fred 4.0

Progress

2007-07-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

One hundred and ninety years ago the human population reached one billion. It took 110 years to reach two billion, 45 years to double again, and here we are in 2007 at around 6.6 billion. Until about the Renaissance, the population had remained near 400 million.

What kind of impact do nearly 7 billion people have on the world in which we live, from an ecological point of view? Surface water polluted, forests destroyed, species eliminated, and, possibly the most menacing, modification of global climate. To what do we owe this devastation? In a word, progress. The development of science, in particular, modern medicine and sanitation engineering, has allowed humans to change from being in a state of commensalism with the Earth, to a state of parasitism. In every other species, a state of equilibrium is reached as a result of predators, food sources, and other factors acting to limit growth. Not so for humans. “Progress” has eliminated the natural parity between the birth rate and the death rate, resulting in an exponential growth rate.

Sustainability is new buzzword these days. We can still have our lifestyle, with imported food, imported electronics, global jet setting, and no worries, because we recycle and turn off lights, therefore it’s all sustainable. Don’t forget the Prius, dude! Being green is cool! We can pay that guy in Ecuador pennies a day to pick those bananas, have them shipped all the way to Canada, where we can buy them for $0.56 a pound, and have one for breakfast as we’re reading the morning paper. Sure, we need huge shipping vessels spewing out pollution, and big rigs to haul them from ports, but we like bananas. Local berries simply will not do.

What about C02? How can we keep doing just what we’re doing, and still be “carbon neutral”? Of course, carbon credits! It’s just a little bit of smoke and mirrors to keep the rich polluting. Don’t worry Al Gore, you want to use 20 times the electricity of the average US household? No problem, just buy carbon credits! From your own company! Let’s make a little analogy. There are two countries on opposing banks of a river. Both are pumping mercury into the river. The rich country wants to assuage its conscience (and maybe pay off some friends too), so it pays a company in the poor country not to increase its mercury output, and hey presto! We’ve got mercury credits! The rich country gets to keep pumping toxins into the river, and the poor country may or may not reduce its output of mercury. The end result? Everyone’s happy! Except there’s still poison going into the river. There’s another problem, too. All those third world countries like China and India and Bangladesh see our stupidly high standard of living, and they want it too. Hey, why should the citizens of other nations have to die of malaria and dysentery, while we’re whooping it up, jetting around to all the nice, whitewashed locations of the world and eating our nice, processed foods and dressing in clothes they were paid $0.25 a day to make?

Growth is the keyword in the Western world. Be it corporate earnings, personal wealth, or even the size of your SUV, bigger is better. Those earnings better be increasing at 10% per year, ad infinitum, or else shareholders will be upset. But we live in a finite world. Divide 70 by the rate of growth, and you get the doubling time. China’s economy is doubling every seven years. The Chinese are building coal power plants at the rate of around one a week. Their pollution is visible from space. Um, do we think this can continue until the Chinese have our rate of consumption?? This world isn’t big enough. We don’t have enough resources.

The delicate balance of nature is rapidly becoming unbalanced. “Progress” has resulted in a level of population and excess consumption that cannot be handled by Mother Earth. The ONLY truly sustainable lifestyle for humans does not include imports, exports, automobiles, or any but the simplest technology. The aboriginal population of North and South America lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years, but in just 500 or so years Western Civilization has come perilously close to causing a cataclysm of biblical proportions. To the point: what the world needs is an influenza epidemic, one that is about 95% fatal. Then the world would once again have a sustainable population of humans. This is pretty drastic, but what is the alternative? 8 billion people fighting for food (and more importantly, water), and at the same time destroying the Earth with pollution and ever increasing waste.
-Written by Shawn K

The Winner is...

2007-07-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Shawn! Congratulations Shawn, you get to write the first of three "guest editor" articles. A close second was Justin, followed by Tara in third.

Your article can be on any topic you choose as long as blogger won't shut me down because of it. So sharpen the pencils and email me your article when it's ready.

Thanks everyone for all the entries!

fred 4.0 Guest Editor Competition

2007-07-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

In order to kick things up a notch on my site, I want to have a little competition. Personally, I think I have some of the most intelligent readers so I want to prove it. Introducing fred 4.0 1st reader competition.

The Prize - the opportunity to write an article on fred 4.0 for the top three finishers. The article can be about what every you want.

