I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s time to hire a personal assistant; someone to help with the many, many challenging tasks that make up my busy days as a writer and filmmaker. But, as we have all learned recently about Halifax's hiring policies, one can never be too careful when it comes to taking on a new employee. With these exemplary hiring practices in mind, I have devised my own list of polygraph / ”integrity interview” questions, sure to weed out the morally ambiguous and those who might turn out to be a bad “fit” for me and my company. Just strap all those wires around yourself and relax. Here we go:
If you write a personal reminder to take your empty lunch container home on an office sticky note, is that stealing from the corporation? Have you ever done this? Did you replace the sticky note the following day? What about the ink? Please answer with a simple yes or no.
I’ve assigned you the task of watching the HRM council meeting on TV and taking notes about anything interesting that happens. Are you a) shocked by the mind-numbingly slow pace of the meeting, b) shocked by the mind-numbingly mundane subjects under discussion, or c) shocked that any employer would be cruel enough to assign this task?
Describe yourself in three words. Do not use the words “intelligent,” “capable,” or “skilled,” but impress me anyway.
If you were a character on The Office, who would you be? The competitive and sycophantic Dwight Schrute, or the uptight and fastidious Angela Martin? Does your character choice reflect your real-life experience with sticky-note theft?
Do you believe that toilet paper should dispense from the top of the roll or the bottom? (Because I am convinced that this reflects much more about one’s larger philosophy of life, employment will be dependent upon the correct answer to this question. Also, roll-changing will definitely fall under your job description.)
If you could have any superpower, what would you choose? (Please note: x-ray vision / ability to see through peoples’ clothes is already taken.) Would your superpower enable you to acquire double-shot, non-fat, medium-wet cappuccinos on a moment’s notice?
If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Supplementary question: If you choose “maple,” will there be a plastic bag fluttering in your highest branches, a full year after it has originally entangled itself there?
What is the capital of the country of Africa? (Bonus points and an appearance on Larry King for the correct answer.)
Your iPod only has space for one more song. Which of the following do you choose:
- “Sound of Success” by Jenn Grant
- “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory” by Kathleen Edwards
- “Nowhere Fast” by Mary J. Blige
- “Temporary Hell” by Christina Martin or
- “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss?
And finally: you decide to make the 230 km trip to Digby in your new Porsche, traveling at 80 km/hour. You make the return trip at a rate of 50 km/hour. What was your average speed for the entire trip? Follow-up questions: Why would you drive a Porsche at such crazy low speeds, and how can you afford a new Porsche on the salary I’m offering? I think we need to have a little chat about where you’re finding this extra cash. Re-selling company sticky notes?
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
No Cats Sucked Out Today
When the man from Clean Nova Scotia stuck that giant fan in my doorway, I was a little concerned that the cat might get sucked through it and end up as a million little fur bits in the front yard, but Charles Banting calmly assured me that no cats had been sucked out yet. At least, not on his watch.
Freaked out by the huge jump in my estimated heating costs for this winter, I had decided to have an audit done to find out what I could do to improve the energy-efficiency of my sixty-year-old house. It just seemed like a good idea, because the building method employed in the construction of my house is commonly referred to by the technical term: “slapdash.”
So it was a little unnerving to watch as my flimsy little house was in the process of being depressurized by a turbine that looked – and sounded – frighteningly like a jet engine. Disturbing, but fascinating. After all, I was paying this man to help me determine just how leaky, inefficient, and poorly-insulated my house was. As if I didn’t know.
In fact, I didn’t know. Oh, I knew the windows were drafty and the walls were poorly insulated. I had seen the workers laugh as they pulled seaweed from between the walls when they replaced a window in my kitchen a few years ago. But my man Charles, expert energy-efficiency auditor from Clean NS, gave me a whole new perspective on my holey house as we explored its every little nook and cranny.
The nice thing about Charles was that he was completely non-judgmental. Did he roll his eyes at the little flap of weather-stripping hanging half-off the outside door frame? No. Did he for a moment suggest that I had been lax in not caulking the obvious gaps around my basement windows? No.
