Dateline: Friday, December 10, 2010.  Time to go home.  I’ve done all the damage I can do for now.  And I’ve taken all the chaos, mayhem, assault and burden I can handle for the time being.  Yesterday, I was stopped dead (didn’t move a foot) in a traffic jam on the Easy West connector for an hour an a half.  I believe it was the worst congestion I have ever experienced anywhere and that includes LA, New York, Bangkok and London.

I can’t live like this anymore.

To be fair, it did teach me something.  To all those to whom I write and get no response, to all those to whom I write and who don’t read the blog or return the e-mails, to all those who ‘just can’t be bothered’, I get it.  I fully get it.  At the end of every day I had no energy for my own bloody blog.  I was simply too tired and too ‘boggled’.  I can’t imagine how any of you can manage to read and respond to mine.  To all those who do not show the love, I feel your pain and still love you anyway.  This madness that is city living seems much harder to do than it did before.  I am now very sympathetic and totally uncritical. 

Or at least I will be until I forget this experience.

It was a productive time.  I got a lot done.  My friend is happy if not ecstatic.  We managed to save him at the very least $50,000 (a $5M suit settlement at $50K.  No lawyers!) with another 100K (better solution to a mechanical problem) likely.  Plus his relations with the city are now repaired (it helps if you speak English well and crack jokes).  But fragile.  And things are moving on all fronts (where before they were stalled).  He’ll be ecstatic if I can get the next two problems resolved but, frankly, I don’t think there are any more rabbits in the hat.  The next two obstacles are just hard slogging and time.  We’ll see.

Made a few new friends along the way (a city sewer guy, a plumber and a metal salvage guy).  I like that.  Makes it fun.    

Sally was a peach!  Poor sweetie.  She was there every day to help and support me but, face it, being my assistant, busing, sky-training and shopping are hardly ‘fun’ times and her dogs were missing to boot.  Sal is ready to go home – with or without me. 

Politically, I am in touch with the BC First party.  Don’t know enough yet but they have some aspects of sanity about them.  We’ve talked.  We’ll see.

Financially, I encountered some real opportunities down here but chose not to pursue them.  I don’t think ‘success’ has much Read Island time in it and so – given the choice between the two – I choose Read.  Still, I find myself ‘number crunching’ in my head and thinking about it.  I have a few ideas that just won’t go away.  One, actually, does include Read.  The metal salvage guy would ‘kill’ to access all the abandoned heavy machinery up and around the islands.  We just have to figure out a way to do that inexpensively.  Could be a shot in the arm for the hermit community.

More in a lighter vein when I get home.  And get lighter.  

Car got ‘mugged’.  Someone broke a window, did a smash-and-grab and split while the alarm whined in the background and the security cameras recorded shadows.  I guess we lost about $5-600.00 in the incident.  It could have been much worse. 

It is getting fixed as I write this.  But not by ICBC.  We have Comprehensive but it has a $300.00 deductible.  “That’s OK, Sally.  They’ll cover the lost Xmas presents, small car inverter, two Swiss army knives and miscellany that seems to missing, right?” 

Wrong.  Seems ICBC no longer covers contents.  Seems people made claims all the time when their car got broken into.  Imagine that!  But ICBC didn’t tell me.  They charged me for what-I-thought-was-coverage but changed the rules.  Quel Suprise! 

“Oh, you can claim on your homeowner’s insurance!” the nice sweet, young thing chirped at me on the ICBC dial-a claim-number.  “I don’t have homeowners insurance.  I live remote.  No insurance.  And, anyway, why would an insurance company covering my home have to pay?” 

“Because we don’t.  Sorry.  Tee hee, hee, chirp, giggle.  Have a great day!” 

