Day: July 21, 2005

The Kids Are Having a Ball

July 21, 2005 11 Comments

Tess, her family, Yellowknife friends & Lita are doing a terrific job looking after Sebastian and The Terrific Trio while on their summer holidays in Canada. As you can see by some of the pictures below, the kids are having a ball. Observations from the hundreds of pics I’ve been sent daily:

  • All of The Terrific Trio are gaining weight
  • Carys is losing the "preemie" look that Jasper and Sela lost long ago
  • Carys and Sela are becoming quite bold, willingly climbing onto things they previosuly may not have dared to (such as climbing up and sliding down the slide on their own)
  • Jasper just wants to eat… what else is new?
  • I’ve also heard that The Terrific Trio will now eat fish sticks and on their own, too! Self-feeding… we like that!
  • Rumour has it there has been no vomitting since they arrived in Yellowknife.
  • Since arriving in Yellowknife Sebastian has regularly seen float planes on the lake, been in the cab of a real truck ("twuck" as he would say), driven a motor boat, dragged in an inflatable behind a motor boat… and get this… ridden a Jet Ski!
  • Sebastian’s speech – as assessed from phone conversations with him – has dramatically improved. Also increased is the degree to which he speaks with an English accent!

Jul05_seb_twuckJul05_seb_boat

Jul05_seb_drivesJul_05_trio

Jul_05_sup_jsp_1Jul_05_carys

Jul_05_sela_beer

Admin: Links & Rankings

July 21, 2005 3 Comments

Unavoidable but we have some administrative items to handle.

First, would appreciate that if readers have blogs that I link to, please link back. Not mandatory, just a request. I did an "incoming to outgoing link ratio analysis" the other day and was surprised to see how few incoming links are pointed at yours truly. So I am trying to change that. If you are not linked but would like to set-up reciprocal links please send me an e-mail or post a comment.

Blogshares Second, if you are a member of Blogshares, please find my site and help to Industry Rate my site. You can do this by clicking on THIS LINK, login, and place your industry rating.

That’s all for now. Many thanks and now back to our regular program.

I Beg to Defer

July 21, 2005 3 Comments

The credit for this post goes to Paul’s sister-in-law who lives in London, England. (I have to emphasize England so the Canadians reading don’t get confused with London, Ontario.) She sent Paul <long time friend, now colleague, occasional loose cannon on deck> an article about the following proposal being put forward with the education body in the UK.

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has dismissed suggestions that the concept of "failure" should be removed from school in favour of "deferred success". Think about it, this would actually raise the bar because eventually teachers professors would stop saying "F for Failure" in favour of "D for Deferred!" In no time students would be studying harder to avoid deferring.

On the business side, Paul’s sister-in-law claims that at her office they coined a similar phrase “deferred employment” which translates into “You’re fired.” This aroused our interest within our own HR department and opens up a whole new world assuming that failure = deferring.

There are many places in society where we use the word failure:

Would this approach help us to avoid conflict? "I defer to understand what you are talking about?" Response: "Okay then, we’ll talk about it later." Or even create procrastinators?

Create cliches: "Embrace deferring, we all must learn from our deferments."

Save lives: "He is suffering from heart deferment."

Alter nasty expressions: "Yup, his life is a mess, he is a deferrer."

Warranty Periods: The Company is only responsible for product deferments when the purchaser has submitted a warranty coupon without deferring.

Computers: "Warning: there has been a critical deferment in your operating system. If this deferment happens again, please re-boot."

Or create confusion? "Hello, this is Product Deferment, how may I help you?" Response: "Have I called Shipping or Quality?"

Create new self-help books: "Overcoming the Fear of Deferred Success" or "The Art of Deferment"

Insightful comments: "Deferment reminds us of our faulty definition of success."

And then at intersections:

Officer: Excuse me sir, you failed to stop at the stop sign back there.

Driver: Oh officer, I merely deferred to stop at the stop sign. I’ll do it later. Honestly I have a coupon right here: ‘good for one deferment provided deferrer embraces deferment.’

Officer: Yeah, okay, this is when I show you my "Deferred to get out of jail free" card.

Anything to add?

ABOUT AUTHOR
Charles

Originally from Canada and lived in Hong Kong for fifteen years. Married to the terribly talented & gorgeous Tess.

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