Election Time

Ok, if you are reading this then you know that my blog hasn’t been updated or moved yet. This also means that I can’t update my coffee prices yet either so if you want to buy coffee at the current prices then you still have time.

Today is the municipal election day here in Ontario. I have been to several local debates and today I am going to host the election news coverage for Seawayradio.com. I hope you listen in and maybe even call in because it is going to be a long night. At least the longest show that I’ve ever done.

This election has done my e-newspaper a lot of good. My partner and editor has been everywhere covering all local debates. He even managed to find his way out here to Ingleside for the South Stormont all candidates debate. Lots of brownie points were earned for that one. Anyway, Cornwall Free News is the fastest growing media company in the area and is the future of sourcing news info. Now if we could only make some money……..

The Times They Are A Changin

Wow, it has been a while since I posted anything. Actually I have been busy roasting and selling coffee at the Cornwall Farmer’s Market.

The Best Booth At The Market

I am also currently in the process in turning my blog into the web site for my business. I just have to see my IT guy tomorrow to work out some details. So hopefully the next time you access my blog you will also be able to order coffee at the same time.

Time Flies

I didn’t realize that it has been almost a month since my last post. It’s time to rectify that.

I guess I was a little bummed out the last time I posted and I was considering dropping the blog all together. I still don’t have a lot of people coming to my blog site, well actually none, but that has not stopped me from doing stuff before. I don’t really know what I expect but I guess a couple of people reading my blog regularly would be nice.
Well anyway, this week I decided to add a little video of my sign spinning. It is symbolic of my spinning my wheels.

OK, the video is the wrong format for this blog and I don’t have a video editor. OK how about a picture of the South Stormont Chamber of Commerce trade show that I was at.

My Booth

In the past month I have been roasting regularly and getting my yard up to snuff for the summer. Our garden is ready and my dear wifey (she will smack me if she knows I called her wifey) has already planted most of the vegetables we are growing this year. Unfortunately we are also growing a healthy crop of Creeping Charlie and dandelions in our lawn. Here in Ontario we can’t use herbicides on our lawns anymore, not that I ever did. That would take some planning and actual work to apply herbicides. I believe in low impact grass. That is low impact on my time and effort. I don’t even fertilize. If you fertilize then the grass grows and you have to cut it more often. You would also have to water to keep the grass from totally dying. My low impact grass may turn brown when it is dry but all it takes is one rainy day and it bounces back. Yes the Creeping Charlie and dandelions are very resilient, but they are green.

I had a vendors table at a conference this month. It was a meeting of Probus from the Eastern Ontario region. You might be wondering what Probus is. I did. I guessed that it was a convention of Alien abductors. I was wrong of course. It is actually an organization for retired Rotarians. I think the aliens would have been less scary. Three hundred little old white haired ladies (and gentlemen) with canes streamed by my table sampling and criticizing my coffee. I thought I was going to be beaten to death because I didn’t have any non-dairy creamers.

Oh well, the downtown farmers market is starting up again the first weekend in June. I should have something interesting to write about.

Why am I doing this?

I just checked my stats and no one has visited this site for the past 10 days. It makes me wonder why I am doing this. If I wanted a personal diary then I could buy a journal and write in it. I could, but I won’t. I am a optomist. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be trying to sell coffee and hoping to expand my business, i.e. an entrepeneur. So, I will just carry on with what I am doing and watch the stats to see if anyone is actually interested in what I have to say.

This week I am going to the annual South Stormont Chamber of Commerce Trade Show. I wasn’t planning on having a booth this year but peer pressure made me change my mind. These trade shows are definitly a money losing effort for me and they don’t generate any new customers. However, for all the work, I do have fun.

I am also making a change in my daily habits. I am not going to be at the Island Ink Jet store on a daily basis after tomorrow. The famers market is starting again in June and I have a couple of events to attend during May and I need to spend more time at home to get some yard work and gardening done. It will also give me more flexibility to roast coffee on demand in a more timely manner. That, and I hope to actually play some golf this year.

OK, I’m done today. The next time I post anything it will be from home where I can include more pictures or videos…..not that anyone is going to see them but me. Not even my wife looks at my blog. It’s turning into a form of masterbation.