This happened after a day of driving.  We went from Richmond to Abbotsford and then to North Vancouver to have dinner with friends.  At the end of the dinner, Roger showed me how he was thwarting the local thieves by chaining his boat trailer, removing the wheels, chaining the engines to the boat, covering the whole back end in a plywood box and running ‘fake’ security wires to the house.  I smiled, commented on how thorough he was and privately thought to myself that he was getting just a smidge paranoid.  “That Roger worries too much”, I thought.  “Who would take a used boat and motor parked in a carport right under the house?!”

Well, It seems a car with an alarm parked in a hotel’s parking lot and filled with Xmas presents (pajamas!) and such isn’t safe either.  Now I think Roger should add a few Doberman’s to the security package.  The lower mainland is not a warm and fuzzy place for us right now.  Looking forward to leaving. 

But we’ll do a bit more re-shopping first, of course.

Funny, you know.  I have been writing this blog for close to 100 entries and, much to my surprise, found myself writing about happiness and nice things, health and community and small accomplishments.  I was a bit worried that I was sounding a bit to happy and sunny.  It is not my nature.  I wanted to be real.

Well, this break-in gave me the material I just wasn’t getting up at Read.  A slice of the dark side, a bit of nasty, an encounter with the ugly.

I prefer sunny.   

Saturday morning.  Sleepy.  Groggy.  Wondering what it is was about ‘retirement’ that included this?  But it may be a harbinger of things to come.  I may have to work now and then.  Once in a while.

Damn. 

I confess that this idea of semi-work is a bit of a dilemma for me.  I love having ‘something new’ to do and I especially love dealing with problems and challenges that fall outside the ‘ordinary’.   I like the idea of being a consultant to the odd – in any sense of that word, the client, the project, the circumstance……..whatever.  This current project certainly qualifies.  Gimme weird.

But any consultancy, strange or otherwise, requires diligence and focus and a sincere commitment to helping out to the best of your ability.  And there is the implicit expectation that effort is not enough – they want results!   I have no problem with that requirement except that I am no longer as good as I was.  A client still gets a ‘good guy’ but not one with an ‘edge’ anymore.  I am not au current.  I am not hip.  I am not the sharpest knife in even the ‘odds and ends’ drawer.  In fact, I may just be the oddest end in the empty drawer.

So, I have been cheating. 

My current client thinks I am doing a great job.  Little does he know that the results I am delivering are the combined efforts of both Sally and me.  Yep, you got that right.  He is getting a two-fer, a genius at organization and paperwork and a walking, talking gadfly of communications. 

And yes, it is true – she is not the ‘sharper edge’ she was either.  We are both ‘out of tune’ to some degree.  Still, it is much better for the client than just getting me.  ‘Course, you knew that.  But it is kinda weird being a two-fer consultant.   

The fun part is in finding a solution.  It is not hard to find possible solutions.  We all do that everyday.  But finding one that will work right out of the box – that is the challenge.  We (the client) doesn’t have the resources for us to learn, research, investigate, attempt, prototype, experiment or any other of the safer, better-business-practices that everyone knows about and suggests.  We have to get a base hit our next turn at bat or else we (me) will be benched.  In my case, I am more likely to be sent back to the ‘farm team’ (literally) instead of the bench.  Consultants don’t have much tenure.

The weekend will help.  New ideas percolate during ‘down time’ and we have some of that for the next two days.  Whew!

I guess I am writing this to illustrate the ‘change of pace’ we have just experienced.  We have gone from idle to red-line in just a few days and it is leaving both of us a bit shocked.  But it is all good – for us, anyway.

Now, if I can just do something good for the client, it will be a wonderful way to have spent a few weeks this winter.

“Gimme that bat!”    

I woke up to Sally’s cheery ‘good morning!’  “You’ll never guess the good news.”

“You are going to stop being so cheery and let me go back to sleep?”

“No, silly.  The water is flowing!  I just filled up the cistern and came to tell you!”

Normally, the second coming of Christ would be insufficient to make me want to get up out of bed early.  And, even then, I’d still be groggy and grouchy.  But, I confess that the water flowing again instantly made me happy.  ‘Woo hoo!’