The Competition - Be the first to successfully answer the puzzle below. Email your answers to f.reibin@gmail.com. Once the first three people email me the correct answer, I will post the answer and the competition will be over.

Here's the puzzle:

On one street there are 5 houses and all of them are in a different colour. Every house has a different owner that drinks a unique drink, smokes a unique cigarette brand and has a unique pet. They all have different nationalities. The question is: who has fish as a pets?

Facts:
-British lives in the red house
-Swedish has a dog as a pet
-Danish drinks tea
-Green house is on the left from the white house
-Owner of the green house drinks coffee
-Person who smokes Pall Mall is growing birds
-Owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
-Person who lives in the centre house drinks milk
-Norwegian lives in the first house
-Person who smokes Blend is the neighbor to the person who has a cat as a pet
-Person who has a horse is the neighbor to the person smoking Dunhill
-Person who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer
-German smokes Prince
-Norwegian lives next to the blue house
-Person who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.

This is not a trick question, but pure logic. And, there is a correct answer.

Good Luck!!

Thank you Mosaic!

2007-06-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Each year, Regina hosts a festival of cultures called Mosaic. The festival features various pavilions around the city with food, drink and entertainment from a specific country.

This year Mosaic is celebrating its 40th anniversary in the city. To build some hype, they teamed up with a local car dealership to give away a vehicle. It so happens that I work with the President of Mosaic in marketing. About a month ago he sent me the link to enter the contest on their website. To enter, I had to build a mosaic tile on the site.

To my surprise, I received a phone call on Thursday that I won a 6 month lease on a 2007 Pontiac G5. Me and the people I was with could not believe the news.

Here's to a fun next 6 months...

The Unsuspecting Champion

2007-05-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

I came across the story of Cliff Young in a recent course I took. To me, it truly proves that: despite something being deemed as "impossible" there really are no limits to human potential. The story goes something like this...

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Every year, Australia hosts an 875-kilometer endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne – considered to be the world’s longest and toughest ultra-marathon. It’s a long, tough race that takes five days to complete. Normally, this event features world-class athletes who train specially for the race. Backed by big names in sports like Nike, these athletes are mostly less than 30 years old and equipped with the most expensive sponsored training outfits gear.

In 1983, these top class runners were in for a surprise. On the day of the race, a guy named Cliff Young showed up. At first, no one cared about him since everybody thought he was there to watch the event. After all, he was 61 years old & showed up in overalls and galoshes over his work boots.

As Cliff walked up to the table to take his number, it became obvious to everybody he was going to run. He was going to join a group of 150 world-class athletes and run! During that time, these runners don’t even know another surprising fact - his only trainer was his 81-year-old mother, Neville Wran.

Everybody thought it was a crazy publicity stunt. But the press was curious, so as he took his number 64 and moved into the pack of runners in their special, expensive racing outfit, the camera focused on him and reporters started to ask:

“Who are you and what are you doing?”

“I’m Cliff Young. I’m from a large ranch where we run sheep outside of Melbourne.”

They said, “You’re really going to run in this race?”

“Yeah,” Cliff nodded.

“Got any backers?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t run.”

“Yeah I can.” Cliff said. “See, I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or four wheel drives, and the whole time I was growing up– until about four years ago when we finally made some money and got a four wheeler– whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 head, and we have 2,000 acres. Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d catch them. I believe I can run this race; it’s only two more days. Five days. I’ve run sheep for three.”

When the marathon started, the pros left Cliff behind in his galoshes. The crowds smiled because he didn’t even run correctly. Instead of running, he appeared to run leisurely, shuffling like an amateur.

Now, the 61-year-old potato farmer from Beech Forest with no teeth had started the ultra-tough race with world-class athletes. All over Australia, people who watched the live telecast kept on praying that someone would stop this crazy old man from running because everyone believed he’ll die even before even getting halfway across Sydney.

To their surprise, not only did Cliff finish the race, but he won it... by a day and a half.

Every professional athletes knew for certain that it took about 5 days to finish this race, and that in order to compete, you would need to run 18 hours and sleep 6 hours. The thing is, old Cliff Young did not know that!

When the morning news of the race was aired, people were in for another big surprise. Cliff was still in the race and had jogged all night down to a city called Mittagong.

Apparently, Cliff did not stop after the first day. Although he was still far behind the world-class athletes, he kept on running. He even had the time to wave to spectators who watched the event by the highways.

When he got to a town called Albury he was asked about his tactics for the rest of the race. He said he would run through to the finish, and he did.