If anything, Charles was more than willing to simply share his abundant knowledge. And I, apparently, had a lot to learn. The first thing Charles taught me was that I need to separate the unheated spaces from the heated spaces in my house. My attic, for instance, is apparently sucking massive amounts of energy as I allow my precious heat to seep into it and the unwanted cold air out of it. Unfortunately, it’s kind of a HUGE job to insulate it properly. So that one is going on the “long term solutions” side of the equation. Also on that side, the biggest heat-sucking space in my house – the basement. Apparently the whole darn thing needs to be insulated. That massive job won’t be happening on my freelancer’s salary any time soon (gentle hint to Editor).
I did, however, learn that I can alleviate the basement leakage situation somewhat by simply insulating the rather odd gap between the top of my foundation and the bottom of my house. Don’t ask. But, that one, I’m pretty sure, is do-able.
Also do-able: all those little air-sealing things, like putting foam fillers in electrical outlets, calking around windows and weather-stripping around doors. Unfortunately, those things aren’t going to earn me much in the way of government financial incentives. But they can improve my home’s rather dismal energy efficiency rating of 46 points by 1.9 points! (The average rating of a house the same age in Nova Scotia is 51, and the highest is 80.)
Oh well. I’ll do what I can, and there’s always next year. For now I’ll just continue to keep the thermostat low and cuddle up to the kitty – who’s happily still in one piece – for warmth.
Freaked out by the huge jump in my estimated heating costs for this winter, I had decided to have an audit done to find out what I could do to improve the energy-efficiency of my sixty-year-old house. It just seemed like a good idea, because the building method employed in the construction of my house is commonly referred to by the technical term: “slapdash.”
So it was a little unnerving to watch as my flimsy little house was in the process of being depressurized by a turbine that looked – and sounded – frighteningly like a jet engine. Disturbing, but fascinating. After all, I was paying this man to help me determine just how leaky, inefficient, and poorly-insulated my house was. As if I didn’t know.
In fact, I didn’t know. Oh, I knew the windows were drafty and the walls were poorly insulated. I had seen the workers laugh as they pulled seaweed from between the walls when they replaced a window in my kitchen a few years ago. But my man Charles, expert energy-efficiency auditor from Clean NS, gave me a whole new perspective on my holey house as we explored its every little nook and cranny.
The nice thing about Charles was that he was completely non-judgmental. Did he roll his eyes at the little flap of weather-stripping hanging half-off the outside door frame? No. Did he for a moment suggest that I had been lax in not caulking the obvious gaps around my basement windows? No.
If anything, Charles was more than willing to simply share his abundant knowledge. And I, apparently, had a lot to learn. The first thing Charles taught me was that I need to separate the unheated spaces from the heated spaces in my house. My attic, for instance, is apparently sucking massive amounts of energy as I allow my precious heat to seep into it and the unwanted cold air out of it. Unfortunately, it’s kind of a HUGE job to insulate it properly. So that one is going on the “long term solutions” side of the equation. Also on that side, the biggest heat-sucking space in my house – the basement. Apparently the whole darn thing needs to be insulated. That massive job won’t be happening on my freelancer’s salary any time soon (gentle hint to Editor).
I did, however, learn that I can alleviate the basement leakage situation somewhat by simply insulating the rather odd gap between the top of my foundation and the bottom of my house. Don’t ask. But, that one, I’m pretty sure, is do-able.
Also do-able: all those little air-sealing things, like putting foam fillers in electrical outlets, calking around windows and weather-stripping around doors. Unfortunately, those things aren’t going to earn me much in the way of government financial incentives. But they can improve my home’s rather dismal energy efficiency rating of 46 points by 1.9 points! (The average rating of a house the same age in Nova Scotia is 51, and the highest is 80.)
Oh well. I’ll do what I can, and there’s always next year. For now I’ll just continue to keep the thermostat low and cuddle up to the kitty – who’s happily still in one piece – for warmth.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Beach Ettiquette?
It was mid-September when I finally made it to the beach for the first time this summer. The crashing waves, the singing birds, the clear blue skies, and a few golden hours to just lie back and relax in the warmth of the long-awaited sun. It was fantastic! I went boogey-boarding and splashed around in the waves for 45 minutes. I was having a really great time…until they arrived.
