form you la ...

in order to be here now .. you need to trust your path
trust is the balance between heart and mind .. between courage and serenitiy

O C ME

i count the number of 'pumps' required to dispense the ideal amount of paper towel from each kind of dispenser i encounter. i do this everywhere, and i like to remember how many pumps are optimal for a given dispenser (the Scott Paper Designer series is my favourite ... smooth operation, and two pumps are usually enough!)
i snicker to myself when i notice that a company / restaurant is cheap and have rigged the dispenser to give out less towel per pump.
i've blamed this obsession on the fact that i worked for Scott Paper a few years ago, but that might be a lie ...

print out, rip off

i am currently working in an Mexican factory that configures Chinese-produced printers to sell in the North American market. this configuration is quite interesting:

the same 'base printer' is actually used to make dozens of different models, which are sold to the consumer at different prices. the difference between the models? well, first, software is loaded into the printer to determine it's speed ... yes, that's right: you might pay double the price for a printer which prints more pages per minute, when in fact the slow printers are exactly the same, they've just been programmed to work more slowly!

other differences that affect the price: how nice a box the printer comes in, the colour of it's plastic casing, and the size of it's paper trays!

and the real money is made on the ink cartridges, of course ...

discuss .?

trust is the balance between courage {heart} and serenity {mind}

judge and june

how do we ever know what beauty lies inside of people,

and the strange ways this world works to lure that beauty outward?

~ also from fifth business

houston, we have a problem ...

i feel very fortunate today ...

this week i was working near the Texas-Mexico border. i was scheduled to fly back to Toronto on friday, but thankfully someone in our group had the foresight to insist that we leave on thursday morning in order to give us 'plenty of time' to avoid hurricane Rita ...

our itinerary took us from our Texas border town to Toronto, with a quick connection in Houston, the hub of Continental airlines. we were late getting into Houston because of major disruptions there ... half of the airport/Continental staff failed to show up for work because they were evacuating the area! as we arrived, we could see the chaos from the air ... every road heading north had bumper-to-bumper traffic!

having missed our connection, we were put on Continental's 18h45 flight to Toronto. rumours were swirling that more of their flights would be cancelled, so we booked ourselves on an earlier American Airlines flight through Chicago. we departed at around 17h00 ... and were later told that Houston airport closed it's gates at 18h00!

currently listening to ...

i'm comin' Straight Outta Compton with a loose cannon
i smoke big green (call it Bruce Banner)
watch your manners, at last another blast from the top notch
from way back with the pop rocks (I pop lock witchya)
picture this: Dr. Dre twistin' with the licks, and Hittman bought a fix
don't trip, it's a Time Bomb in this bitch
hear it .. tick .. tick .. tick .. {*BOOM*}

oh, charles ...

Charles was born in Norfolk, England in 1823. he came to Ireland to work as a land agent for a landowner in the Lough Mask area. as part of its campaign to protect tenants from exploitation, the Irish Land League withdrew the local labour required to harvest the crops for which Charles was reponsible. when he tried to undermine the campaign, the League launched a crusade of isolation against him in the community: neighbours were convinced not to talk to him; shops would not serve him; people in church would not sit near him; and his physical safety was threatened.

the ostracization of this man was such a cause celebré in the British media that his name became immortalised by the creation of a new verb. His full name? Captain Charles Boycott

~with help from wikipedia (the best online encyclopaedia)

twenty-eleven

you are still young enough to think that torment of the spirit is a splendid thing, a sign of a superior nature. but you are no longer a young man; you are a youngish middle-aged man, and it is time you found out that these spiritual athletics do not lead to wisdom. forgive yourself for being a human creature ... that is the beginning of wisdom; that is part of what is meant by the Fear of God; and for you that is the only way to save your sanity.

~ from fifth business

f p t

but i can't help the feeling

I could blow through the ceiling!

if i just turn and run

.

.. and it wears me out

d/l black by okkervil

i love this song

brave new marketing

i saw this ad on amazon.com (and i had recently read about their new search engine, a9 ...:

A9 Instant Reward — Save 1.57% On Virtually Everything at Amazon.com

More Details about the A9 Instant Reward :
You can save an additional 1.57% (π/2%) on virtually all your purchases at Amazon.com by simply becoming a regular user of our new search engine at A9.com. Once you use A9.com for a few days you will automatically be eligible for the A9 Instant Reward. (see below for more details) Just make sure that you are recognized by name when you use A9.com, and your Instant Reward will be applied automatically at checkout.

what an ingenious cross-marketing tie-in ... and what a scary database of information this corporation would have on your habits !:

Based on your recent searches, Amazon.com recommends: Fight Club

up day t

hey. i feel like i should give some sort of update ... if for no other reason than to keep your attention. ;)
so what's up with me? to start with, i returned from asia, had fun hanging out with my good friends michelle and danielle, and headed out to Leamington for a few days of work. again i became completely enamoured with my drive out there, and it was lovely to experience small-town canada after being away for so long ... i wanted to tell the girl at the tim horton's drive-thru how lucky she was .. how lucky we are to have all of .. this!!
i'm listening to okkervil river as i write this ... this album is blowing me away .!