Turns out we were right.  Who woulda thunk it?  The pipe must have been blocked by ice and the water pressure eventually pushed it through and voila!  Oooh, I love it when things work logically.  It is so rare.

Sadly, we cannot enjoy the water that returned.   ‘Sally and David have left the building.’ We had to leave for the city again.  We are in Vancouver as I write this.  Exhausted after simply getting here.

Two days later:  Working is the pits!  I mean, I kinda like it in the sense that I like traveling.  There is really a lot of discomfort and hardship with a few bright moments  infrequently experienced to ward off surrendering and going home. So, we grind it out.  But, basically, it is a slog.  So, it is not the traveling so much as the memories (selective, of course) that one takes away from the trip. 

And, for me, that is how I describe working again.  Each day is a drag save for a few minutes now and then but, in the end, if we win, the whole effort will become ‘golden’. 

Yesterday we saw the brass ring but missed it.  We ‘almost’ made something happen – but didn’t.  Then, at the next meeting, I swung and missed completely.  It feels like being at bat and swinging for the fences only to have the ball fly foul or worse, the second pitch go in for a strike.  I am feeling 0 for two.  Oh well, at least we ‘got a piece of it’.

The really interesting thing is that we are negotiating aspects of the property for selling it.  Selling price, selling conditions, managing it in the meantime, holding it, dismantling part of it and all that such activities entail.  But the more I get in to this, the more valuable the property gets (to my way of thinking).  Here we are trying to make something happen that, if another person owned it, they would not want at all and would, instead, ‘work’ the property.  This is one of those times the buyers should be salivating.

But the financial mood is cautious if not fearful.  And if it is neither of those, the buyer takes that position anyway thinking it is a good ‘front’ to present.  So, our efforts are, at this moment, met with resistance.  ‘Course, if it was easy, everyone would be doing this.

Which would be fine by me.  We have running water.  I wanna go home.     

Water is not flowing.  Things are not working.  There’s something wrong in paradise!

Usually, Sally fixes it (thus reaffirming my definition of paradise) but this time I thought I’d help.  I have no idea what came over me.  Maybe we need a TV?  

Anyway, when the water stops flowing the first thing we do is ‘walk the line’ and check the connections.  And so we did.  It is always a gas to push through deep brush but winter conditions add a little ‘je ne sais quoi’, you know?

We walked the line back to John’s, about 750 feet down and over the rocky bluff that separates us, and found a problem – or two.  John’s valves had frozen and split.  Water was pouring out.  We made the necessary repairs but it didn’t help John much.  His supply cistern had drained and the repairs only made it so the feeder line bypassed his frozen valves.  He was basically just ‘cut out’ of the system.

No water for John.  None stored.  Broken valves.  And he is not here.  We’ll try to get him fixed up, of course (he usually does it for us) but first we had to get water to the area.  

Our one-kilometer-long ‘system’ is a gravity-feed, stream-sourced 1″ line that starts about 200 feet (elevation) up from the sea back up the hill (about 1000 feet in distance) on the back half of our heavily forested property.  The line ‘falls’ down the hill paralleling the stream.  The ‘pick-up’ for the pipe is in a little pool at the top.  We put the filler end under some mesh and put some rocks to hold it down and the water enters the pick-up and falls uninterrupted until it gets to the beach.  It then stays at sea level in the pipe which is ‘staked to the cliff-side’ for another 1000 feet until it gets to Johns.  Then it climbs up to my place (75 feet in elevation).  In theory I have the pressure you’d expect from a source 125 feet above our heads.   

If it gets that far.

After bypassing John’s cistern it was clear there was still no water.  So we followed the line to the junction in the lower beach rocks.  It had come undone.  We refastened that.

Still no water.