You know them – the family with the cooler so heavy it takes three people to carry it. The family who chooses a spot on the beach not five feet from yours. The family who – inexplicably – smells of cigarette smoke even though none of them are smoking at that moment. And, worst of all, the family who apparently can’t bear to listen to the sound of the ocean even though they’ve just driven 50 kilometers to be near it – so they haul a great big freakin’ radio out to the middle of nowhere and fire up some half-tuned, static-ridden, tinny little radio station.
To say that this makes me crazy would be an understatement. But did I ask these beachgoers to turn their radio off? No. I’m not a big fan of confrontations, and have I mentioned that all of the people in this family were, uh, large? And that they had a lot of tattoos? Serious tattoos, not the girly little tramp-stamp kind of tattoos. And that we were 50 kilometers from any decent medical facility?
It made me think about the ways people behave in public spaces. Is there such a thing as beach etiquette? Is the beach an “anything goes” kind of place, where my right to have a quiet and peaceful time extends only as far as the edge of my faux-Mexican beach blanket?
I guess it depends on the culture of the beach you’re on. I was at Martinique on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, which I would consider a “nature lovers’” beach, as opposed to Queensland, which might be considered a “party people” beach. Maybe these folks were confused about just where they’d ended up. (Perhaps the weighty cooler was not entirely filled with Grape Nehi and cherry cola, and they’d gotten into it before they arrived?) Maybe they didn’t think that doing back-flips in front of me was spoiling my view of the water. Perhaps they considered themselves very nice to look at, in an “animal kingdom” sort of way. Anyway, my point is that I was not interested in any kind of social interaction with them, or anyone else on the beach, really. I just wanted to hang with my peeps and enjoy the sun and the soothing sounds of nature, but that clearly was not going to be possible any more. So I packed up my beach blanket and went home.
It’s not as pathetic as it sounds; I was almost ready to go home anyway. And I did have another chance to hit the beach one more time. That’s all I wanted: just one more gorgeous day to simply relax by the sea, soak up some rays, and enjoy the peace and relative quiet of the pounding surf. Without static or back-flips. Would Emily Post say that’s too much to ask?
You know them – the family with the cooler so heavy it takes three people to carry it. The family who chooses a spot on the beach not five feet from yours. The family who – inexplicably – smells of cigarette smoke even though none of them are smoking at that moment. And, worst of all, the family who apparently can’t bear to listen to the sound of the ocean even though they’ve just driven 50 kilometers to be near it – so they haul a great big freakin’ radio out to the middle of nowhere and fire up some half-tuned, static-ridden, tinny little radio station.
To say that this makes me crazy would be an understatement. But did I ask these beachgoers to turn their radio off? No. I’m not a big fan of confrontations, and have I mentioned that all of the people in this family were, uh, large? And that they had a lot of tattoos? Serious tattoos, not the girly little tramp-stamp kind of tattoos. And that we were 50 kilometers from any decent medical facility?
It made me think about the ways people behave in public spaces. Is there such a thing as beach etiquette? Is the beach an “anything goes” kind of place, where my right to have a quiet and peaceful time extends only as far as the edge of my faux-Mexican beach blanket?
I guess it depends on the culture of the beach you’re on. I was at Martinique on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, which I would consider a “nature lovers’” beach, as opposed to Queensland, which might be considered a “party people” beach. Maybe these folks were confused about just where they’d ended up. (Perhaps the weighty cooler was not entirely filled with Grape Nehi and cherry cola, and they’d gotten into it before they arrived?) Maybe they didn’t think that doing back-flips in front of me was spoiling my view of the water. Perhaps they considered themselves very nice to look at, in an “animal kingdom” sort of way. Anyway, my point is that I was not interested in any kind of social interaction with them, or anyone else on the beach, really. I just wanted to hang with my peeps and enjoy the sun and the soothing sounds of nature, but that clearly was not going to be possible any more. So I packed up my beach blanket and went home.