He kept running. Every night he got just a little bit closer to the leading pack. By the last night, he passed all of the world-class athletes. By the last day, he was way in front of them. Not only did he run the Melbourne to Sydney race at age 61, without dying; he won first place, breaking the race record by 9 hours and became a national hero! The nation fell in love with the 61-year-old potato farmer who came out of nowhere to defeat the world’s best long distance runners.

He finished the 875-kilometre race in 5 days, 15 hours and 4 minutes. Not knowing that he was supposed to sleep during the race, he said when running throughout the race, he imagined that he was chasing sheep and trying to outrun a storm.

When Cliff was awarded the first prize of $10,000, he said he did not know there was a prize and insisted that he had not entered for the money. He said, “There’re five other runners still out there doing it tougher than me,” and he gave them $2,000 each. He did not keep a single cent for himself. That act endeared him to all of Australia. Cliff was a humble, average man, who undertook an extraordinary feat and became a national sensation.

In the following year, Cliff's record was broken and the year after that it was bettered again. His no boundaries thinking changed the way the race was run forever.

Back in Bangkok

2007-04-01T18:36:00.001-07:00

The rest of our time on Koh Chang consisted of shopping, Thai massages, and sun. Feeling very relaxed, we boarded our Bangkok Airways flight back to the mainland. The flight began as any other: sit down, safety message, take off. However, once we were in the air, we were very surprised to see smoke coming out of the air vents in the cabin. As mothers covered their babies’ faces, we sat there calmly seeing what this mysterious mist was. It turned out to be nothing more than the air conditioning system, but hilarious none the less!

We arrived back into hectic Bangkok and quickly caught a cab to the Holiday Inn Silom - a hotel of which Tara’s uncle is the manager. The hotel was located right in the heart of Bangkok, right next door to a major shopping district as well as Patpong (the red-light district). We were greated as royalty at this very luxurious hotel. That evening we were treated to some drinks, laughs, amazing Thai food, and a night in the Patpong!

Micheal has a tradition of taking all his guests through the red-light district and to a club called Radio City. The club features, among many other things, Thai impersonaters of Elvis and Tom Jones. The night was pretty much hilarious from the minute we walked in. The rest of the band were pure comedians and the singers were actually pretty good. Another cool thing about this spot was the fact that they let people in the audience come up on stage and dance, sing, play with the band.

Bright and early the next mourning, we set out to see some of the sites Bangkok had to offer. Our main stop was the Grand Palace featuring the World famous emerald Buddha. The palace was stunningly opulant with gigantic temples covered in gold and jewels. There was only one problem, it was 42C outside and all the shiney metal made the palace into a royal oven. So we saw the essentials and headed off to the river to catch a river taxi back home.

One more night of great food and laughs then it was back to the airport to catch my 30 hour flight home. Just like that the time had come and gone. Some have told me it was too short. Do I agree? Yes. Would I do it again in a second? Yes.

With every trip, I learn more about myself and the World. The experience is invaluable.

Koh Chang Shananigans

2007-04-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

Despite our hotel being very nice we wanted to be closer to the beach. So the next morning, we set out on a trek to see the island and find a place closer to the sand. My initial impression of the island was that it was very beautiful. In the centre of the land mass were a number of jungle-covered mountains. The majority of the action was on the west coast, which was lined with white sand beach. Along the edge of the beach were a number of shops and restaurants.

We found a place that rented out bungalows, which were right on the beach. So we took one for the rest of our time on Koh Chang. The next days were filled with lounging on the beach and sipping on delicious cocktails.

On Tuesday, we decided to partake in a snorkeling trip. The trip took us to 5 different islands around Koh Chang. In the deep ocean tides, we saw amazing marine life and coral reefs. At one point, I found that I had drifted apart from the rest of the group as I followed various schools of fish. I looked up to see I was surrounded by 3 barracudas. My heart raced as quickly as I did... back to the boat.

One of the most memorable parts of the trip was our guide. As soon as we got on the boat, he called me to the front and gave me his best advice on snorkeling, Thailand, and partying. Basically, this guy was a straight lunatic! At one point, he was hanging off the edge of the speed boat at top speed.

Battered with sun and salt water, we arrived back on Koh Chang. Relying loosely on the advice of our guide, we set out get to a beach down the road to find more excitement. The best way to get around the island was via motorbike, so we decided to rent one from our hotel.