I’m Still Hosting!

A week has gone by since my past post. I have hosted another old time radio show and I thought it went pretty well. I took the time to research the programs a little more and I wrote a bit of a script for myself. Actually I only wrote the intro and then I wrote the rest while the old radio programs were playing. This week I played one episode of Sherlock Holmes and one of Bold Venture. I think I sounded a little bit more professional. What did you think?

I learned something new this week. You will probably think it is pretty ordinary and a little behind the times but I learned how to use an instant message program. I needed it to communicate with Jamie while the radio was on the air and my programs were running. It is actually a lot of fun. I can’t see doing it on a dailey basis but in this specific case I found it handy.

Next weekend I am going to attend the South Stormont Chamber of Commerce Trade Show. This will be my third year and, to be honest, I wasn’t going to participate this year. I decided to go to it because the chamber was thinking of cancelling the show but decided to still advertise it and see how many vendors wanted to participate. Well, it’s a go and now I am committed, to be at the show that is, not to some institution. Also next week I am ending my dailey attendance at Island Ink Jet. I will still provide them with coffee and they still want to sell my coffee (at a markup for their profit).

So that is my news for this week. I hope someone reads it and maybe even leaves a comment?

A New Career?

I don’t really think that I have started a new career but it was exciting. I hosted, (at least I think I hosted it, it’s kind of hard to tell), my first Old Time Radio program on Tuesday night, April 13th. If you want to listen to it fast forward to about 60 min into the program if you don’t want to listen to the Vigina Hour. Of course it was Seawayradio.com, which is part of the company that I have a small interest in. Who else would give me an opportunity like that?

I may sound a bit confused but that is because this radio is not your traditional over-the-air broadcast which you tune in on your car radio. It is strickly an internet blogcast thing. We do it live and then it is available as a podcast at any time after that. We are not even in the same room when we do it. Jamie is at his house controlling the output and I was on the phone talking. It got a little confusing once and we did have a few technical difficulties but we will get better, that is if I get the chance.

So when my program came up after the Vigina Hour, I talked a little about the Golden Age of Radio and introduced the two shows that we were going to play. We played an episode of The Shadow and one of The Green Hornet. After the end of the second show I got off the air and Jamie finished off the night with a little music. The next morning I replayed my segment of the nights program and listened to my performance. All I could think of is who is that faint, tinny voiced dork. I don’t think I am going to stop roasting coffee anytime soon.

I don’t have any pictures this time but I do have a link for my broadcast.

One of these days I will figure out what I want to do when I grow up!

Stalking Liberals

The past few days has been busy for me, not that I have been selling a lot of coffee or service cups of coffee. I have spent more time attending political news events and reporting on them and going to a new steering committee meeting for the fledgling S.D.& G. Food Council. I can’t really comment on the Food Council because we are just starting to get our feet under us but I have pictures from the two other events.

MPP Yasir Naqvi; Barb Scott, President of the South Dundas Chamber of Commerce; Cam Martel, past President

The above picture is from the South Dundas Chamber of Commerce (SSCC) annual general meeting. I am not a member of that chamber but as a member of the South Stormont chamber I was invited to attend. The SSCC always invites someone interesting to give a small speach at the end of their agenda and this year it was the Ottawa Central MPP Yaser Naqvi. He was trying to convince all the small business owners in the room that the new Harmonized Sales Tax is a good thing. I tend to agree with him.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and MPP Jim Brownell

The picture above is from the second news event that I went to. Actually the names are reversed and I don’t know how to fix it without starting all over again. It was an announcement by the Premier of Ontario and a photo op for him and a bunch of other politicians. He was making a big deal about a bunch of contracts for green energy and I was there as part of the mighty Cornwall Free News news team. Anyway, I took a bunch of still pictures and the rest of the team took videos and asked questions. I guess you could call me a news hanger-oner (if that is a real word).

So that is my news for the week. I’m all worn out now. That is a lot of excitment for an old guy. I think I will take it easy today and enjoy a beer or two, after I get home of course.

