Mike Nabuurs's blog

The Games People Play

On the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing there is only one question worth asking. How did China get the Olympic games? Their only real competition for these games came from Toronto. A major city in a major industrialized nation in a land that stands for freedom and justice. China on the other hand, still has massive areas that are still fighting to get out of the stone age. The country has invaded other territories, it supports regimes like the one in the Sudan that are doing massive injustices to it's people and they round up dissidents in their own country the way our country rounds up drunk drivers on a long weekend. China wanted these games badly. So the best option for the world community was to say no, not until you clean up your act. With 1.3 billion people, a sixth of the world's population, China must be held accountable to do a better job in securing rights and freedoms for all those people. Some will argue that by giving China the games we are forcing them to open up. An argument that's been brutally beaten into submission by news stories from the past two weeks about how China hasn't eased up one iota. They mowed down poor people's homes to make way for the new Olympic venues without giving it a second thought. Those people were not given money or help, they were told they had 48 hours to get out or be buried in the concrete and spend eternity in a column holding up something called the "bird's nest". China will not allow reporters to speak to dissidents, in fact they made many of them leave the city just so they couldn't be found by any journalist. China has decided that all the promises it made to get the games do not have to be upheld. Just like the politicians in our country they said what they had to, all the while knowing, they'd never live up to it. However, even if you remove the political aspects from the argument you still have to ask the question, how did China get the games. With some of the worst smog on the planet hanging over every venue. With a blistering summer heat that can get up into the 40's and that's no dry heat. Beijing has think suffocating humidity. Plus we're right in the middle of typhoon season. As we speak a tropical storm is battering Hong Kong where the equestrian events will take place. There are no guarantees that half way through these Olympics a typhoon could roll through and flatten the place. So how did Toronto lose out to this? A free and democratic country with a clean city, decent summer weather and, nary a typhoon in sight. We couldn't win that race?? What happened, did someone trip us and we went down like Perdita Felicien in her gold medal race in Athens???? I love the Olympics. You get to see unusual sports and there are always great personal stories to be told. Only this time, by handing the games to China, all of those stories will be tainted with story after story of horrible conditions for athletes and a political regime that steals freedom from it's people in the middle of the night by stuffing them in the trunks of secret police cars and driving off. The International Olympic Committee didn't just drop the ball with this one. They also dropped the baton, the shot put, the basketball, the softball, the soccer ball and every other piece of athletic equipment. They should be ashamed of themselves for rewarding a government that rules with an iron fist. They should be ashamed of themselves by not thinking of the athletes and giving them the best possible conditions to compete at the highest level at. They have done to the athletes , what China does to it's dissidents, they've handcuffed them. All in the name of some greater ideal, an ideal that's impossible to see, through the thick gray Beijing smog. Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !

Corn On The Blog

Just this week I had my first batch of corn on the cob. Fresh from a farmers field and sweet and juicy and delicious and ......still stuck in my teeth. I like to call corn on the cob, mother nature's floss. The funny thing about corn on the cob is it has a short season around here. It's finally ready at the end of July and we go crazy eating it every second night for three weeks straight and then you get that first piece of cow corn and you start looking forward to next July. Now I would guess that the amount you love corn on the cob could depend on a couple of factors. One, can you eat butter. Because honestly corn is just a luscious and lovely butter delivery system. Salty, creamy butter dripping off the corn and down your chin. I can feel my arteries starting to harden as I speak about it. The other extenuating circumstance that could have you not enjoying corn to the fullest is a lack of good teeth. I would guess the elderly and some hockey players aren't the biggest corn fans. Sure you can butter a cob up and then use a knife to slice off the kernels of deliciousness but it wouldn't be the same. Part of the fun of corn is doing the typewriter maneuver while eating it. Gnawing at it all the way across until you reach the end and "ding", turn slightly and back you go down another line. For the young people who may be reading this a typewriter is an old fashioned device we used to use to write letters and reports before there was a computer. The one thing I don't like about corn is the way it retains it's heat. When the cobs are first plucked from the boiling water or off the barbecue they're so hot. Perfect for melting the butter on but just too hot to touch to your teeth. Waiting for a corn on the cob to cool can be an agonizing journey. But eventually, once buttered and salted with just a hint of pepper thrown on top for good measure, you're digging in to one of nature's purest foods. And by pure I mean, the corn kernel has no weakness which is why your body can't digest them and why corn actually comes out the other end looking pretty unscathed. Corn is actually one of the world's great commodities. It grows in a host of climates, can be used to make all kinds of things and in the end, is pretty darn tasty right off the stalk, once boiled of course. Popcorn is awesome, although I will give in to the fact that, I also use it as a butter delivery system. Actually the more I think about it, cholesterol should have killed me by now?? The big problem we corn lovers face is the increasing demand for corn thanks to ethanol. A fuel that's made with corn and that is helping drive up the price of corn. More and more farmers will turn to ethanol plants to buy their product because they need it year round. As that happens the old roadside stand selling a couple dozen to someone with a serious hankering for corn on the cob could start to become a thing of the past. Sure there will always be specialty markets to sell if, for a buck nineteen a cob. Can you imagine the day that corn becomes a "special treat". This is why I'm pretty convinced we need to forget ethanol and just go with electric vehicles. To help protect the corn supply. So the good news is, I think I'm having corn again tonight. The bad news is that will mean another argument with my family. I always call taking the green peels off corn, shucking the corn. They call it husking the corn. They say there's no such thing as shucking the corn. I disagree. So we'll yell back and forth for awhile. Are you husking the corn?!!? Yes I'm shucking the corn !!!! Then we'll settle down to some golden goodness. Rolling it in a fresh stick of butter, dashing on the salt that's bad for me and gnaw, gnaw, gnaw,"ding" ! Man I love corn on the cob ! Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !

