Author: Doug Rutherford

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Requiem for a squirrel

Well, it’s been more than one month since we saw Grumpy Squirrel.  He has not been dining at the squirrel/bird feeder and there were no tracks around his nest. If the weather had been cold for a length of time, I could understand his reticence to go outside. However, a good bit of the stretch of time in question was quite mild and other squirrels have been noisy around the neighbourhood. I have come to the conclusion that Grumpy may no longer be with us.

Grumpy has been around for quite a time as this was his fourth or fifth winter living in and around the back yard. A squirrel that lives past the age of one has an average life span of 2.3 years, but can live to a maximum of 8. As squirrels go, he had a pretty good life span. It wasn’t that hard, I’m sure. After all, my neighbour, Gordon, and I had been feeding him and for the last four years, he has been living in our shed. I was going to evict him, but never got around to it the summer before last and this summer, I wasn’t up to doing some general squirrel-proofing in the shed. I didn’t want to evict him after that, since a squirrel without a nest and store before winter won’t survive very long.

Grumpy was a good squirrel. OK, he was a bit on the psychotic side, but I liked to think of that as being a character trait rather than a failing. Some of his foibles were rather entertaining. For example, I think he figured out who filled the feeder and I could come rather close to him. On the other hand, he seemed to have a particular dislike for Clara and would quickly climb a tree if she came into the back yard. Also, you didn’t have to be too fluently bilingual to understand that some of the calls he made at her probably weren’t complimentary. And she sassed him right back. They did come to like each other enough to share the space on reading days but raking days were entertaining.

Despite his tolerance of us, he did have one bizarre practice. He wouldn’t eat while looking at us. There was a little stub branch above the feeder that he would often eat on. If we were in the yard or on the deck, he would eat on the branch with his back turned to us. If we moved to the other side of the yard, he would switch around. Maybe, we gave him indigestion. I don’t know. This happened numerous times so I assume there was something in it. Also, he was only so tolerant. The feeder was his and I learned early in the game that taking it down to fill it when he was in the yard was not a good idea. Squirrels are a bit territorial, it seems. After having a squirrel threaten you a few times, you take the hint and wait until he wasn’t around to refill it.

I wasn’t the only one he would defend his feeder against. Many a scrap ensued in the yard when another squirrel expressed an interest in the feeder. I’m not sure how he knew there was another one around, as he would often come out of nowhere chirping and yelling and chasing the squirrel down the yard and out of his territory. He would also defend it against birds. He would often chase the chickadees but they would often only fly to the next tree. This obviously wasn’t far enough, so he would climb up and jump to the next tree and scare them out of it. They’d fly to the third tree, which also wasn’t far enough away for Grumpy. He’d go to the next tree and scare them out of it. This, however, was far enough away for the chickadees and they’d often fly from there back to the feeder. Grumpy seemed to take a particular dislike for this and the process would repeat itself.

I’ve only seen his defence process fail twice. Once, he tried to evict a large flock of sparrows. Sparrows are a bit on the aggressive side and since there were several hundred of them, they weren’t backing down from a mere squirrel, regardless of how much attitude he had. He quickly backed off after being continuously dive bombed. The other time I’ve seen him fail to defend something involved the next tree. That’s where the suet block hangs. I have never seen him eat the suet; however, when a hairy woodpecker tries to eat from it, Grumpy chases him away. One day, Grumpy was at the feeder when a three-toed woodpecker (about 2 ½ times the size of the hairy woodpecker) decided to eat at the suet block. Grumpy moved a little further up the tree and sat quietly until he left. Discretion may be an important aspect of squirrel valour, as well.

What happened to him? There are foxes in the yard commonly and owls as well. Dean Marten, the pine marten, has also been around this winter and many cats run loose in the neighbourhood. And, since I have to bust the lock off the shed, I haven’t had a chance to determine if he’s still in there, passed away from a little squirrel coronary after eating all of the oily sunflower seeds I’ve fed him. That’s a project for the next few days. As for what comes next, Grumpy is really Grumpy II. Grumpy I was preceded by a squirrel that used to antagonize the neighbourhood cats and Gordon, our former neighbour (who, according to Clara, moved on up to Heaven to feed the squirrels there) and I simultaneously christened him Cat Food one morning. Some other squirrel will take over his territory sometime this spring and I’ll be feeding a new one soon enough. We’ll see what name the next one earns.