So, we got in the small boat and went to the beach around the corner and checked the line at the ‘tap’ at the bottom of the hill.  Nada.  So, that means more hiking and climbing.  More mud, snow, rain and cold.  Sal and the dogs were happy.  More fun!

John loves these kinds of adventures, too.  I was going to go home and call him.  Sal wouldn’t let me.  “C’mon!  We’ll just hike up through the bushes and fix it!  C’mon!”

I hate her when she gets all macho like that.

We went up halfway and checked the inspection ‘tap’ there.  It had also frozen and split.  We (Sally, actually) pulled that one off and put in a ‘splice’ and up we went to check the rest.

The stream is engorged.  It is a torrent.  Water is flowing like the semi-waterfall it is.  It is dropping 200 feet in 750 or so………that is a good drop rate.  It’s ‘whitewater’.  The stream bed is strewn with deadfall, bushes and boulders.  Getting up is mostly just a leg-climb but, being a smidge portly (especially with ten layers of clothes) I tend to use all fours at times.  Even Sal has to ‘climb’ now and then when it gets steep and muddy.

She went first.  She went fast.  And she called down from the top, “Alright, sweetie?”  

We got to the top.  The water and fallen storm debris was so high we couldn’t find the pick-up but the third inspection tap about 100 feet away was squirting like a geyser so we knew that the water was getting into the pipe system.  And, getting out at that level.  We replaced the broken valve there and put in a splice.  Water was now in the line and the line was intact.

So we went back down to the bottom, opened the inspection tap (the only one that had not frozen) and waited with glee to see the water come gushing forth.  And………we waited.

Still no water.  This is not easily explainable but here goes – the water went in through the pick-up and we patched all the holes in the line.  We opened the bottom to let the air out.  Therefore, we should get water.  Right?

Wrong!  Not if there was still something frozen in the pipe.  And that is what we are thinking.  Now.  We may think of something else later. 

We think there is something frozen (water, probably. Duh) still in the dips and valleys that the pipe creates as it falls down the hill.  So the water that is now in the pipe has to ‘melt’ and push the ice lump until the ice lump melts or it gets small enough to flow to our house.  April, perhaps.  Definitely by May.

This is one of the reasons we go away in the winter.  It is now a more pressing reason to travel.  Soon.  We have about ten days of water before making a cup of tea becomes difficult. 

Who would have expected winter to show up so early!

As most of you know, I built a funicular a few years ago.  It is a tram that climbs our upper slope.  Funicular Mark1 is 80 feet long and goes from the boathouse deck to the BIG house at a 33 degree angle and is powered by a 3 hp, 3-phase electrical motor working through a battery bank, an inverter, a transformer and a Siemens motor controller.  The motor drives a huge winch and it, in turn, pulls up a heavy metal wheeled cart capable of carrying as much as 1000 pounds.  It makes schlepping up and down the hill much easier.

But not easy enough.  This past year I began Funicular Mark ll.  That one goes down from the boathouse deck to the sea.  Of course, the sea goes up and down (tide) and so the ‘working’ length varies with the time of day and the month of the year.  With the tide out the distance to be covered is 70 feet at a 24 degree angle.  This funicular is intended to pull the boat up to the deck like a marine ways.

The motor is a 2 hp, 3-phase with an electronic brake.  The lower funicular will be operated by hand-held wireless remote controllers.  I am hoping to be able to drive up to the bottom of the lower tracks, summon the cart, drive the boat on and, a couple of minutes later, step off on to the boathouse deck.

You have to admire my optimism.

I have already encountered some major challenges in this project but none quite as formidable as the wiring diagram.  My friend, Bill, is a techie of the Gyro Gearloose kind, a live, ‘walkin’, talkin’, Rube Goldberg type who can jury-rig jerry-rigged things electrical, mechanical and, to some extent, culinary.  He is clearly a jack of all things eccentric, master of only a few.  Makes for an interesting time.  

