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musings of mark since 2001

Going through the tech job postings as usual this morning, and one from Craig’s List kind of summed it up with the comment, “Wow, there are a lot of people looking for work”.

Seems like the cold snap around here has snapped this morning, quite a bit warmer than yesterday afternoon. We’ve got one more smaller snowfall turning into rain this afternoon, and then it’s back to the normal wet west coast winter until the north pushes it’s way south again. In just the few short years that I’ve been on this island the improvement in electrical and internet service during severe weather has been remarkable - the power still goes off often during storms but the duration is only minutes rather than hours.

Starting to be unavoidable the push to give and get stuff that happens every year about this time, the concept of a special holiday day for anything let alone Xmas is something that seems a little off kilter to me. It seems that what ever the holiday is for originally, those same reasoned thoughts and good tidings are lost after the special day is done and it’s back to the same old same old.

It’s odd having all this war stuff mixed in with the main stream media and the warm fuzzy feelings they try to elicit to have one buy more stuff, all the while “supporting” our troops like we were some sort of mindless nation that doesn’t understand that our PM is a conscienceless lap dog for the war machine to the south, and soldiers throughout history die to keep the elite wealthy.

Elsewhere in Canadian politics the “Liberal” party is having what is known as a leadership convention, wherein they will choose whom to represent them at the Prime Ministerial level if they win the next election. Neither of the two front runners are anything different than any of the other slimy politicians that we’ve seen in the past, both lobbying for how “electable” they will be rather than any set of beliefs or initiatives. Our local Provincial govt. has been keeping quiet themselves all fall, preferring time spent away from Victoria and not stirring up any controversy, no news is good news for them at this point.

Winter started in earnest yesterday with the snow starting to fall all over the Lower Mainland and by this morning about 8cm (3 inches) was piled up on the kitchen patio outside with 20 to 30cm further up the island. Power has been on and off intermittently as happens any time there is a storm here, and it’s out for the duration for at least 800 other Bowen residents with trees falling on lines. The ferry is still running as of the 8:30am sailing, but judging by the way the boats in the marina are dancing around in the huge swells it may not run all day.

Jack the Dog and I went out for the customary morning walk into a blizzard, just after the marina owner phoned saying she never got the water system shut down yesterday! Hard to see a few feet in front of your face let alone the shut-off valves, but she has a boater resident that’s been through the procedure in years past and knows what to do. Meanwhile Jack isn’t straying very far from either the little heater in my room or the wood stove merrily crackling away.

The freight company finally paid me something, a new twist to the game with the rate of pay being dropped 3 dollars from the agreed upon rate to a “training wage” rate, which was never mentioned previously by the employer(!), and of course the actual hours paid for was less than what I submitted as well. Slimy character for sure and would rather let him crawl back under his rock rather than drag through the Labour Standards procedures to get the balance owed, and will chalk this one up to a bad experience.

With the small infusion of cash I got a long overdue hair cut, the island barber has raised her rates again and it’s $18 now for an adult. Also shelled out for a book of much needed discount ferry tickets, got some tobacco, herb, toothpaste, razor blades and other necessities and have been eating as much as will fit. There are bits and pieces of other income coming in from various places for December, and will be able to get enough done around the house to cover the barter for rent so the end of the year is feeling a little more comfortable at the moment than the some of the rest of it.

According to the stats shown on the Market Watch web site, “US residents purchased a net $22.9 billion in foreign securities, up from $2.7 billion in August. Foreign holdings of dollar-denominated short-term securities, including Treasury bills, fell by $10.8 billion.”

And also this: “Net long-term capital inflows fell to $65.1 billion in September from a revised $114.4 billion in August. August’s inflows had previously been reported as $116.8 billion, which was a record.”

Translated, the above two statements are saying that in September the elite rich decided that it’s time to get the heck out of Dodge and have increased their rate of transfers of the US Dollar to other means of security by 1000% in the span of a month, and the foreign money that had been propping up the money bubble is drying up very, very quickly. With China holding the majority of the USA’s credit line they are unlikely to be labeled as the one that starts the stampede that has been building up, but other countries like Japan and Russia are acting now.

The saga of trying to get wages earned from the local freight company continues without resolution. It should come as no surprise that a company that uses equipment they stole from one of their own customer’s suppliers, is also lax about adhering to the law and providing me with the Record of Employment that the govt. web site says should be in my hands within five days, tonight is the end of the fifth day. Sure not holding my breath, it took them two days for a reply to my original request in which they stated they will be “advising you shortly when there is something for you”. Anyone’s guess as to what they mean by ’shortly”, it’s certainly not within 24 hours and “something” sounds rather vague compared to the detailed table showing hours worked and the spreadsheet I sent along with it adding up the total wages that are owed.

Meanwhile, still pulling apart cigarette butts to roll up into a Zig-Zag paper some tobacco to smoke. Haven’t smoked “tailor-made” cigarettes for years now, taxes made ready to smoke cigs too expensive for anyone but the wealthy - it costs fifty cents per cigarette if you don’t “roll yer own”. Harsh smoking other people’s butts instead of virgin tobacco, but it’s an addiction so you do what you have to in order to keep the heebie-jeebies at bay.

Thought I might have a chance at the local insurance agency for a clerical opening they have, but not a peep from them yet so that resume is probably in the round file. There is a possible job with the Bowen Building Centre, but am friends with the owner and that friendship would end once they became a boss instead of someone I know, and don’t want to sever that relationship quite yet. Sending in web dev resumes of course and still finding on average a couple companies a day to submit to. Looking at the markup of some of their web sites and comparing it to the skill set they are asking for makes you wonder if they are just fishing with three letter acronyms though!