I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve never had to write an obituary before. Who knew the first one would be for a squirrel…

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What’s in a phone call?

I’m beginning to enjoy the concept of call display. The phone rings, and the phone number is quickly shown on the display screen on the telephone. This presents the wonderful opportunity to talk to an old friend or family member or to allow the answering machine to deal with those moments when you’re feeling a bit on the anti-social side. And, we’ve all been there at some time or another.

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been getting a call from an odd-looking phone number, 999-910-0103. It is odd since there is no 999 area code. They only come in the daytime and I’m not home to get them. Clara has answered them a few times, but by the time she gets to the phone, she only gets a recorded woman’s voice saying “Good-bye.” As I previously mentioned, they are odd. The calls come several times a day and only in the daytime.

I finally got around to considering this problem yesterday. I ran a web search on the phone number to see if there was a name we could associate with it and found that this is a rather famous, or infamous one. This is the Microsoft remote access scam phone number. Someone phones you, claiming to be from Microsoft, reporting a problem with your computer. They, however, can fix this by you giving them remote access to your computer. Of course, this is not the greatest of ideas, since you are essentially allowing a stranger to scan through all of the data on your computer, including all of your personal information such as correspondence, banking information, etc.

Consider the following questions when you look at this situation. When you bought your computer, it probably came with the Windows program already installed. At what point did you give Microsoft your phone number? How does Microsoft actually know, of all of the copies of Windows out there in the world, which one is yours? And, how do they know that your computer is having problems?

These questions quickly jump to my mind, but I’m supposed to be an expert (although you may also want to consider the maxim that those who can’t do, teach). But, these are not the first things that may jump into the average computer user’s mind when faced with such a phone call and this is why such scams work. Also, the timing of the calls is important, since the underlying idea is that people who work, possibly even with computers, won’t be at home at that hour of the day. This is particularly heinous when you remember that the scam in question is aimed at seniors who, as a rule, are less computer literate on average than those raised when computers were more commonplace.

So, when your phone rings and you don’t recognize the caller, feel free to be skeptical. Ask them to call back with their request or offer in two days after you’ve had a chance to consider the issue. Odds are, they won’t return your call since they recognize that you aren’t an easy mark.

That being said, my father received one of these calls last month. Yes, he’s a senior and should be more susceptible to this type of fraud. But, we did raise him proper and he recognized the implications from the start of the phone call. After 21 years in the navy and another 25 in the Coast Guard, Dad’s command of certain more colloquial parts of the English language is a bit more developed than that of many other people.  In fact, it’s so well developed that I may even feel a bit of sympathy for the scammer on the other end of the conversation. Not much, but a little…

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Second reading of the play

Yesterday, I had a group of people come in and read through my play again. It makes it considerably easier to get an idea of where it is at when you actually hear it, rather than fill in the voices in your head.

I had a great group and had great feedback. I do realize that there is much more to do, particularly in terms of character relationship development. However, it does seem to be on the right track and it’s on to editing again. David Skelton, Artistic Director at Nakai Theatre, brought up a good point to me a while ago: from original writing to first production is normally a three-year process. I started this one a little over a year ago…

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A lost Liberal opportunity

The old adage states that, “Opportunity only comes a-knockin’ once.” This week represented an opportunity for the federal Liberal Party, one they shunned.

Lise St-Denis, the Member of Parliament for Saint-Maurice-Champlain, was elected for the first time in May as a member of the New Democratic Party. However, she crossed the floor this week to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. Her given reasons were that she more aligned with the Liberals’ social policies and job-creation policies, as well as rejecting the NDP policy on pulling Canada out of the NATO mission in Libya. However, she is also quoted by CBC as saying that she had been considering this since the election in May and that, “It’s been six months that I’ve been reflecting and discussing.”