It’s not as pathetic as it sounds; I was almost ready to go home anyway. And I did have another chance to hit the beach one more time. That’s all I wanted: just one more gorgeous day to simply relax by the sea, soak up some rays, and enjoy the peace and relative quiet of the pounding surf. Without static or back-flips. Would Emily Post say that’s too much to ask?
So, I Bought a Bike
So, I bought a bike.
A bicycle, I should say. Not the sexy kind of bike, with a big purring engine and lots of chrome. No, I bought the un-sexy kind. Practically the un-sexiest mode of transportation going, really.
I used to have the sexy kind of bike, and it was hot. It had a cherry-red gas tank, leather saddlebags, and even – really! – little leather streamers hanging off the handlebars. Okay, that’s a bit girly, but they were attached when I bought the bike and they kind of grew on me.
I think it’s a little unfair that these two modes of transportation share a name, or at least a nickname. But since last week was officially “Bike Week,” let’s compare them, shall we?
In preparation for a ride on my motorcycle, I used to strap myself into my black leather chaps, step into my heavy leather motorcycle boots, and zip on my beat-up leather motorcycle jacket.
Before I go for a bicycle ride, I clip a dorky little metal ring around my pant leg so my jeans don’t get caught in the chain, I slip on some beat-up old sneakers, and I tuck my shirt into the back of my pants so my butt doesn’t hang all out. Are you picturing it?
Next, the helmet. The old one was a gorgeous red, full-face chunk of brain-hugging polycarbonate protection. The new one is kind of high and pointy, with a fake little visor/brim thingy attached and strappy bits that hang all down in weird places. “Will this helmet protect me at all?” I asked the youngster who sold it to me. “I guess, but does it really matter?” he mused, with the kind of confidence that makes so many teenage boys frequent fliers at the outpatient x-ray department. “It’s not like you’re going to fall in it.” Okay, then.
Maintenance. The old motorcycle didn’t need much. A little tune-up now and then, but for the most part, she worked like a charm. Start her up, she’d purr like a kitten. I’d go out and poke at stuff once in a while, but I was always kind of faking it, because I’m not particularly gifted in the mechanical skills department. I was more or less just showing off. When you have a capital-B Bike, you’re supposed to always be tinkering with it to get things just so.
The new bike has 21 gears, supposedly. I may never know, because whenever I try to shift out of the one that seems to work best – seventh, for those keeping track – everything just starts clicking and grinding and I lose all forward momentum, so I end up just shifting it back into seventh again. I’ve had it back in the shop three times for this already, since I bought it. I might add that this shifting snafu has been the norm on every single bicycle I have ever ridden. In the intervening years since I last bought a bicycle – let’s put that number somewhere around twenty – have bicycle manufacturers not been able to work out the bugs in derailleur technology?
Anyway, I guess this bicycle will be good for me, in the end. I’ll get a little exercise; hopefully it will be a good de-stressor for those days when I’m all brain-fried and cranky from sitting at my desk for nine straight hours. And it’ll keep me from burning gas in the car when I just need to duck out to the store for some, um, soda pop.
And perhaps I can find a way to “bring the sexy back” to bicycling. I think my first order of business will be to find myself a little skull-and-crossbones safety flag.
A bicycle, I should say. Not the sexy kind of bike, with a big purring engine and lots of chrome. No, I bought the un-sexy kind. Practically the un-sexiest mode of transportation going, really.
I used to have the sexy kind of bike, and it was hot. It had a cherry-red gas tank, leather saddlebags, and even – really! – little leather streamers hanging off the handlebars. Okay, that’s a bit girly, but they were attached when I bought the bike and they kind of grew on me.
I think it’s a little unfair that these two modes of transportation share a name, or at least a nickname. But since last week was officially “Bike Week,” let’s compare them, shall we?
In preparation for a ride on my motorcycle, I used to strap myself into my black leather chaps, step into my heavy leather motorcycle boots, and zip on my beat-up leather motorcycle jacket.
Before I go for a bicycle ride, I clip a dorky little metal ring around my pant leg so my jeans don’t get caught in the chain, I slip on some beat-up old sneakers, and I tuck my shirt into the back of my pants so my butt doesn’t hang all out. Are you picturing it?