School's Out For....July

This week the Roberta Bondar Public School in Oakville, Ontario opened for another school year. On Monday the students returned from their summer vacation. This is one of a handful of schools trying something called the "balanced school year". They get a month off in the summer and then the other four weeks of holidays from August are spread throughout the year. They get two weeks off in October, an extra week off at Christmas and a two week spring break. The reason for this is simple. When kids are off for an entire two months in the summer they apparently forget a lot of stuff. All those stories around the campfire start pushing out vital Math and English rules they were just taught a few weeks ago. So when the kids return in September they have to pretty much spend a month reviewing material from last year before they can move forward with the new material. In a school with the balanced approach, the loss isn't that great which means, less review time and that means, more actual school time for tackling new information. At the Roberta Bondar Public School they actually use some of that new "excess" learning time to tackle the subjects the kids are into. Things like photography or music or other artistic endeavors that seem to have taken a bit of a back seat to the three R's these days. The idea on paper looks brilliant but it does have a couple of problems. First and foremost, a lot of our older schools are not air conditioned and a kid will never learn sitting in an oven of a portable on a hot August afternoon while they slowly watch themselves turn into a puddle. Another issue are family schedules. A lot of workplaces could not possibly give all their staff all of their holidays in July. If you have a job where someone needs to cover for you, it would be hard to schedule everyone's holidays in just a four week window. Plus there's one more issue that I think a lot of adults overlook. They can't seem to remember what it was like to be a kid. Running barefoot through the fields of youth with nothing but the great expanse of summer before you. The new school year in September was so far away that you could literally push it right out of your mind. You had a solid month of not a care in the world before back to school ads would start popping up on TV in August and you had to slowly bring yourself back down to Earth because soon you'd be lugging a book bag on your shoulder again. With just a four week summer, those back to school ads will be on TV before you even finish in June. Can you imagine sitting in your room doing homework on a "hot August night" (with kudo's to Neil Diamond for the line). Many of my fondest memories as a kid came in the summer time and I don't have a lot of fond memories of math or history class. I think the idea of the balanced school year has merit for some. There are folks who's schedule it fits and who's kids might like their holidays more spaced out. So maybe every school system could have two or three of these schools for the people who it makes sense for. Sometimes it's good to re-invent the wheel and improve on stuff. If the balanced school year makes kids smarter than good on them. They can be the ones who go on to find a cure for Cancer. My kids will be the ones who remember lollygagging on a hot afternoon in August by a swimming hole with nothing to worry about other than, do they have enough sunscreen on. Life's too short not to spend time thinking about creating great memories instead of just always thinking about, which one is the isosceles triangle again?? Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !

The Pull-Over Blog

We are now making our way toward the long weekend and with that will come horror stories about death on our highways. People driving too fast, people in unsafe vehicles, people drunk behind the wheel. The whole thing is rather sad and the people I feel most for are the police. Many of them can't take time off on the long weekend because they need to be out risking their lives on the highways to catch all these malcontents who are so wrapped up in their own greedy world that they give no thought to how their actions will affect others. So off go our men and women in blue to try and pick them out of the millions of holiday drivers who are obeying the law and don't deserve to die just because they wanted to head to the lake for their extra day off. Now as a general rule I would be one of the drivers who pays attention and follows the rule of the road although I will admit that my foot can sometimes appear to be made of lead. It's something I've been working to try and curb but there are times when the vehicle just seems all too willing to roll faster than I had intended. Especially vehicles today, they go so fast so effortlessly. The new Corvette can go from zero to 60 in three seconds and can reach a top speed of 330 kilometers an hour. That's a ridiculously fast car. I remember having old beaters that would let you know they were going the speed limit by clanging and making eerie noises, because the speed limit was as fast as they could go. But that has changed for me and now I glide around and every once in awhile look down at the speedometer and suddenly find myself looking around to see if there's a cop who's noticed how fast I was going. Since the last thing I want is a speeding ticket. First and foremost because of the effect that will have on my insurance. We already pay way too much for insurance, especially if you're a driver who has never made a single claim, but add to that a serious traffic violation and you won't think gas is expensive anymore. The other part of being pulled over for speeding that I hate is the actual being pulled over. First there's the awkward dance with the police car trailing you and you're trying to figure out if they're after you or someone else. Please let it be someone else, please !!! Then you realize it's you and now you're trying to pull over properly, signaling, making sure you're completely off the road because Lord knows you don't want to give them extra stuff they can write you up for. Then you're safely pulled over and realize, like it's not bad enough that the police have caught you speeding but then they leave their car parked behind yours with the flashing lights going. Screaming to every passing motorist, look over here at the loser we caught this time !!! Then the officer comes up to your car window and for some reason I always get all nervous and I'm saying idiotic things like I'm on a first date with a Super model. "Oh, was I going too fast there officer, I'm not sure how that happened??" Well, actually you are sure how that happened, you pressed the gas pedal down too far you moron! Usually I am very cordial with the police, I understand they're just doing their job, and I usually find if you're nice to them they're nice right back. Which comes in really handy as I fumble through all the crap in my glove box looking for a current insurance slip and some proof of ownership that I know I have somewhere here. Finally they've gone back to their car and you're left sitting there pondering what the damage will be. The whole time, their flashy lights are still blazing away. In the end the officer comes back to your window and let's you know that you're still getting a ticket but they've been generous and knocked it down. They always knock it down and I'm still not sure what's in it for them in doing so but God bless them for it. The next thing you know you're on your way and now you're all nervous about pulling back onto the road correctly and that's when it hits you. Now you've got to go home and explain this new, rather out of the blue expense to your spouse. Oh, why couldn't that nice police officer have just arrested me and taken me down town. That might have been a more pleasant experience than what I'm about to face. So safe driving everyone and watch your speed, or someone else will. Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !!

Golfing With Hockey Sticks

Over the weekend The Canadian Open was played to what appeared to be a rather ho-hum reception. Once considered the "Fifth Major", the Canadian Open has really fallen on hard times over the years. It wasn't that long ago when it was an important tournament and the best came out to play for our national championship. It was a given that you'd Nicholas, Trevino, Watson and every other big name golfer walking the Glen Abbey course in southern Ontario with throngs of golf fans following from hole to hole. Then, somewhere along the way, the Canadian Open started getting really bad dates from the PGA. Always following one of the other major's it fell in one of the week's when the best golfers wanted a rest. Soon it was a second rate tournament with a second rate line-up. There would be a few big names who'd show up to try and grab the title but the breadth of the field was shallow. This is the way it remains today. We still get the Canadian golfers on the tour to come out but it's just not the same. To the point where I'd like to see some action taken. I think that Canada needs to stand up to the PGA and demand that this tournament be given more respect and a proper date that would allow the best golfers to compete. When it comes to golf tournaments there are far too many and the Canadian Open has trouble competing with purse size and it can't bring in the TV ratings like some of the others. However the Canadian Open should be given more respect for it's heritage. Golf can be about more than money. Only the Great Western Open has been around longer than the Canadian Open. For over 100 years the best golfers have come to Canada for one week every year to compete for this country's title. Can you force the best to come here and play. Well, no, the PGA can't even do that. However we could be given a better date and that would allow a better opportunity to pull in the best. The United States has like 40 PGA tournaments every year and Canada has one. Surely that deserves some extra special attention. So what would it take for Canada to be given more respect. A boycott maybe or some kind of petition. Maybe the Canadian government should get involved and put some pressure on the PGA. At the very least there should be a greater cry from Canadian golf fans! A plan needs to be put in place to restore this golf tournament to it's former glory. I would love to see the tournament moved around the country to show off some of the incredible geography that we hold so dear, to the rest of the world. Glen Abbey is a fine golf course but it's been home to the tournament too many times to count. P.E.I. has glorious golf courses built on the ocean's edge. We have golf course that traverse the Rocky Mountains. Why not play the Canadian Open in Banff and show the world the beautiful vistas that make this country so awesome. There are stunning golf courses in B.C. and even in Ontario there are some gorgeous layouts. Instead the RCGA keeps going back to Glen Abbey. Varied course selection, a better date and a bigger purse are the three things that will restore the Canadian Open to it's proper place as a "national championship". The Royal Canadian Golf Association is not doing it's job. It has one big tournament to run and it can't get that right. Golf is big business and the Canadian organizers need to do a better job if they're going to compete with the myriad of tournaments and special events already on the schedule. The Canadian Open deserves more respect and it's about time Canadians demanded it! Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !

The Tipping Point

When to tip and when not to tip, that is the question. For it is better to suffer the, aw forget it, let's just get right into today's topic. A recent survey has found that Canadians don't always know when to tip and that we can be quite generous with wait staff but rarely tip anyone else. And I would have to say that as survey's go, this one appears to be pretty accurate. Outside of wait staff and maybe cab drivers and pizza delivery guys I really don't know when to tip. I've heard that a good haircut deserves one but I've never bought into it. Not with the prices they're already charging, take your tip out of there thank you very much. Besides the word Tips was actually an acronym that stood for "To Insure Prompt Service". Well I've ready every magazine at the barber shop I go to twice and some of them, I'm on a third reading. Trust me, the service is not prompt. I will admit to always feeling awkward when tipping. Not so much at a restaurant because there it's just expected, in fact a lot of times they've left a place for it right on the Visa slip, which, for me, seems a bit forward. I mean, I realize a tip for the wait staff is expected but, it's not required??!?! It's not like the meal was extremely inexpensive because the owner already knows I'm paying the salary of the wait staff with my tip?? The idea of the tip is to reward good service. However there are other places where I require good service but those people don't get a tip. When I'm in a big department store and a clerk comes over to help me, I don't tip them, should I? When my dentist cleans up my teeth and manages to do it without causing me too much pain, should I slide him a tenner?? I mean, I couldn't afford to throw him 15% of his tab and frankly, considering his tab, I think his tip must be built into it. Then there is the second level of tipping. The Christmas card with a reward in it for good service over the year. People used to give these out to letter carriers and others. However now with the supermailbox that I have to walk to, I don't know who my letter carrier is and frankly, since I'm doing the walking, maybe I should give myself a gift at Christmas. I think the problem I have is the fact that tipping someone almost seems a bit degrading. It's like saying, "it appears to me that you don't make enough money so let me give you a hand because I'm doing so much better than you." Of course I'm not sure sliding anyone a little cash could really offend them. Hey, free money for me, really, I take umbridge with your gesture !! I think the biggest problem I have with tips comes when they are expected. When we are suppose to just naturally pay extra even for what just amounts to adequate service. I am one of those people who tips more generously if I've been given good service in a restaurant. In fact, I remember one night when there was a dispute over the bill and I got into an argument with the restaurant manager. I was so furious that I paid only the exact amount on the bill and did not tip anything. However later on when I was at home I thought about it and felt bad for our waitress that night because the dispute wasn't over anything she'd done and yet, she missed out on her tip. Which is really where the biggest problem with tipping comes in. People being denied tips and then getting angry and people believing they should get a tip and not getting one and getting angry. The whole thing is just filled with negative vibes. Company's should pay people a salary that is fair and then charge the consumer a price that is fair and let tipping go by the way side. Or the next time I get the same hairstylist, I'm going to come out of there with a head that looks like Pete Rose's just because I didn't know when to tip. Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !

Clothes Make The Man

One of the beauties of the Blog or even working in radio is the clothing required. There is none. I could be naked right now and you wouldn't know. Of course if I was I would probably find it distracting and might start making awful noises as I look away in disgust. Which is to say, I'm not naked right now. However it is true that as long as I'm communicating with you through a medium where you can't see me, my clothes don't matter. However as soon as I walk out the door into visual range, now my clothes mean a lot. Immediately people are judged by their clothes. A plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots and I'm a redneck. A fine suit and Italian shoes and I'm rich. A beautiful skirt and pumps and well, I've apparently come out of the closet??? The point is that clothes mean so much to so many people and yet there are a few of us who wander the planet not really caring what people wear. I don't dress well, I'll admit that. The funny thing is I do feel good on the odd occasion when I do get dressed up. But generally speaking I prefer clothing that's comfortable and easy to care for. That means no ironing allowed. I will admit that most of the time I don't look my best. Sloppy shorts in the summer, t-shirts, maybe even track pants. Clothes that are loose and easy to move in. I think this partly comes from my clothes not meaning much in my job. They just don't play into the equation. Which makes me wish that everyone saw the world the way I do when it comes to clothing. I wish that it didn't matter. That I wasn't looked down upon for wearing comfortable clothes. Especially since I've noticed that as I get older, I'm willing to run to the store in less and less attractive clothing. There was a time when I would have changed out of some sloppy outfit I was wearing at home if I had to go out. Now, I think, ah, who's going to see me. Of course you know that when you go out in those clothes, someone will definitely see you. That being said, why should it matter. I understand getting polished up for some things to show your respect. Obviously you're not going to wear your Homer Simpson t-shirt to a funeral or go to a job interview in your gray track pants that still have traces of the paint you used in the bathroom on them. However once someone gets to know me, why should it matter if I'm a bit of a slob? It doesn't change who I am. We've heard the phrase "the clothes make the man" or "dress for success" but, should your clothing really have any say in how hard a worker or how creative a person you are? I'd be inclined to fear hiring someone so caught up in how they look and how much importance they put on the wrapping paper instead of the gift inside. Dressing so that you feel comfortable and good about yourself is all that should matter. If you want to go all out by all means, go for it girl ! But if you like to take the relaxed approach and just enjoy being casual and comfortable, should you really have to put up with being judged by people for that? I guess in the end I'll take the heat because I will not change my style. People can buy me all the nice clothes they want but I'm still going to grab that t-shirt and my favorite shorts because that's how I feel comfortable. And I guess I should wrap this up now and get something on before someone comes in and finds me .......naked. Until We Type Again, Take It Ease!!

Day Tripper

When people take vacations there are various things they can do. Some go on trips or camping or to cottages. Some stay at home and just hang out at the house. However some will go on a day trip. The trip where you head out on an adventure in the morning knowing that later that day you will return home to the comfort of your own bed. I like my bed. My preference is to sleep in my bed. However I also like to get out and do stuff with the family. Therefore the day trip is one of our favorite vacation past times. Ultimately the best day trips are the ones where you can go and do something for the day where you spend more time doing something than you spend driving to get to the place to do something. The long drive can really get the day started off poorly. Everyone's excited and there's anticipation and so there's a little edginess as the drive goes on and on. Plus you have to add in the extra pressure of getting a late start which always seems to happen when we're on holiday. You're in holiday mode so it's tough to speed things up and get cracking in the morning. Now you're heading out later than planned and the drive just seems to be eating up more time. There's nothing worse than arriving at your destination where you're going to do something fun and you realize that you've chewed up the entire morning and the first thing you have to do is.....eat lunch. Now don't get me wrong, I love eating. But now you're heading directly into mid-afternoon and all you've got to show for it is a long drive, two arguments with the kids over their "are we there yet's" and a belly full of costly fast food. Finally though, it's time to get into the guts of the day trip. Whatever the activity there are two absolutes you can count on. One, there will be an inopportune bathroom break for someone during the activity and two, it will cost more than you at first estimated. Day trips are like home renovation projects. They never come in under budget. Most places that host families on vacation have done a pretty good job with bathroom placement however, you know that when you get the furthest away from the bathroom, that's when it will be needed most. Standing around waiting for family members to use the bathroom is just part of any day trip. Sure it takes time away from the activity but there's not much you can do other than marvel at, how often your family goes to the bathroom. No wonder we're going through toilet paper at home. As the trip winds down the parents start dragging their feet a little more, the kids start whining a little more and then comes the battle over the "treat". Whether it's a stop in a gift shop or a stop for an ice cream, at some point you know there will be a "discussion" about a treat. And when I say "discussion" of course I mean, someone's not going to be happy. After a long day having fun it's finally time to make the return trip home. That drive can be a quite relaxing one. Everyone's tired and it can go along quite quietly. Aside from that one more bathroom break on the way home. "You have to go again?". I think I say that a lot on day trips. Finally you're back home and everyone's in their comfy bed. The cooler bag has been emptied, the kids put to bed and you reflect on a pretty good day. Oh sure we could have gotten started a little earlier and sure it would have been nice to not have to spend that much money but the family has a new memory to cherish. And I've got to call the doctor to make an appointment to look into, how often a kid should have to go to the bathroom? Until We Type Again, Take It Ease!