Crossing party lines is always a point of contention, particularly when it happens a short period of time following an election. The argument is that the member is elected based on people knowing some idea of the policies that member will support come from the platform of the party banner under which they ran. Riding associations also reflect badly on the process since they contribute both money and volunteer effort to elect the member running for their party. Consider the case of David Emerson, who was elected as a Liberal in the 2004 and 2006 federal elections; however, was named a Conservative cabinet minister in a surprise move two weeks after the 2006 election. The Liberal riding association, arguing that he had been elected as a member of that party, requested that he repay the $97,000 that they had spent during the election campaign, a sum that Emerson never repaid.

St-Denis has also been brought to task by the NDP for her change in party affiliation. Guy Caron, Quebec NDP caucus member from Rimouski — Neigette —Témiscouata — Les Basques, has called for St-Denis to resign her seat and run as a Liberal in a by-election to determine whether or not her constituents support her decision. According to Caron, “Quebec voters rejected the Liberals and voted for the NDP.” St-Denis, when asked if the constituents voted for her or the NDP in particular, she responded with the somewhat tasteless comment that, “They voted for Jack Layton, but Jack Layton is dead.”

On to the concept of opportunity…  Ms. St-Denis’s joining the Liberal party was announced at a press conference, accompanied by Liberal Interim Leader, Bob Rae and Quebec caucus chair, Denis Coderre. Rae stated, “The rebuilding of the Liberal Party of Canada depends on people like Ms. St-Denis who have the courage of their convictions and who join our fight against a Conservative government rooted in rigid and dangerous ideology.” Coderre commented, “I have always admired people who make decisions based on their principles and convictions, and I can assure Lise, on behalf of my colleagues in our Quebec Caucus, that she will have all the support necessary to better serve the constituents of Saint-Maurice-Champlain.” In sum, the Liberal Party seems to think highly of both Ms. St-Denis and her decision to join the party.

As we remember, the Liberal Party was dealt a substantial blow in the May 2nd general election. While not the collapse of the Progressive Conservatives under Kim Campbell, it can be seen as being more than the electorate dealing them a slap on the knuckles. It has become obvious that the party needs serious rebuilding to get back into the game and many have proposed that, like the Progressive Conservatives, the party’s shelf life may not extend past the next federal election. To be blunt, no one will really know that until after the next election; however, it is certainly safe and sage to suggest that something different has to happen to ensure their survival. The party has to put forward some message that clearly states, “We’re new, we’re different, and we’re not like the other parties.”

Ms. St-Denis presented a chance for the party to do that. Publicly announcing her intent and rejecting it would have offered the Liberals a chance to say, “That’s old time politics and we don’t do that.” It could easily have offered the chance to start the rebranding of the party as something other than the “same old same old.” Rather, the leadership cheerfully accepted her into the fold… the fold of tired, old politics and a Liberal Party that much of the electorate sees as no longer relevant in the current political environment and rejected in the last election.

So, here’s a reminder for those delegates in the upcoming Liberal convention. Opportunity doesn’t knock often and you never really know if it will knock again…

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One of those “What?” moments

After work, I headed downtown to do a few errands and had one of those moments I’m reluctant to describe. This occurred in the parking lot of the car wash on Industrial Road.

When I arrived, I was the only one in line to get in. All of the bays were in use so I would get in reasonably quickly. Another vehicle pulled in behind me shortly after. It was a City of Whitehorse truck. Now, since it was a nice day, I was standing outside waiting my turn. Right after pulling behind me, he starts to try to get around. I figured he wasn’t willing to wait and wanted to pull out around the building and leave. The passenger asked if I would pull ahead a bit, so I got back into the truck and moved it forward so he could get around me.

Imagine my surprise when he doesn’t leave. Instead, he jumps ahead of me in line. I guess he was in even more of a hurry than I thought. I was so flabbergasted that I didn’t think of getting the license number until it was too late. After a few minutes, and just as I was walking up to say something, they pull out, around the building and leave. I figure that waiting is something only us mere mortals are expected to do.