My Siemens motor controller came with instructions for programming written in German.  Bill programmed it.  “I didn’t know you spoke German, Bill.” He looked at me blankly and said, “I don’t.  All computer programs speak a similar language and that is all you need to know.”  Yeah.  Right.  But it works great. 

Bill wanted me to integrate the electrical system of Fun Mk l with the electrical system of Fun Mk ll.  After four years I have barely mastered how to turn it off and on.  I was not going to be able to ‘mix systems’.  “Never mind.  I have it in my head.  I’ll draw it up and I’ll print it out on a diagram for you.  Anyone can follow a diagram.”

Yeah.  Right.  The diagram came in the mail yesterday.  It looks like the communications system in a NASA space station and the labels, names and abbreviations are as close to Cryllic as one is likely to find outside of Russia.  I don’t have a hope.

Sally took one look at it and said, “Gimme that!  You are not going anywhere near our working funicular!  Do you hear me!?  We need that thing.  You’ll try to do that and everything will go to hell!  Gimme that paper!”

Normally, I would argue a bit.  Put up a small macho protest.  “If Bill says I can do that, I can do that.”  But not this time.  I wouldn’t have fooled anyone.  It took me several minutes just to figure out which side of the diagram was up.

By then, Sally had snatched it away anyway.

Some projects go even more slowly than others. 

I write letters-to-the-editor in the Discovery Islander (local paper) once in awhile.  Done it for a few years.  I am pretty much locally tolerated in this harmless pursuit but never commented on.  Not in writing anyway.  That all changed last week.  David Jected wrote in unintelligible support, a mindless gibberish (kinda) on a political piece I had written the week before.  And he was published.

That fact alone is enough for me to reconsider this hobby.

David’s initial is ‘D’ and that ‘sounds’ like: Dejected, a nom de plume.  Seems my sole supporter is mad and incognito.  His letter went on and on and on and ranted, raved, spewed and spleened.  That has to tell me something not only about him and the publisher but worse, about me.  And I am not happy about this.  It is like being on Nixon’s list of desired people.  I could be a nut.  Me and Dejected are associated now and, despite my low standards for association, this guy is beyond the pale. 

Sal was in hysterics.  “He’s nuts!  His sentences don’t make sense!  This guy is bonkers and he is the only one who has ever supported you! Ha ha hah ha ha… hah………. mmmph …….giggle……ha ha ha………..the two Daves!!!”

I have always advocated speaking up.  It seemed like a good thing.  You know.  Honest.  Upfront.  I am beginning to have my doubts.  Right now it seems like it just attracts the loons.  Plus Sally’s ridicule.  If I am going to attract idiots, couldn’t they at least be young and female?

Where are the groupies?   

I may go back to painting. 

I find politics irresistible.  Clearly.  I can’t imagine how many of my regular readers (all 6 of you) suffer when you see that the blog topic is ‘politics’.  Like the last entry regarding the Greens.  Sorry.  I’ll try to resist but, as you know, resistance is futile.  A man’s gotta rant!

Fourth day of cold.  Everything frozen.  Couple of valves ‘popped’ so that when the water does run, it will all run away.  Oh joy!  My ’emergency pump’ for when it is frozen also froze.  So, we have had to siphon a few liters from the tank every day with a suck-hose and make do with that.  But, you know what?  It’s not so bad.  A bit of an inconvenience but that is all.  Well, that was all until it got really cold.

Sally took some of our bottles and cans in from the food shed.  It was 27 degrees F in there so it was a good move.  Everything is fine.  But the batteries are taking it hard.  We get those puppies up pretty good and, by the time the night is through, they are down, down, down.  NOT dead – just down.  But down a LOT.

Sal went to yoga today anyway.  This little piggy stayed home.  So did all the other little Q-hut piggies.  We don’t work when it is cold.  ‘Course, we didn’t work when it was hot, either.  Or raining.  Plus we only work Wednesdays no matter what.  Ya know, we are really great workers when you come to think about it.  We are almost done, it is looking great and we never do anything!  It’s like magic!

