Be humble

..they just love it.

P.E.I. Environment Minister Richard Brown is threatening to force Islanders to buy insurance on their home and business oil tanks.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2010/05/02/pei-oil-tank-insurance.html?ref=rss#ixzz0moYJ337z

Poor Rambling Richie – he does not have the faintest glimmer about what he is talking about.

Rukavina shares his joy at getting a cheque from his insurance company.  Good for the PEI Farm Mutual!  They are a respected competitor and they are a great little company.  Like most mutual insurance companies, they share their profit.  After all, the company is a mutual and is owned by the policy holders.  They are well managed and, from my experience, have a great staff and group of agents.

There is the other side to a mutual.  If they have a bad year, they can send their policy holders a bill for their share of the loss.  There are many models of risk sharing – standard insurance (shareholder owned), reciprocals, exchanges etc.  Each have their benefits and each have their peril.

I don’t believe the PEI Farm Mutual has ever sent their owners / policy holders an assessment.  Good for them.  As I mentioned, they are a very well run company.

..Who resides West of Charlottetown, comes news of the sale of souls.  It appears that

7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls.

Helena Guergis, the embattled Minister of State for the Status of Women, has resigned and faces a police investigation.

From the CBC

Perhaps Ms. Guergis, once she has faced the RCMP investigation, could come to the place of her father’s birth and assist Stratford-Kinlock MLA Cynthia Dunsford with the management of her pothole map.

Motorcycle porn!

Ring ring.  I seldom answer 1-877 calls, but this moron had been calling for days.  I answered.  “Alo alo Meetster Bub” I heard.  <sigh>..yeah.  “Oh veddy veddy good – this is Sears Canada calling” - “ah jolly good to speak to you, Meester Bub”. 

“I calling to tell you about extended warranty on your exercise bike that you bought.”

I told him I did not buy an exercise bike.  “Oh yes you did – it says so right here” (presuming he was tapping his monitor).  “No sir, I did not” I responded with great patience and tolerance. 

“Oh yes you did – it says right here you bought an exercise bike on April 10, 2010.”

Ok, maybe I am a tad edgy from being smoke free for 19 days.  Maybe. 

I informed him that April 10, 2010 had not yet arrived and that he should correct his records.

He response was to ask again if I would buy the extended warranty.

Yes, my response was balanced and contained – surely it was – but the Sears card is going to be very uncomfortable.

Given the Island willingness to puff about anything exceptional accomplished by the good residents of this fair land, I am surprised I never heard of this;

From the Wikipedia:

Franklin Knight Lane (July 15, 1864 – May 18, 1921) was an American Democratic politician from California who served as United States Secretary of the Interior from 1913 to 1920. He also served as a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and was the Democratic nominee for Governor of California in 1902, losing a narrow race in what was then a heavily Republican state.

Lane was born July 15, 1864, near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in what was then a British colony but is now part of Canada, and in 1871, his family moved to California. After attending the University of California while working part time as a reporter, Lane became a New York correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, and later became editor and part owner of a newspaper. Elected City Attorney of San Francisco in 1898, a post he held for five years, Lane ran in 1902 for governor and in 1903 for mayor of San Francisco, losing both races. In 1903, he received the support of the Democratic minority in the California State Legislature during the legislature’s vote to elect a United States Senator from California.

Appointed a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 and confirmed by the Senate the following year, Lane was reappointed in 1909 by President William Howard Taft. His fellow commissioners elected him as chairman in January 1913. The following month, Lane accepted President-elect Woodrow Wilson‘s nomination to become Secretary of the Interior, a position in which he served almost seven years until his resignation in early 1920. Lane’s record on conservation was mixed: he supported the controversial Hetch Hetchy Reservoir project in Yosemite National Park, which flooded a valley esteemed by many conservationists, but also presided over the establishment of the National Park Service.

The former Secretary died of heart disease at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on May 18, 1921. Because of two decades of poorly paid government service, and the expenses of his final illness, he left no estate, and a public fund was established to support his widow. Newspapers reported that it was often said of Lane that had he not been born in what is now Canada, he would have become president. In spite of that limitation, Lane was offered support for the Democratic nomination for Vice President, though he was constitutionally ineligible for that office as well.

I am told there is a cairn to his memory with a lengthy account of his life, located at DeSable. It is tucked away in a wooded area at the intersection of the Trans -Canada and route 19.

It has been a short transition.  When I joined the full-time work force I was hired as a new trainee, and I was paid more than the woman that sat in front of me – she had 25 years experience and she was training me.  Not fair – but it was the way.

In 1975 when I started my current job, I started at a salary that was considerably higher than all of the women who were employed there.  Some of the woman were experienced and had years of service.  Each morning at 10 AM, one of the girls would come by and take orders for coffee from the men.  Then, of course, the coffee would be brought to the man’s desk.

Today, I am aware of many woman who make more money than I do – and they deserve to.  Times have changed and far quicker than many might have expected.  There are still gender inequalities in the work place but there are fewer each year. 

For the record – I would be quite happy to be a kept man.  No problemo!

The Globe and Mail speaks to the subject.

..on the wall…

Many think this is the most beautiful motorcycle available today.

When Locke and I considered the Ducati line of motorcycles, we gave serious consideration to delaying a purchase until the new Street Fighter was released.

Being the patient and prudent lads that we are, we decided to not wait and selected other models.  I just read a report on the Street Fighter – part of the report follows:

There is only one possible use for this machine.  You point it down an open road and you twist the throttle as far as you dare and you hang on.  The wind, once you are going fast enough, bobbles your helmet and even though it is a full-face design with a lowered visor your eyes begin to water and you try to hunker over but you can’t because you can’t hunker down behind a high handlebar.  So you hang on.  And you feel exposed as you would feel if you were tied to the hood of a car with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend behind the wheel.  In other words, the Street Fighter is our kind of motorcycle.

I am glad we decided to go with something else.  But – it would have been fun.  For a short time.