I did send an e-mail to council to complain. I’m not sure what will come out of the e-mail, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see…

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I’m now allergic to Fridays

I had to do some interesting math this week. According to the union agreement, there is a cap on the number of vacation hours you can carry over at the end of the fiscal year. If you have hours over the cap after June 30th, you lose those hours. No, you don’t get paid out for them. I presume it’s to prevent you saving up hours and then taking a huge amount of vacation at once, making you unavailable when you’re needed.

There’s a double issue for me as well. Instructors are not supposed to take vacation in between September and the end of April. This is reasonably sensible, since you really can’t go anywhere during the terms when you’re supposed to be teaching. I say, “reasonably sensible” because it’s been reasonably applied here as well. If, for example, there are days of the week when you don’t teach, there has been quite a bit of leniency on behalf of the college to ignore the rule when you apply for vacation that would only include those days. And, when your courses are online and there isn’t a huge requirement for your presence in a specific location, instructors have been permitted to take vacation during the term so long as they have access to the internet to deliver lessons while away.

Having spent most of the last six months on sick leave, I’m facing being substantially over the cap come the end of the fiscal year. The alternative is to basically force the end of the term and being gone after the last exam date. This isn’t a good choice as, sometimes, students have issues that make writing the final during the exam period impossible. Please note here that I do differentiate between the concept of “reason” and “excuse” and that not all of the cirucmstances are as pressing as they could be. But, often, there are really good reasons why a student needs to write a final or submit assignments late. Therefore, I was officially “in a pickle.”

After a chat with the department chair, the pickle has ended. I don’t have classes on Fridays. Therefore, starting this week, I have every second Friday, at least, off. This makes it easier to manage vacation time in the spring without losing vacation.

Now, there is another option. Another clause in the CBA does allow for reinstate of hours over the cap if you took time off for sick, bereavement, or special leave. This is not a given and requires approval of both the college and the employee. My chair and I both decided not to go this route. After all, who wants to do the paperwork when every second weekend is a long weekend….

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An economics lesson to start your year

This year, new corporate tax reductions take effect, reducing the federal corporate rate from 16.5% to 15%. The idea behind this, and a bizarre one, is that by allowing corporations to retain money by reducing taxes, they will increase spending the retained money. This is supposed to be an additional bonus by aiming this at corporations to allow them to spend more in times of financial instability.

While this sounds good, it probably results in the exact opposite of its intention. Remember how corporate taxes are based. Taxes are paid on the corporate revenues minus the allowable expenses. Those allowable expenses are things such as salaries and benefits, monies spent on expanding the company or those spent locally on parts, supplies, services, etc. In short, taxation, in a punitive form, serves as the encouragement for companies to hire employees, maintain a sustainable rate of growth and purchase materials and services relative to their business.

Shareholder dividends also fall under the heading of allowable expenses, so these too are not taxed at the corporate level. Rather, the individual recipients, should they be Canadian, pay personal income taxes on these as personal investment income.  Non-Canadian investors are a little more difficult to tax in this manner, since they should be declaring this income in the country of their own residence, where they will be taxed according to those rules.

Interestingly, I’ve taken two courses in accounting that stressed how to deal with corporate taxation. The first surprised me many years ago when the instructor, a chartered accountant, informed us that the first rule of running a small business is to make little or no profit. Huh? Basically, he stated, that profit is taxed so ensure, before fiscal year end, that you spend monies on supplies or new hires to prevent making a larger profit, and hence, paying more taxes. The second course, run by the Federal Business Development Bank, reinforced this by paying a great deal of emphasis on the same lesson.

So, what do lower corporate tax rates achieve? They certainly appeal to a fiscal conservative base that the government is “pro-business.” This throws a bone to this group since no Conservative federal government has been fiscally conservative since the first go round for Arthur Meighan. However, the result of this will encourage corporations to horde profits, rather than spend, particularly in the face of a probable EU recession and its effects on this side of the Atlantic. As for its planned result, expect higher unemployment and less investment as the year unfolds. Lower tax rates are the actual “job-killing” tax the Prime Minister told us to fear during the election campaign. The law of diminishing returns probably kicks in at some punitive level of taxation, but we had the lowest corporate tax rates in the G8 before this reduction applied.