Next, the helmet. The old one was a gorgeous red, full-face chunk of brain-hugging polycarbonate protection. The new one is kind of high and pointy, with a fake little visor/brim thingy attached and strappy bits that hang all down in weird places. “Will this helmet protect me at all?” I asked the youngster who sold it to me. “I guess, but does it really matter?” he mused, with the kind of confidence that makes so many teenage boys frequent fliers at the outpatient x-ray department. “It’s not like you’re going to fall in it.” Okay, then.
Maintenance. The old motorcycle didn’t need much. A little tune-up now and then, but for the most part, she worked like a charm. Start her up, she’d purr like a kitten. I’d go out and poke at stuff once in a while, but I was always kind of faking it, because I’m not particularly gifted in the mechanical skills department. I was more or less just showing off. When you have a capital-B Bike, you’re supposed to always be tinkering with it to get things just so.
The new bike has 21 gears, supposedly. I may never know, because whenever I try to shift out of the one that seems to work best – seventh, for those keeping track – everything just starts clicking and grinding and I lose all forward momentum, so I end up just shifting it back into seventh again. I’ve had it back in the shop three times for this already, since I bought it. I might add that this shifting snafu has been the norm on every single bicycle I have ever ridden. In the intervening years since I last bought a bicycle – let’s put that number somewhere around twenty – have bicycle manufacturers not been able to work out the bugs in derailleur technology?
Anyway, I guess this bicycle will be good for me, in the end. I’ll get a little exercise; hopefully it will be a good de-stressor for those days when I’m all brain-fried and cranky from sitting at my desk for nine straight hours. And it’ll keep me from burning gas in the car when I just need to duck out to the store for some, um, soda pop.
And perhaps I can find a way to “bring the sexy back” to bicycling. I think my first order of business will be to find myself a little skull-and-crossbones safety flag.
8 Things I Love About Halifax
When I read news stories about our local council’s obsession with regulating pet behaviour, or the ongoing bickering about which schools to close, or Halifax’s crumbling hospitals, I sometimes stop and ask myself, “Why is it that I choose to live here, again?” Because – let’s be honest here – it is a choice, and there are certainly a lot of other places in the world that I’d be happy to relocate to, if push came to shove.
But moving house is a bit of a drag, not to mention expensive, so perhaps a more productive approach would be to think about some of the things I like about living in Halifax. It’s an exercise which actually requires a lot of effort on my part to be positive and see the sunny side of things. Particularly today, on yet another cold, dreary and drizzly Halifax “spring” day. But I am totally up for the challenge!
So here I go: my Top Eight Reasons Not to Move to New York City. Already that’s too negative. Eight Ways Halifax is better than Toronto. No? Okay, the Top Eight Things I Love About Halifax. There, I said it.
Everyone in Halifax has a favourite beach, and since you can drive to many of them in about the same amount of time it takes a Torontonian to get halfway home every day, I consider beach access one of the huge bonuses of living here. I personally love Martinique Beach on the Eastern Shore, because it’s rarely crowded (and even when it is, it’s big enough to allow lots of space for everybody), it has surfers for entertainment, incredible waves for boogie-boarding, and a gorgeous long curve of sandy beach for walking. Sure, you can drive to within a kilometer of this beach on a hot, sunny day and hit a wall of fog that’s as cold and dense as the ice-packs in your beer cooler, but hey, that’s part of the fun.
Steve-O-Reno’s Cappuccino. Specifically, the cappuccino made by the two lovely women – I think their names are Anne and Leah – who work at the drive-through “shack” on Robie Street on most weekday mornings. A Monday morning stop at the cap shack has a way of making the coming week seem a just little more bearable. Also, I’ve discovered that there is no life-crisis that this coffee cannot make better.
Since we’re talking food, sort of, and I am clearly not averse to making outright product endorsements, I also love the build-your-own salad bar at the downtown Pete’s Frootique. How much easier could healthy eating be? “None. None more easy,” I say, to borrow a phrase from the movie Spinal Tap. To make me crave salad is nothing short of a miracle. And who knew that I liked kidney beans and sunflower seeds in my salad? Not even me, until I built my own at Pete’s.
