Ontario cleans house at OLG

It is good news finally to hear “Ontario cleans house at OLG” writing the following three blog entries (first one in 2006),

Ontario lottery retailers cheating unsuspecting winners

Ontario Lottery scam doc wins Consumers’ Association of Canada award

Can OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation) learn?

The Spine in Calgary International Film Festival

Wonderful news: Oscar winning animator Chris Landreth’s new film The Spine (see video interview) will be in Calgary International Film Festival Sept 25 – Oct 4. The film is also showing in Toronto International Film Festival on Sept 11th & 12th.

[via Chris]

$100,000 An Acre in Alberta (Calgary & Edmonton) – Interview with Doug Kelly

Earlier this month, I had a great phone interview (mp3) with Doug Kelly to talk about his insightful and interesting book – $100,000 An Acre: A Candid History of the Land Development Industry in Alberta. Since 2004, Doug had conducted over 130 face-to-face interviews for the book.

Doug has divided $100,000 An Acre into chapters like “The Visionaries”, “The Opportunists”, “The Mavericks”, “The Executives”, “The Builder-Entrepreneurs”, “The Planners”, etc. Each chapter features a few key people in the category. The few pages devoted to each person reads like a fascinating mini-biography with the person’s involvement in the Land Development Industry in Alberta.

In the phone interview (mp3), Doug and I were able to talk about a few of the people covered in the book.

Visionaries:

• Ellis Vee (E. V.) Keith,
• Ralph Scurfield (an elementary school teacher turns home builder),
• Ed Davis (at one point, Ed had 34 acres of land in downtown Calgary near Eau Claire), and
• Bob Orr (his Engineering Homes was one of the largest and world leader of manufactured housing components (walls, roofs, etc) in the 60s).
• Edmontonians: Sandy Mactaggart, Jean De La Bruyere and Maclab Enterprises

Opportunists (not in a negative way): Johnny McLeod (created Calgary’s Thorncliffe neighbourhood in 1953)

Mavericks: Bill Jager (I am curious as I live in a Jager home).
The Ghermezians (Rezoning for West Edmonton Mall).

The Executives: Mike Rogers (+15 system in Calgary). People in “The Executives” section are the ones that Doug knows the best as he was one of them.

Builder-Entrepreneurs: Eric Weidman (built the first condominium project in Canada, which happened in Edmonton of all places)

If you are curious about the stories of the people who were key in the development of communities in Calgary and Edmonton, or if you are anyone working in fields remotely related to the Land Development Industry, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of $100,000 An Acre and learn from it. Have a look of the table of content and the first few pages.

Here are a few news articles about the book and Doug in the media: Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, and Calgary Herald.

From Doug’s bio,

Doug spent 36 years in land development, which gave him an inside view of its history from a developers perspective. During his career, Doug worked for four development companies and one land development consulting company in Calgary and Edmonton, with a short stint in Toronto. He has chaired both the Calgary and Edmonton chapters of the Urban Development Institute, and served as president of the Alberta division – the only member to have held all three posts.

Japan’s Audacity of Hope – WSJ

For the record from WSJ, “Japan’s Audacity of Hope“,

Japanese voters finally tired of the Liberal Democratic Party’s incompetence, and yesterday they showed it. Preliminary vote counts indicate the Democratic Party of Japan won an overwhelming majority in the Lower House parliamentary elections, giving leader Yukio Hatoyama a firm grip on government. This is a revolutionary political moment, but it also represents an economic leap of hope at a dangerous time.

To his supporters, Mr. Hatoyama represents the kind of change that Japan needs: first and foremost, the ousting of the LDP and its backroom dealings with the powerful bureaucracy and elite business class. Yesterday’s election represents only the second time that the LDP has lost office in 54 years. One positive result may be to empower reformers within the LDP to overhaul the party or break away.

Japanese voters say it’s time for change

From CBC News,

Preliminary results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Japan show the ruling conservative party has suffered a crushing defeat to the left-of-centre opposition.

Projections indicate the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will soundly defeat the Liberal Democrats, who have been in power for most of the last 54 years.

Japan Votes in Election

From Reuters, “Japan votes in election, opposition tipped to win“

SoundCloud

SoundCloud looks like a useful tool and it can be used in WordPress.

His ideas & ideals – Ted Kennedy: 1932 – 2009

“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives.” – President Barack Obama remembering Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Academic Earth

Academic Earth: another tool to help you learn from some of the world best universities.

Check these out.

Newton and the Enlightenment

Once upon a time, I understand & know some of these. Actually it is a fun way to appreciate things.

[via BMD Love Blog]

Snow Leopard

There are a few major & interesting advancements in Snow Leopard. But the following one has caught my attention and I am glad Apple hasn’t cut it. Looking forward to my Snow Leopard visit soon!

Russia’s Got Talent – Beautiful & Captivating

What a beautiful live performance.

[via BMD Love]

Winning Ugly (Elena Dementieva beat Maria Sharapova)

It wasn’t pretty, but Elena Dementieva got the job done at the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto on Sunday.

Dementieva beat Maria Sharapova 6-4, 6-3 in a match that began with a surplus of broken serves, double faults and unforced errors on both sides.