Sadly, this is basic economics. Given a federal government led by someone with a Master’s degree in economics, the approach, similar to Reagan’s failed “trickle down” economics, is somewhat at odds with reality. Where is the planning and leadership we should see with potential economic instability? We should expect more from our government than paying lip service to one group to the detriment of the majority…

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Another year older

As 2011 fades into the distance, as it already has in parts of the world, I sit back and think of what the year brought. No, I do not cheer the passing of each year. Every year brings the bad as well as the good and I like to think that I would rather look fondly on the good things that happened in the year than focus on the negative. This is probably one reason why I don’t go out and celebrate New Year’s Eve.

I suppose our biggest news of the past year involved multiple trips to the hospital and surgery on several occasions. Considering that all came out well, and the problem left untreated could well have had somewhat final consequences, I think it was all to the good. Heck, I even lost a few pounds that I really should have shed years ago, albeit using a somewhat less drastic method. I’m healthy again and lighter. Double bonus! I also get to remind my siblings that my issues are hereditary and each of them has a 50% chance of going through the same thing so, getting checked out now is a good thing. I’d like to be selfish with my health problems, please and thank you.

We met new people and had good times. We did get camping a few times, and the little camping we did will only make camping in the New Year more appreciated. OK, I didn’t get fishing at all. Yes, that’s bad. However, we have a new boat and a new outboard and it will make fishing a lot easier to achieve since the camper can pull this boat and trailer and we don’t have to take two vehicles to the campground. Two trips out and back each way does take some of the fun out of it and this is now a thing of the past. And, the fish won’t recognize the new boat and hide in fear when they know I’m coming.

So, we’ll end this year on a few high points. I’m healing quite nicely. Clara is getting a new cell phone. We’re buying a friend’s treadmill. The family is healthy. What more could I ask for, other than something involving the lottery…

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Christmas Eve

Well, I’m a bit sore after slipping yesterday so I’m not going to get a lot done today. I do have to scoot out to the grocery store and pick up a few things for dinner tomorrow.  All told, a quiet Christmas eve.

I do have one tradition left. I really don’t think Christmas is complete until I put out the seeds for the birds and Grumpy, the squirrel. I’m not sure Grumpy is that grateful for Christmas as he expects me to feed him the rest of the year. But, it really is the one Christmas tradition I really keep.

Oh, I do have one more. Merry Christmas to one and all. If you don’t keep Christmas, and I know many who do not, I’m going to cheat and extend another wish in keeping with the season: peace on earth and good will towards all…

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T’was the night before the night before Christmas

T’was the night before the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a moose.

Or something along those lines.

I popped into work today to get a few things done that had to be finished before the term starts and I go back to work for real in January. It was a relaxed day with lots of Merry Christmas-ing and hugging. Then, at lunch time, I had to take a run downtown and discovered a truly icy patch on the sidewalk. Down I went after a short period of hang time. I knew I was going so just went with it, which probably reduced the amount of owies I received. I’ve found that if you try to fight it and stiffen up, you only end up with more injuries.

I did have to check to make sure I did nothing to my incision. Fortunately, I have not developed any leaks. I’m still sore but am now quite glad the surgeon decided that my staples weren’t ready to come out. They probably held things together and I really don’t want new ones. My poor old knee didn’t enjoy it, either.

I did stick my head into the barbershop where I fell and suggested they put a little salt down. I could have been a bit more grumpy about it, since they saw me go flying and no one came out to see if I was more or less intact. Oh, well. My Christmas spirit seems to have come early. And now, with my aches, I think I’m going to open some Christmas spirit in liquid form and have a black, Demeraran pain killer with coke.

End result: I did not get to the post office to mail the Christmas cards. I’m beginning to think they’re jinxed…