It’s A Hard Job

After 35 or so years of working for large companies I have finally found a job that I really enjoy, or I should say two jobs. OK, not really jobs, you have to get paid for it to be a job. Let’s just call them my passions or hobbys or maybe professions if you really stretch it. You know about my coffee business and now I am working, if you could call it that, for Seaway Media which is the parent company of Cornwall Free News and Seawayradio.com. I know that I have mentioned my latest investment before and the associated radio program but my current news is that I actually hosted an hour of the radio on the 26th and 27th of March from the Cornwall Spring Home & Leisure Show. Now the plan is that I will host my very own show which will play classic old radio programs. I will have The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Suspense, The Black Museum, Dragnet and Lights Out just to mention a few. We haven’t scheduled the first program yet but it will be coming.

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Your's Truly

As part of my “job” for the Cornwall Free News I accompanied Jamie on Good Friday to Beaus Brewery in Vankleek Hill to record some commercial video. We actually had a pro with us to do the recording, Kevin Lamoureux from KAV Productions, but I carried a digital camera and Jamie had his small video recorder with him. It was just coincidental that the Beau’s Brewery 1st Celebration of their Community & Charity Fundraising was going to happen that night as well. To make a long story short, we helped them celebrate.

Art In Progress

Work Work Work

Like I said, it’s a hard job.

Mancession or Women’s Lib Realized?

I have just read a few recent articles which refer to the recession last year as a “man-cession“.

Statistics Canada reports that over the previous year a total of 249,000 men lost their jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector. This compares to a decline of 28,000 for women. Even the rise of dual-income families has meant an erosion of the male’s economic power and control.

I am not too proud to admit that I am one of the men who are being supported by his wife’s income. When we relocated to Ingleside, it was because of a great job offer that my wife received and it coincided (although a little premature) with our plans on returning to the SD&G area when we retired. The idea was to relocate and then I would look for suitable employment. Well, I’ve been fishing for a job but no one was biting so I had to create my own business. It seems that my chosen profession, that of a Quality Assurance Manager, has been identified as a female only applicant jobs. More and more women are reaching the senior levels of management in the food industry and women like to hire women. Women managers don’t know how to handle men as employees. At least that is in my experience…. or maybe the women managers didn’t know how to handle me in particular. I guess I expected too much from them.

So, the point of all of the articles that I have read today is that women are increasingly becoming the main income earner in family units. This was one of the main goals of the women’s lib movement in the 1970’s. Now that the gender equality pendulum is swinging in the females favour, all you hear about is how stressful it is for them. One article points out that a double income family these days have less disposable income than a single income family did in the 1970’s. I guess my point is that the result of the women’s lib movement is not only more employment opportunity but more stress and less disposable income. Thank God women still need man’s sperm to reproduce otherwise they would totally eradicate the male half of the human species.

OK, now I’m worried. I forgot about cloning……..

To all those who want to change natures plan, be careful of what you wish for because you just may get it.

Complaint City

I just opened up the Island Ink-jet Store and started to brew some coffee. A lady was sitting in a van (which is in much need of a new muffler) outside the store. When she sees me turn the open sign on she jumps out of the store and comes in and demands a hot cup of water. To start with my coffee machine wasn’t hot yet, and she was a little rude, so I told her it would take 15 or twenty minutes for the water to be ready. To be honest I couldn’t easily get hot water out of my coffee brewer but I do have a kettle in the back and if she had been a little pleasanter I would have heated some water for her, but I didn’t. There are just too damn many people in this one horse town who feel entitled to free stuff from vendors without even considering the cost.

It was a bad way to start the day off and now I’m in a very negative mood. I have come to observe that generally the people of the SD&G area complain constantly about not having access to better quality goods and service but are unwilling to pay for them. I have seen so many small businesses start up offering what they think the general population want, only to close after a year because of lack of sales. The Chamber of Commerce touts the organizations goal of increasing business for the city, but in reality the old boys like things the way they are. If new successful businesses move in to the area then they might loose status and possibly income. Team Cornwall should coin the phrase “Unless you can sell it cheap, cheap, cheap, you will fail. Come to Cornwall to sell your crap.”

OK, I feel better now. Nothing like a good rant to start the day off.