“Dementieva captures Rogers Cup title“, CBC News

It was a hard fought battle as neither side dominated but Elena Dementieva was the better player today. It is a perfect time to re-read my blog friend Kevin Roberts’ inspiring post on Winning Ugly Together.

P.S. What is winning pretty? And in an awesome & spectacular manner? Usain Bolt 9.58! and Usain Bolt 19.19!

That was PRETTY and indeed BEAUTIFUL!

Usain Bolt 19.19 – Winning Pretty

Sweet Music of Summer

Out of the blue, a Dickie Dee tricycle showed up playing the sweet music of summer. And then this cute little girl showed up on cue by magic attracted by the music.

How We Decide

I really enjoy the book “How We Decide” and will highly recommend you take a look of it or have a listen of the audio book.

From Publisher’s Weekly review from Amazon,

Cash or credit? Punt or go for first down? Deal or no deal? Life is filled with puzzling choices. Reporting from the frontiers of neuroscience and armed with riveting case studies of how pilots, quarterbacks, and others act under fire, Jonah Lehrer presents a dazzlingly authoritative and accessible account of how we make decisions, whats happening in our heads as we do so, and how we might all become better deciders. Luckily, this ones a no-brainer: Read this book.Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)Over the past two decades, research in neuroscience and behavioral economics has revolutionized our understanding of human decision making.

Useful review from LA Times.

A tale of two bloggers

I had the pleasure of meeting two bloggers yesterday. A young boy who has been blogging about games and movies, etc since Feb 2009. And a lady who has just started blogging and trying to find her way in the world of blogging.

My advice to the lady is to write about something that she is passionate about. Then it is not work. Write to share, then some of the people who read the blog will learn something.

In the words of Stephen,

“In the end it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

- A quote from the autobiography “On Writing“ by author Stephen King.

Hi! Can you hear me?

Congrats to Wind Mobile for making their first cross-Canada “Hi! Can you hear me?…” call between Vancouver and Toronto.

I can’t find “Love is in the Wind” (yet), so “Love is in the Air” will have to do for now.

Congrats to the Wind Mobile team for this achievement. Now, you just have to deliver reliable services, great plans, phones, something Canadians can love!

Best Answer re: Hitler, Obama, and Dinning Room Table

It is sad to see Americans “debate” health care in these kind of manner.

$100,000 An Acre

I had a great interview with Doug Kelly, author of $100,000 An Acre: A Candid History of the Land Development Industry in Alberta, this morning to talk about his insightful and interesting book.

I am in the middle of a few projects at the moment so it will take me some time to do the needed processing and research to finish and post the interview. In the mean time, if you are anyone remotely working in the field of Land Development Industry, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of $100,000 An Acre and learn from it. Have a look of the table of content and the first few pages.

From Doug’s bio,

Doug spent 36 years in land development, which gave him an inside view of its history from a developers perspective. During his career, Doug worked for four development companies and one land development consulting company in Calgary and Edmonton, with a short stint in Toronto. He has chaired both the Calgary and Edmonton chapters of the Urban Development Institute, and served as president of the Alberta division – the only member to have held all three posts.

Rose Friedman Dies at 97 – Two lucky people are now together

“Two lucky people are now together.” – as someone put it touchingly

I am deeply saddened to report that Rose Friedman has died of heart failure. She was 97.

• Rose Friedman, Economist Partner of Husband Milton, Dies at 97, Bloomberg
• Remembering Rose Friedman, The Friedman Foundation
• Rose Friedman, R.I.P., reason.com
• Rose Friedman has died, hayekcenter.org

“Two lucky people” is one of the few books that I special ordered before it is available locally and rushed to pick up from the bookstore when it arrived. I love the way how Milton and Rose wrote the book jointly and also wrote sections individually to add their insights and observations.

In this moment of sadness, allow me to quote a section written in “Two lucky people“ by Rose to counterbalance the sadness. I think it shows how lucky we are to have Rose and Milton for all these years. We could have quite a different story without the amazing luck in this story.

{ Rose } “One long stop was unplanned but not unpleasant sojourn in Banff, Canada, because of an accident we had. While I was driving from Jasper to Banff, we hit a wet spot as we came round a curve, and the car skidded and turned over. This was one of the many events that demonstrates to us that we we born under a lucky star. Our car was a convertible and seat belts had not yet been introduced. Fortunately, we had put the top up because of a rainstorm we had just driven through – which was why the road was slippery — but a convertible top is not much protection. Nevertheless, we both crawled out without a scratch though the car was badly damaged. I didn’t hear then, nor in the many years since did I ever hear, a single word of criticism from Milton. He has always said it was not my fault, it was the wet road.

As always happens with any disaster on the road, people stopped, some to see if they could help, others out of curiosity. One comment we have never forgotten: viewer after viewer remarked, “Look, the car is badly smashed, yet the eggs didn’t break!” As it happened, we had some hard-boiled eggs in our picnic basket and when the trunk of the car popped open on impact, they had rolled out. Indeed, they were not broken, only cracked!”

My heart was broken when I read how Rose felt when Milton passed away, “I’ve a lot of time but nothing else“. Looking at the beautiful cover-photo of “Two lucky people“, I know the two luck people are now finally happy together again.

My love and thoughts are with the Friedman children, David and Janet, and the extended family members.