14Oct 2009 by R&O 1 Comment

Goodbye to the Man-Bag

Cancer
After fourteen glorious days of fun and games, yesterday morning I was finally released from the evil clutches of my urinary catheter. There's not much to be said for carrying around your own man-bag of pee while recuperating from surgery, much less wrestling with the hoses, bags, fittings and leg-tape as you try to heal. It's uncomfortable, it hurts and it's not something you want to hold in your hand while answering the door. In fact I was visited by two Jehovah's Witnesses and answered the door in my bathrobe while clutching the catheter under my arm. Not cool on my part but it resulted in a suprisingly short visit from two of God's messengers. I won't get into the removal process but can tell you that it felt like…
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09Oct 2009 by R&O 6 Comments

Suprise, Suprise

Observations
So Robert Dziekanski's mother has filed a lawsuit seeking damages from the four RCMP officers involved in the tasering and resulting death of her son at YVR. What a suprise. Isn't it standard operating procedure to sue, sue and sue some more when anyone (or their family) find themselves in the midst of a high prifile event punctuated with death, suffering and tragedy? Don't we, the taxpayer who end up paying for most of these lawsuits in the end, expect the victim will receive large quantities of money for real or perceived slights or injustices? Yes we do. And therein lies the problem. My perception of the Dziekanski incident is clear. A grown man is, for some unexplained reason, unable to make his way to the exit area of a…
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08Oct 2009 by R&O 2 Comments

The Real Test

Cancer
Love is a mysterious and elusive emotion and one of the hardest things to clearly define and identify. How do we know when we're in love or loved by someone else? How do we find out if our chosen partner truly loves us? It's Easy. Have an operation. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently had a prostatectomy and have been at home and incapacitated for the past 6 days. I can't walk the dog, I can't cook meals, I can't clean the house or yard. Simply put, I can't do anything so I'm dependent on my spouse to do most of these things for me until I've recuperated. I bear a certain amount of guilt as she goes to work every morning after walking our dog and…
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07Oct 2009 by R&O No Comments

The Olympic Money-Pit

Olympics
The finger-pointing continues as May Gregor Robertson blames a "Total failure of leadership" for the growing cost overruns of the fabulous $1.16 billion Olympic Village. It seems that there's concern regarding the city's ability to recoup its investment when the units are sold so sales of the units have been halted until after the 2010 games. Gee...who would have thunk. Pour hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars into a real estate project initiated by the impending Olympics and we should all make a buck, right? Wrong. When the market tanks all bets are off boys and it looks like the taxpayers will once again be hung out to dry. As we all know, the City Of Vancouver was forced to take over financing of the project after cost…
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