From Pulse to Fingertips

I typically don’t complain to anyone when I encounter lousy customer service, but this place takes the cake.

Strike 1: Pay for the Shopping Carts – They are conveniently located just inside the entrance to the store, but you need to fish out a loonie to unlock and use one. When you are finished with the cart, you need to bring it back to where you got it from to get your loonie back. This means you have to reenter the store and exit again via the cashier. The way I see it, the only reason this setup exists is so they don’t have to pay an employee to collect the carts from the parking lot. This is the only Canadian Tire location in Vancouver that uses coin operated shopping carts.

Strike 2: Poor Merchandise Display and Pricing – After visiting the automotive section for motor oil and oil filters, I headed over to where they keep the furnace filters (without a cart – I didn’t have a loonie on me). The filters I needed were on the top shelf, priced individually, but displayed in packages of 6. Sure, I could buy the filter I needed, but I had to buy a lot of them to get one. I looked for a floor person to help me out, but no one was around. I picked up the entire bundle of filters, along with my motor oil and oil filters, and headed to the checkout.

Strike 3: No Cashiers and Crappy Service – Until recently, this store always had huge lineups at the till, with only one or two people working at the front of the store. Their solution wasn’t to hire more cashiers, but instead to install four self-checkout tills with one cashier to man them. I walked up to the customer service desk with my arms full of merchandise and asked the guy behind the counter if he could help me. Without asking me what it was I needed (i.e. could I buy just one filter or did I need to purchase the entire bundle?), he simply stuck out his finger, rudely pointed at the self-checkout and told me to go there. No other tills were open. I placed the items I was carrying on the floor and left.

I will never, ever set foot in that store again.

I took my money to another store that actually wanted my business. In fact, I ended up spending less at the other store for identical items.

Canadian Tire on NO. 3 Road = FAIL

9 awesome years with my totally hot girlfriend!

I’m so addicted to my Babycakes
Just like the Great Lakes
Are to water and fish
My Babycakes is a real dish

Peter Harris bought this guitar from Lenny after Lenny got into his 7-string. During one of our lessons at Humber College in Toronto, Peter put Lenny’s guitar in my hands. I still remember how it felt. The neck was wide and set up like a classical gut string acoustic. I played a few chords and then a chord melody arrangement of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” that Peter was coaching me on. Man, that guitar just about played itself. I was really, really humbled by that guitar, knowing how many hours Lenny and peter had put in on it.

Excerpt from “The Genius of Lenny Breau”

After Peter passed away, I’d always wondered what happened to that guitar.  Some think that one of Peter’s sons inherited it, but no one knows for sure.

Lately I’ve been caught up in being “caught up”.  A few years ago I put together a personal mission statement to help remind myself of the big picture.

My Mission Statement

1. I am principle-centred

2. I see the big picture

3. I trust my natural responses

4. I do the right thing and accept the consequences because I am responsible

5. I help people – “Service to others is the rent you pay for your time on Earth.” – Muhammad Ali

6. I lead without “leading”.

7. I am a life-long learner and I teach by sharing

The Animal School

Dr. R. H. Reeves

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “New World,” so they organised a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easy to administer, all animals took all the subjects.
The duck was excellent in swimming, better in fact then his instructor, and made excellent grades in flying, but he was very poor in running. Since he was low in running he had to stay after school and also drop swimming to practise running. This was kept up until his webfeet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that except the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup in swimming.
The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustrations in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed charley horses from over-exertion and he got a C in climbing and a D in running.
The eagle was a problem child and had to be disciplined severely. In climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way of getting there.
At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well and also could run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.
The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to the badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

We’ve heard the stories coming out of the US about drywall imported from China emitting harmful gasses and corroding wiring, but we have found no evidence of this stuff making it’s way into the Canadian market.

Check out this story from the Journal of Commerce

I had a blog before, and deleted it at the beginning of the year. After reading through some of the posts, I decided that it was not a true representation of me now. I’ve grown and my circumstances have changed considerably.

This new blog will focus on my own insights, growth and development. I know… it sounds like every other blogger’s ambition, but this one comes from me so its going to be unique.

I think I can sum it up with this quote: “If you change your opinions to please others, you end up with the wrong friends.” ~ Anonymous