It’s funny, this temperature thing…………one tends to think that 20C is just a bit warmer than say, 17C and, of course it is.  Just a bit warmer.  But, at a certain point it gets too warm altogether and it becomes hot.  And that ‘transition’ seems to be more abrupt when it comes to the cold.  At 32F or 0C nothing has changed for us.  Life is the same except a few more layers of fleece, a few more hours indoors.  Even -5 at night can be ‘adjusted to’ simply by cuddling up or adding a blanket.  But -10 is like the end-of-days.  Things break.  Crack.  Freeze and seize.  The dogs won’t go out.  Engines won’t start (unless they are Hondas).  -10C is a real ‘change’, much bigger than the numbers indicate.  I hate -10C and all the numbers lower.

As soon as it warms up, I’ll be good.   

Re: meeting with the Green’s Jane Sterk (leader) to explore future in politics. 

I thought I’d best be upfront about what I wanted to talk about when we met.  So, I wrote her about what I was going to say at our meeting.  I told her the Greens had to have an economic platform or else they were going to be relegated to the fantasy fringe.  She urged me to read the new Green book.  I did.

It seemed to have come from the minds of babbling fools.

I said, “While I support the ideas proposed in the Green book (kinda), they are not my priorities and, with respect, I don’t think the average citizen feels any differently than do I.”

“Of course, you are welcome to join the party and contribute like everyone else to the policies and platform.”

“Well, I’d love to.  But I am too old and impatient for that.  If you can’t – as leader – change the platform to a more realistic one, I may as well thank you now for your kind reception and bid you and the party adieu.”

And that is where we left it.

But I thought I’d share with you what they are thinking.  The Greens now feel that these are their top ten issues (my comments to Jane attached in italics):
The Greens would:

1. Re-establish a provincial police force.  Definitely not priority #1 in the mind of the public.  More like #20.  Still, good idea but not really necessary.  We just need to ride herd on the police a lot more.  They are just suffering from an in-bred, old boy, militaristic-type culture.  We should NOT make their job more difficult, just have an independent board of inquiry made up of real people other than all lawyers or judges to investigate their mistakes and set better policy.  This is a topic that has some real possibilities but not the way it is stated.    

2. Raise the carbon tax to $50 per tonne of emissions, and “Tax all GHG emitting industries”. (The Liberals, who introduced the tax, would triple it over time. The NDP would scrap the tax.)  Stupid.  Totally alienating.  Joe average doesn’t ‘get it’.  This just sounds like more taxes.  And, in a way, JAv is right.  This is not the way to go about greening anything.  It is punitive and makes people ‘wrong’.  They are not.  They are just people trying to get by and they need incentives, not punishments, to get better. This is just another BIG Brother act that means nothing but negativity to the average person.  Dump it.  But enforce the existing pollution laws to the hilt. 

3. Cancel the Gateway highway-expansion program. (The Liberals are pushing Gateway, and the NDP is not opposed to it.)  Wrong again.  Cars are not the problem- it is pollution that is the problem.  Individual cars mean individual freedoms.  People want ém.  And they need ém.  Public transit is a myth.  We just have to make it so that roads and cars don’t pollute.  Once again BIG Brother (all the planners and academics) has missed the point.  Real people, real workers, real life requires individual transport.  The professors and the planners can take transit, the loggers, fishers, store owners and soccer moms need wheels.  We need to give them ‘clean and green’ wheels.  Yes, I know that isn’t easy. But it is the only way. 

4. End drug prohibition.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It is not as simple as that.  Not as simple as they imply.  Trust me.  I worked on skid row.  I worked with juveniles.  On the street.  Ten years.  It is not that simple.  Regardless, it is not priority #1.  More like #21.  All we are saying as a party is that we don’t have our focus in the right place.  Stupid. 

