I learned of a handwritten sign taped to the back of a vehicle window this week. It read I’m not drunk, I’m avoiding potholes. Ignoring the few sink holes that have popped up around the city and the mass of potholes has become a full time non-contact sport for drivers in Edmonton of late. It has me wondering just why I’m paying (increasingly huge) taxes to the city. I pay to have my garbage removed. A plow never made it’s way down my street or alley in winter – the hubby and the neighbours cleared those out with snowplows so people could get to work – and the roads are a mess. The housing crisis has resulted in the appearance of tent cities and there appear to be few new low income housing and shelter spaces being developed.

So what is the city doing with it’s tax dollars? Well, the mayor and councilors got a nice 13% raise and we’re about to have a brand spanking new art gallery. There’s also talk of a new hockey rink for the Oilers. Somehow none of these items is on my city improvement wish list.

There’s a civic election taking place in October and no one is running against the encumbent mayor as of yet. There’s no way this mayor or council should be re-elected, but unless someone else throws their hat into the ring soon, I predict another four years of shoddy city management, poor infrastructure maintenance, and increasing taxes with little or no return.

I love my city, but this is getting to be ridiculous!

Technorati Tags: Edmonton, taxes, potholes

A few night ago the hubby and I were discussing how much the advertizing surrounding Father’s day has changed. While we always remember the spurt of advertizing the surrounded Mother’s day, it’s only in recent years that there’s been a noticable push on TV to buy “that perfect gift” for dad on Father’s day. Sure, hardware stores always suggested purchasing “the new shiny toy” for dad, but now it seems that just about everyone has gotten into the mix.

I’m not bemoaning buying dad’s a gift – they deserve recognition – but there’s something to be said for the home made cards, presents, and ugly ties that we gave our dad’s as children. No matter how silly they were, our dads always wore those ties (at least for one day) to show us just how much they loved us. Rather than hurting our feelings by burning the ties in the firepit – they wore them publically at least one day a year.

What dads need – and what we all need in the end – is to be told just how much we love and appreciate them. They need to know the impact they’ve had on our lives and how they’ve helped form us into the adults we’ve become. Material gifts can be forgotten over time, but we never forget how people make us feel.

And that goes for mothers as well.

Technorati Tags: Father’s day, dads, presents

For those of us who’ve lost our father’s this year, specifically Heather and myself, I thought I’d repost a section of one of my Thursday Thirteens from 2006.

Things my father taught me.

1. Multiplication tables.
2. How to take pictures with a manual camera.
3. Love of reading.
4. The world does not stop spinning if you don’t get your own way. If you want something, you’ve got to earn it.
5. How to use a computer (including programming) – Which I think highly influenced the fact that my first career was computer related.
6. There are three sides to every story – yours, mine and the truth.
7. True charity doesn’t require a tax receipt.
8. Believing in something doesn’t mean blindly following all elements of a doctrine. It’s possible to have faith and work to be a good person without attending church.
9. It’s possible to forgive the worst mistakes of your children – even if you never forget.
10. Never to ask anyone to do something you are unwilling to do yourself.
11. Never hold anyone to a standard you are unwilling or unable to meet yourself.
12. The more I learn, the less I “know”. Learning is continuous, never ending, and often cyclical and that’s ok.
13. Never let a moment pass by where you can tell a loved one how much they mean to you. You may never get another chance.

I miss you dad. Rest in peace.

Technorati Tags: Father’s day, dads

One of the bonus’ of moving hosts is that you finally get the kick in the pants you need to get parts of your site you’ve been ignoring into better shape. While my other domain still needs a lot of help, I have managed to add new photos to my online photo albums.

For those of you looking for more than what I’ve previously posted in my travel entries on this blog, you’re sure to find something you like there. I’m not the most skilled with a camera but occassionally I did manage to take a decent picture.

For those of you who are famliar with the story of MOT from Dust My Broom, you can view more pictures of our travels together in the MOT album.

Technorati Tags: travel, photos

As you know, I’ve been struggling with rebuilding my blog from the .frm, .MYD and .MYI files for the past few days (since I moved my hosting services). I managed to get the posts recovered up until Jan 2007 but then I hit a brick wall. Every time I attempted to recover more, the system boo’d and hissed at me and barfed back a series of error messages. My new host wouldn’t let me drop the original files into the data folder – where the SQL dbase is installed – so I desperately needed help to recover the last 5 months of posts.

Enter the best friend a strung out blogger can have – Clayton. I’ve know Clayton since we took a class together at college in 1998 and shortly after graduation he started working for the same company I was collecting a paycheque with. We’ve worked on many of the same projects and teams and he’s one of the most knowledgable technical guys I’ve met. Add to that his sweet disposition and it makes for a hell of a great guy (are you listening ladies?)

Fed up with struggling with recovering my blog, I found Clayton on-line tonight and explained what I was trying to do. I shipped the files to him et voila, he was able to recover all of my previous posts from the database. He hung around long enough (over 3 hours in total) until we were sure everything was appearing on the site. I don’t know many people who’d give up a big chunk of their Friday night to help a friend recover their blog, but I’m really glad that I do know Clayton.

Clayton, as always – you rock!

End result:

• Lost posts = 0
• Lost comments = 3 (the ones people made while I was attempting to recover my blog)
• Crappy former host = -10.0 (not only did they refuse to help, take days to respond to my email requests for assistance, but they have yet to release my domain to the new host). I can’t cancel my service with them until I’m sure my domain transfer is complete, so I’m stuck paying for an extra month’s service due to their slow response.
• New host = 0.5 (they had no idea what I was talking about when I approached them for help – Clayton understood what I was trying to do in less than a minute.)
• Clayton = 10.0

We can start the celebration immediately.

Note: I’m leaving this post up as a sticky post for a few days because Clayton deserves to be recognized. Scroll down for posts dated after Friday, June 15 2007.

Technorati Tags: friends, domain, host, sql, database