Another of my favourite things about living here is a relatively little-known walking trail along the rocky coastline just past York Redoubt. There’s a teeny little parking lot just off Purcell’s Cove Road and a path that meanders out along the huge boulders at the water’s edge. The view out there is so beautiful! On Wikipedia, this spot is referred to as the Herring Cove “Look-Off”, but I call it “the Whale Walk,” because I saw whales out there once, munching their way along some fishing nets. I used to enjoy walking my dog out there, but she’s too rickety now to manage all the jumping and climbing. But despite having to go dog-less, I still enjoy it; it’s a quintessential Nova Scotian location and a great place to recharge my “nature batteries.”
Other random things I like about Halifax: swimming in Long Lake, watching the seals sunbathe on the rocks off the tip of Point Pleasant Park, gawking at the cruise ships that dock down at Pier 22, and eating French fries on the wall by the Spring Garden Road public library in the summer.
But do all these things make up for the petty politics and the embarrassingly stagnant level of social progress that Halifax seems to have become famous for? Well, yeah, I guess they do. All the cat bylaws in the world can’t ruin a gorgeous sunny day by the ocean.
But moving house is a bit of a drag, not to mention expensive, so perhaps a more productive approach would be to think about some of the things I like about living in Halifax. It’s an exercise which actually requires a lot of effort on my part to be positive and see the sunny side of things. Particularly today, on yet another cold, dreary and drizzly Halifax “spring” day. But I am totally up for the challenge!
So here I go: my Top Eight Reasons Not to Move to New York City. Already that’s too negative. Eight Ways Halifax is better than Toronto. No? Okay, the Top Eight Things I Love About Halifax. There, I said it.
Everyone in Halifax has a favourite beach, and since you can drive to many of them in about the same amount of time it takes a Torontonian to get halfway home every day, I consider beach access one of the huge bonuses of living here. I personally love Martinique Beach on the Eastern Shore, because it’s rarely crowded (and even when it is, it’s big enough to allow lots of space for everybody), it has surfers for entertainment, incredible waves for boogie-boarding, and a gorgeous long curve of sandy beach for walking. Sure, you can drive to within a kilometer of this beach on a hot, sunny day and hit a wall of fog that’s as cold and dense as the ice-packs in your beer cooler, but hey, that’s part of the fun.
Steve-O-Reno’s Cappuccino. Specifically, the cappuccino made by the two lovely women – I think their names are Anne and Leah – who work at the drive-through “shack” on Robie Street on most weekday mornings. A Monday morning stop at the cap shack has a way of making the coming week seem a just little more bearable. Also, I’ve discovered that there is no life-crisis that this coffee cannot make better.
Since we’re talking food, sort of, and I am clearly not averse to making outright product endorsements, I also love the build-your-own salad bar at the downtown Pete’s Frootique. How much easier could healthy eating be? “None. None more easy,” I say, to borrow a phrase from the movie Spinal Tap. To make me crave salad is nothing short of a miracle. And who knew that I liked kidney beans and sunflower seeds in my salad? Not even me, until I built my own at Pete’s.
Another of my favourite things about living here is a relatively little-known walking trail along the rocky coastline just past York Redoubt. There’s a teeny little parking lot just off Purcell’s Cove Road and a path that meanders out along the huge boulders at the water’s edge. The view out there is so beautiful! On Wikipedia, this spot is referred to as the Herring Cove “Look-Off”, but I call it “the Whale Walk,” because I saw whales out there once, munching their way along some fishing nets. I used to enjoy walking my dog out there, but she’s too rickety now to manage all the jumping and climbing. But despite having to go dog-less, I still enjoy it; it’s a quintessential Nova Scotian location and a great place to recharge my “nature batteries.”
Other random things I like about Halifax: swimming in Long Lake, watching the seals sunbathe on the rocks off the tip of Point Pleasant Park, gawking at the cruise ships that dock down at Pier 22, and eating French fries on the wall by the Spring Garden Road public library in the summer.
But do all these things make up for the petty politics and the embarrassingly stagnant level of social progress that Halifax seems to have become famous for? Well, yeah, I guess they do. All the cat bylaws in the world can’t ruin a gorgeous sunny day by the ocean.
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