5. Take tasers away from all law-enforcement agencies in the province.  I hate the damn things.  That RCMP murder at the airport (Robt. D) sickened me.  But it is not the taser.  It is the doofus using it.  Once again, focusing in the wrong place. 

6. Move the province toward a “steady-state economy” that would avoid the shocks of economic highs and lows, and allow for better environmental protection than unfettered economic growth.  Agreed.  100%.  And it ain’t hard to do. We have the product.  We have the people.  We just don’t lead them in the right direction is all.  This one is #1. 

7. Create “green-collar jobs”. These have been largely undefined to date, but they emphasize job creation that does not diminish natural resources to the extent that unfettered economic growth does. (Both the NDP and the Liberals tout increased growth, though the one of the Liberals’ six pillars concerns making do with less.)   Agreed.  100%.  Same as 6 above. 

8. Seek a moratorium on gambling licences and a “gradual phase-out of the most addictive forms of gambling such as slot machines and on-line gambling”. (The Liberals have seen this sector grow exponentially under their tenure.)   What is it with our people?  Televangelists are less judgmental.  The Pope is more liberal.  You are acting like a Seinfeld character – obsessed with the minutae.  I hate govt. sponsored gambling.  It is wrong.  It is immoral and an evil way to fund pork barrelers.  And we should ‘curb it’ significantly.  But it is not priority #1, 2 or 3.  The Greens need political savvy.  This ain’t it. 

9. Repeal Bill 30, which removed local-government decision making on some zoning issues.  Absolutely.  100%.

10. Return B.C. Ferries to the status of Crown corporation. (The Liberals want business as usual, and the NDP promises only to return “accountability” to B.C. Ferries.)  Absolutely.  100%.  And that goes for all the Crown corps.  ICBC, BCH, BCR (if we could) and so on.  But especially BC Systems. 

Maybe I am not green at all.  Maybe I am a liberal or something…………….sheesh.

When the weather is this cold, you tend to stay in, drink tea and think about stuff.  All sorts of stuff.  Of course, I could let my mind turn to politics but there is so little satisfaction to be had there.  And so I will…………but just for a bit……….

Firstly, I have a confession: I called Jane Sterk, head of the provincial Greens and said, “I have this idea that the Greens can actually get elected.  Maybe.  But it requires a radical change of strategy.  If you are open to that, I’ll come down to see you sometime.”  To her credit, she was nice, polite and willing to listen.  We’ll likely meet just before Christmas.  More on that as it unfolds.

I’ve also been thinking about the economy.  How is it working?  You know, ‘pump it full of ‘bailout’ money and hope that, like a bump-start, the engine kicks back in’.  But has it?  I think not. 

If any reader has ever bump-started a car, the analogy holds – the engine is forced to run by the momentum of the car pushing it, and it eventually catches and takes over.  But I have had a number of cars in my life that needed that sort of treatment now and then and sometimes the bump-start method fails.  In fact, the bump-start method is usually just a harbinger of much worse things to come.  When you are down to the bump-start, the car is likely on it’s last legs.  And I am thinking our economic system is in just such a state.   

Bump-starts only work if there is spark and fuel.  If there is no spark or fuel, there is no start-and-run. In this sense the ‘consumer’ is the fuel.  And they seem to be absent in the market place in droves these days.  Consumer debt – even in Canada – is at an all-time high and so we are simply not buying so much anymore – certainly not the BIG items. 

Neither are the Yanks.  Americans are still losing their homes and declaring bankruptcy by the millions.  The average employee in North America, working or not, is struggling to make ends meet and, with a huge component of the population (baby-boomers) soon entering retirement, the appetite for stuff is just going to naturally wan even further.  So there is no fuel.  At least not in North America.  Not like before.

Bottom line: the gas gauge reads close to empty. 

‘Spark’ without fuel is a waste.  But is there even ‘spark?’  In this sense, ‘spark’ is innovation, drive, ambition, creativity, new markets.  And, in that sense, I think there is some.  Not a lot.  But some.  But is the ‘spark’ in the right place?  I don’t think so. 