The motorbike of choice for getting around Thailand is a scooter. Being from Saskatchewan, I have never had the opportunity of driving one of these machines before. After a few quick instructions from one of the bus boys at the front desk, we were off. We hopped on, and not know how powerful one of these beasts actually is, I gave it an ample amount of gas. It takes off and starts to go out of control in the direction of a fence. As we saw the fence approaching, we decided to ditch the scooter. We did just in time, escaping with only a scraped hand and bruised ankle. The scooter, however, was not so lucky. It skidded along the ground before crashing into the fence... before the eyes of all the hotel staff. The bus boys ran over and picked up the bike. They took one look at the road-rashed body and damaged mirror and quickly said... "No problem, all OK"! To my surprise, this was nothing but a flesh wound to them. So we continued on to tour the island on our freshly crashed scooter.

Arrival in Bangkok

2007-04-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Bangkok on Friday night after 5 flights, totaling 31 hours. I was greeted at the airport by hundreds of local taxi driver who wanted to give me "good deal". Needless to say exhaustion was in the air along with a distinct smell of fresh summer air.

After a few quick hours of sleep in an overpriced hotel, my traveling partner and I headed back to the airport to catch our next flight to the island of Koh Chang. The Bangkok Airways plane was small, but the service was amazing - great food and very friendly.

After being in the air for 40 minutes, we landed in the village of Trat where we would catch our boat to the island. By saying Trat was a village was a bit of an exaggeration - it was basically an airport with some huts and small stores around it.

By saying we landed in an airport, I'm also stretching things a bit. This airport had no walls and grass roofs. But still, it had all the commonalities of an airport - a departures and arrivals hut, a security desk, and a snack area. It was quite obvious that this was only built to cater to the huge influx of tourist to the area, but none the less, it was a very neat little spot.

Our arrival in Koh Chang was in the dark, so it was very difficult to see the beauty that awaited us. The taxi dropped us of at a place I booked the week before. We arrived to a very confused Australian telling us he didn't receive our booking and his place was full. Luckily, the driver was able to recommend another place for us to stay for the night. This place ended up being much nicer, so we were actually very happy.

Sa Wat Dee Kha

2007-04-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Thank you Thailand for an amazing 10 days! The trip whipped by, but the memories are burned into mind and I will not soon forget. I have a lot of stories from this trip, so I will make a number of individual posts to avoid writing a novel. Enjoy!

Transition

2007-03-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

This week is definitely a week in limbo. I returned home after an amazing week in Denver and I leave for Thailand next Thursday. I often catch myself looking at the calendar, thinking where the time has gone. The weeks of March have seemed like days.

More posts soon...

The Mile High City

2007-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Denver yesterday afternoon for the Spring 2007 Nortel Partner conference. Pretty much every telecommunications company in North America is attending. This city will be my home for the next four days, and I must admit, it's a beautiful city.

The conference is being held at a resort about 45 minutes north of Denver on the edge of the Rockies. The area is very new with a lot of neat little shops, restaurants, and bars. The weather is also beautiful - about 15C everyday.

As soon as we walked through the front doors of the resort, we were greeted with a glass of champaign. I could get used to this place.

Inner Integrity

2007-02-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

'Integrity and responsibility form an alchemical brew. They turn the lead of holding back in life into the gold of dancing with it.' – Christine Caldwell

Inner integrity is our basic human nature — the effortless emotional wholeness that is our birthright. When we tune into our direct experience as it actually is in the moment — not what our heads think about it, but what we actually experience — we find ourselves able to act in alignment with life, rather than undergoing an inward battle.

Despite sounding basic, it's not. Somehow we become convinced we're too much, too little, or just not up to standard. Where does this personal judgment come from? When is the point where it becomes so great to actually evoke us into acting in a manner that conflicts our emotional wholeness? Is current culture to blame? Have we become more inclined to succumb to one of Mahatma Ghandi's 'seven deadly sins': pleasure without conscience?

I recently came across a school of thought called integrity therapy. This practice focuses on finding inner peace through becoming one with our experience and facing the facts about past experiences. It has received rave reviews by couples, leaders, and individuals alike.

Opening more and more fully to our own experience, we gain a sense of peaceful grounding within ourselves, and the confidence to allow whatever arises to manifest. The end result is inner integrity — our complete and undivided self - the whole self.

