.

The story doesn't end here. The police were called and they did eventually arrive. They were provided with the boy's name and this picture, but nothing has been done. In the space of this year the salon has been broken into or vandalized five times including this instance of theft. What has the response been from the RCMP? They say, you are located in an alley. You should expect this sort of thing. This excuse seems ludicrous. Every business on main street has an entrance in the alley. And every business (like the salon) is fortified with steel bars or the like.

A cliche is 'to serve and protect'. Maybe the phrase means to serve citations and protect criminals. I can't help wondering whose rights I may be infringing upon by posting this. I am certain that those rights are more important than the rights of the innocent.

I know that the slogan for the RCMP is 'he always gets his man.' That's easy to do if there is never anyone on the list of criminals to apprehend.

Unfortunately for the ladies working at the salon, they are held responsible for the actions of others by the virtue of the location of building they work in. For the RCMP, the simplest way to ensure success seems to be to have have low expectations for themselves. In that sense, the RCMP in Vanderhoof excels. When a crime is reported, the RCMP is very good at following up to let you know that the criminal is known, but nothing can be done at this time... Maybe next time.

'Get out and go home' seems to be the subliminal message for these entrepreneurs. Personally, I'm not even sure why they continue to pay for a business license. There doesn't seem to be any benefits.

Get a Life

What is the perfect example of a waste of time? Let’s say you have a game of scrabble which allows you to play against the computer and you combine that with a website that allows you to find the best word possible under each circumstance, thereby allowing you to cheat against the computer. Now, that is a consummate waste of time!

Carrying On

I don’t know whether I should blow steam off on the world or count my blessings. I guess I should do the latter. Around me wonderful people die every day. Others live their entire lives with disabilities so great that it’s difficult to comprehend how they cope from day to day. Comparatively, I have nothing to complain about.
Until recently, my medical file consisted of maybe four pages and a few x-rays which served to prove that nothing was wrong with me. Now I’m faced with one physical crisis after another and feeling like my body is sabotaging me. Here, on the other side of the better half of 40, I’m faced with the prospect of living with a permanent disability. What I have learned in the last two years is that from the moment we are born we begin a journey of slow deterioration.
Some of us are lucky enough to live our entire lives having avoided the genetic pitfalls potentially inherited from our mothers and fathers, the follies of our youth, our poor habits as adults and every other mishap that could leave us relying on machines to communicate, to get around or even to live.
I’ve taught hundreds of children and raised one daughter (so far) with the hope of helping others avoid mistakes that might steal away their enjoyment of life as adults. Maybe I’m hypersensitive to the issue since I feel as though I’ve made so many unnecessary mistakes of my own. So many times I’ve been too stubborn to learn from others.
But not everything is avoidable or foreseeable. Even when a person lives the very best life style, there are no guarantees. We must simply persevere.

The Ever Changing World

It feels like an odd year for cold and snow. Here we are in mid March and we’re just coming off of a -30 C cold snap. It snowed in Victoria BC and at least as far south as Oregon. Maybe I’m just more intolerant of colder temperatures now that I’m middle aged.
I know that as humans we are having an unimaginable impact on the planet. One only has to look at night photos taken from space to see how much of the world we have managed to light up. And maybe the time of modern man will be one of the shorter periods of the earth’s history. We are consumers and we are consuming the planet.
Wisdom and action are two different things. Recent infusions of bailout money in the US make me wonder what kind of wisdom is at play here. What makes change necessary if there are no consequences for poor business practices – like…hmmm…I don’t know…bankruptcy? I imagine that in a year or less the auto companies and banks that have received this cash and survive will be vying for market share with unreasonable promises and easy credit all over again.
Just a jot.