Some of the spark manifests in terrorism, urban gangs, Mexican drug wars and increased security, tasers and the rise of the police state.  These people are radically outside the system.  Or, radically inside.  But they are still reliant on the system staying the course.  They are ‘sparking’ but not in a good way.   

To be fair, we also get ‘Kindles’ and Iphones and entertainment crap but we are still buying food from Safeway and cars from dealerships.  More of the same.  It just feels as if the economy is trying to get back on it’s feet wearing the same old shoes.  Same old clothes.  And saying the same old things.  The economy feels ‘old’.  And, for this, I blame institutions, politics and all the ‘systems’ that we have held to so dearly.  Even the American dream has wrinkles.  It all seems so ‘old’.

Some of this may be projection on my part.  I admit to that.  I’m getting old.    

But government seems especially old.  Government is so ‘old’ to most people they either vote from habit (like old geezers) or they don’t bother to get out of their house to exercise their franchise (like old geezers). 

Face it, the system just ain’t sexy no mo’.  

‘Getting ahead’ was sexy for awhile – pre 2008.  Now it seems futile to many these days.  Greed was such a driving force for such a long time.  But those that succeeded at that game are 60 or fast approaching it and those that did not succeed are way ‘out of reach’ still.  Young people, even those working and earning what seems to be a good wage ($60K) are still not able to buy even a cheap condo.  Vancouver’s Olympic Village, projected to lose millions, is still too expensive to sell to young people seeking homes in the city.  So, how is that going to work?

It is not going to.

And that is part of my thinking – acceptance of the BIG mistake.  We’ve done a lot right in this the modern era, but we have also done a lot wrong.  We have to accept that.  It’s not hard.  I think ‘screwing up’ is pretty normal, actually.  Much more normal and a larger part of life than we normally imagine.  We tend to think we do nine out of ten things right and, ‘oops’, there is that one thing that got away.  I don’t think so.  In fact, I think we err more than we get it right.  I do, anyway.   

First off, I think we, as a society, repeat the mistakes of the past.  Big time.  And look at that history!  It’s bloody scary.  And the period from 1900 to 2000 is scarier than most. 

Secondly, I think we err at a higher frequency than we admit to but we can usually recover quickly when it is at an individual or small group level.  That kind of ‘recovery’ is a common trait of people but not of the institutions they create.  Or the ones they work for.  Governments, corporations, even religions are just not flexible.  They don’t ‘adapt’ (the very quality that made the Homo Sapien successful).  In other words, I think individuals will find answers, institutions won’t.

But we keep investing in BIG!

Ergo: Big is out.  We have to look away from government, corporations and institutions.  Now is the time to NOT listen to what they say.  Now is the time to do the right thing as you see it.  Put bluntly: our current leaders are wrong.    

Real, innovative, leaders seem to come out of the blue.  And they do.  They come from outside the system.  They are truly free thinkers.  Contrarians, to be sure.  But more than just contrary, they are creative and visionary.  They are innovative.  They are different. 

Appointed, elevated, respected and ‘graduated-from-the-system’ leaders are not leaders at all.  They are followers, sheep who have ‘drunk the Kool-Aid’.  They say what we want them to say, lead where we want them to lead and do what we expect them to do.  They are, for the most part, useless as leaders.  And now that it is not working anymore, they are useless as icons.   

So, here’s my thought:  If you are ever going to step out of line, now is the time.  If you are ever going to rage against the machine, begin flailing today.  If you are ever going to stand up and get counted as the power of one, seize the moment!

We need that kind of input.   

I now live amongst the most eccentric of people.  They are colourful. They are different. They are contrary.  And they are very, very independent.  And, you know what?  They are also happy.  They are successful in their ways and they do no harm.  These days, I am pretty pleased to be following their lead.  It seems to be working for me.