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-02-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Many of you have probably already watched Al Gore's movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Being a little behind, I finally watched the documentary last night.

For those of you haven't heard much about it, I'll give a bit of background. The movie's about Al Gore's quest to reduce global warming through educating people of their impact on the environment. His crusade began after taking a class in university from a professor who proved increased carbon levels are directly correlated with increased atmospheric temperature. Now he travels all over the World educating himself and others on the fact that global warming is directly controllable by the current human race.

Why isn't there more publicity on this topic by government or higher ups? Gore uses an amazing quote to answer this question: It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair

Gore does more than lay out the facts in a way that's logical, convincing, and even entertaining. He takes it to the next level and inspires individual action. It's our individual responsibility to make a change on this issue. Each and every day we all encounter situations that play a role in the health of the environment. Situations as simple as turning out the lights, recycling, or walking a few extra blocks. We can choose to act or not act on these situations.

To get more information on the movie, check out:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

Thailand

2007-02-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

The tickets are booked! I will be leaving Regina on March 22nd for Bangkok and staying for two weeks. Since my time in Thailand will be limited, I will stay primarily in the south around Railay Beach. Railay Beach is an island only accessible by boat. If you get a chance do an internet search for Railay Beach and check out some pictures - quite impressive.

I'll keep everyone updated on here with all the details and I'll try publish all my pictures too.

Pretty Excited...

The Power to Choose

2007-01-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

I recently read The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey. In this book, Covey frequently talks about the 'greatest gift' human beings have that other living creatures do not - the power to choose. Covey says: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness."

Using this theory, the book challenges the great argument of Nature vs. Nurture. Are we a product of our genes or our upbringing? Covey argues the answer is neither. Since our lives are simply a series of choices, we have choosen what we are today.

Overall I view this as a solid theory. However, I recently attended a lecture that made me question it. The lecture was titled Contested Ways of Knowing by a sociology professor from the University of Regina by the name of Salvador Orlando Alfaro. Salvador spoke of the flaws in current academic institutions. Mainly, the dominance of Euro-centric knowledge and the absence of "other" knowledges in their curriculum. There's nothing wrong with euro-centric knowledge, but the absence of other knowledge doesn't provide students the opportunity to a well-rounded view of a subject.

Now here's where I'm having an issue. If we are constantly receiving a biased stimulus (Euro-centric teaching), won't our choices also be biased? If we don't have all the knowledge to make a choice, will we actually have power over that choice?

The Alkaline Diet

2007-01-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

It's not very often I stumble across something that completely changes one of my perspectives on life. Last week this happened. For the past 8 months, I've been going to the gym religiously and on a very strict high protein diet. I've had a lot of positive results gaining 20 pounds.

Last term my roommate was in class with a guy who's brother has severe multiple sclerosis. His brother had been going for treatment, but his condition continued to deteriorate. He finally got fed up and started doing some of his own research online. What he found was called the alkaline diet. Since starting the diet, he has not had a single symptom of MS.

The whole premise of the diet is that our bodies are naturally composed of 80% alkaline and 20% acid. Accordingly, our diet should consist of foods that maintain this balance. If our bodies are at this ratio of alkaline to acid, nothing can survive - bad bacteria, viruses, even cancer.

After hearing this story, I was naturally curious. So I did a bit of research and was completely blown away. There are literally pages and pages of people saying this diet has reversed the effects of numerous diseases, including cancer. As well, many experts in this diet attribute many common ailments; such as headaches, dandruff, muscle pain, and osteoperosis, to our bodies being out of balance. The acidity/alkalinity of a food is measure after it is metabolized in our bodies. So foods like lemons and watermelon are actually high in alkaline, where foods like milk are high in acidity. To me this all made a lot of sense because the foods recommended are the foods our bodies were designed to eat. Naturally coke, processed foods and animal fats are very bad.

After all this evidence, I was sold. So I decided to slowly start integrating some aspects of the diet into my own. I only started yesterday, but I feel the difference already. One of the symptoms these pages talk about, which I had, was excess flegm and mucous. This morning when I woke up my nose and throat were clear for the first time in months.

Very excited to see how this turns out. Here are a few links:

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/alkalinediet.htm
http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/warningsigns.html
http://www.energiseforlife.com/list_of_alkaline_foods.php

Happy New Year!

2007-01-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all the best in 2007! For me, this year has already been very enjoyable. I've done a lot of realaxing and enjoying life. I started back at work on Jan. 2nd and I was actually happy to be back. I'm the kind of person who has a hard time just sitting around (even though I know it's important to do so).

For many, this time of year leads to a lot of personal reflection leading to resolutions to change some aspect of thier life. I'm not big into resolutions because I strive for constant improvement. Instead, I use this time to set some things I would like to accomplish in the next year. Here are a few of my 2007 activities:

-I want to keep going to the gym and obtain my personal training designation. Once I have obtained this designation, I would like to start training people in my spare time.
-I want to put on a charity event. I found this last New Year's Eve that there were not a lot of plans for what everyone was going to do. Next New Year's Eve I would like to host and event to bring everyone together and help a great cause. If anyone has any ideas for specific charities, I'd love to hear them.
-I want to do another trip. Hopefully, Thailand in April.

The Biggest Gamble of Your Life (Is College Worth it?)

2006-12-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

This exerpt is from an article I read the other day. It strikes particularly close to home because I went the route of getting a student loan and going to university. Now I'm finished, working, paying for my school, and frequently wondering if this was the best/only path for someone coming out of college to take in order to be "successful".

The author does a lot of background work and makes many very good points. Keep in mind it is based on U.S. numbers, but a very similar argument could be made for other countries.

Have a read and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this one.

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In 2005, young people (ages 18-25) in the US gambled $67 billion. Not in Vegas or online poker rooms, but on a betterment program called college. Their hope is that the monies they are spending will allow them to earn more money over their lifetime. Many are paying for this wager by amassing a mountain of debt that will take years to pay off. Is it a good wager? Conventional wisdom says so, but with $67 billion on the line (and that's debt accumulated in just one year by college attendees) we should have more than conventional wisdom or parental pressures to guide the way to smart economic decisions.

full article:
http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=226

All Things Being Equal, They Are Not.

2006-11-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

“As first World consumers, we have tremendous power. What we collectively choose to buy, or not to buy, can change the course of life and history on this planet”. This excerpt exemplifies the key directive of Project (RED). This project has been set up by U2 lead man, Bono. Project (RED) unifies popular retailers such as The GAP, Apple, Motorolla, and American Express. Each retailer has created a separate (RED) line of products. Half of the profit from these products goes directly to HIV/AIDS in Africa.

I think this project was much over due. Despite many criticisms, consumerism is a growing facet in our society. If citizens have the option of purchasing products to support a worthy cause like the pandemic in Africa, they now have the freedom to make a purchase choice based on their values. Bottom line: it’s a choice that wasn’t there before.

So I would highly recommend you at least check out the website: www.joinred.com

UN Urges to End “Water Apartheid”

2006-11-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Next to oxygen, water is the most essential element to human survival. I was alarmed to find out unsafe drinking water is responsible for more deaths in Africa than AIDS and malaria combined. However, this was the first time I really heard about it. How is it these other two issues get so much media, but this one is kept relatively quiet?

Check out the article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6131922.stm

Where to Begin?

2006-11-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess, I will just give an overall update of what I’m up to. It has been about a year since I published on my last blog and quite a bit has happened. So, here’s a bit about the year that was…

Upon my return from Africa into Canada, I moved straight to Toronto. I think this transition really helped with the reintegration seeing as I was going from the massive city of Johannesburg to Toronto instead of Saskatoon. I spent my first weeks soaking up every bit of Canada I could – talking to Canadians, eating at Canadian restaurants, drinking Canadian beer.

Then the reality sunk in that I needed to get a job. I spent the next while applying like crazy at advertising agencies, NGOs, and any other company that I felt would challenge me. I went for a few interviews, but in the end I ended up accepting a job from Enterprise Rent a Car as a management trainee.

Taking the job with Enterprise opened another chapter in my life – long work days and not much sleep. The Enterprise management trainee program is a very interesting one. New employees start at the bottom and move up as fast they can manage. All promotions are based on performance, not seniority. As a result, expectations of participants are very high.

I left Toronto and Enterprise March 1st to return home to Saskatchewan. While home, I ended up getting a marketing position with SaskTel, Saskatchewan’s largest telecommunications company. I am now a product marketing manager for a number of business phone systems. This position is very exciting because I’m always working with leading edge technology.

I have now worked for SaskTel for six months. The experience has been great. At the same time, I’m also looking to get my own business/organization started. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

That’s all for now…

Jagshemash!

2006-10-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

This my new site! Enjoy!