South Bruce Peninsular - Owen Sound - Comments

Had a weird dream

garym — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:14:28 -0400

In this dream the SBP Council contacted Tenneco and offered to put all 104 people to work building our new town square like a barn-raising, paying next to nothing in cash, but treating them like honoured guests with great food, local accommodations, family beach bbq and heaps of sunshine, thanks and good cheer in hopes we could cushion the crush of their job loss and maybe aid them to do some now-needed social networking while feeling useful crafting a needed civic commons in a landmark event that would live in the hearts and minds of tourists and Saublites alike for generations.

but then I woke up.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

thank you Restaurantica,

bub — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:26:06 -0400

We all know Restaurantica, its the restaurant review site.Well they have donated 5000 dollars to Stacey's Cops for Cancer, and driven the total over 11,000. Awesome.Now THATS not only good spirit..good thinking, good marketing..but darn well good over all..

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"How does one "Throw a camel toe?Either you did or you didn't! "
-ZenLisa

When I first heard this

vinylgirl — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:42:20 -0400

When I first heard this story, the first thought to pop into my head was, "what if this employee actually had cancer, returned to work after chemo, and didn't have hair". . .Would they tell her to get a wig? That she couldn't work until her hair grew out? I highly doubt that the pay there would allow for a wig shopping spree. When my Aunt was going through cancer, she spent quite a pretty penny on wigs. She was lucky to be able to afford it.

Regardless of how long a persons hair is, or why their hair is a certain length, should not matter. This incident is beyond disgusting.

re: decorations

mxyzptlk — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:59:30 -0400

hi wayne. i agree that a business owner should be able to require a certain decorum/dress code for employees, especially in a restaurant. there may have been other reasons for the layoff to which i (we) are not privileged. if that is the case, the owners should 'come clean'. if not, then this incident really does smack of intolerance at the least. would a male employee with a crew cut be asked to wear a wig or take the summer off to grow their hair longer? i get your point about the trip to the uk, but here in grey-bruce county, a woman with short hair is socially acceptable...especially during the 'cops for cancer' campaign. it's too bad, but the owners' reluctance to eat some 'humble pie' may just spell doom for their beloved restaurant. the court of public opinion will decide.

decorations

wayne tanner — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:27:12 -0400

When I was in the biz of working with kids everyday I used to be in the know as they would ask Mr T for his advice, Foolish chillin...
I can count on both hands, but just barely, being asked by a charge if a nose ring or a a tatoo on my neck or my eyelid pierced would look cool.
Every time I would start off by singing the first lines of the songs "Signs"
When I saw the look of "HUH" come over thier face I would say
LOng haired freaky people need not apply" and then I would try and explain and tell the kids they have to make a choice
When the kids are in a competition with someone else for a job at McD's or the Movie theatre or picking garbage and it comes down to two candidates with equal abilities, the one who is NOT going through the Goth phase of thier search for an identity will get the job. Personal expression being as cool as it is, cuz I havee been there and did it too, doesn't win points out in the real world.
Re; the Nathanials adventure, I think there must have been something else on the go because any business man who is smart enough to start and maintain a successful business will not commit economic suicide by messing with the Cops for Cancer drive or any other charitable event which could go so public so fast. My old Journalism days coupled with being a farm boy taught me to dig deeper, cuz that is where the good s... is.
If all things are considered equal, the food the atmosphere the good wine and Guiness, and in one spot the server is the clean cut girl/boy next door with the big smile and perky. And the next restaraunt the server walks up and they have "Spouse of Satan" tattoed across the forehead and would never make it through a airport security metal check there is a certain segment of the population which would chose "A" and others who would chose "B" because they would think it is cool to have such an open and free thinking staff..The boomers rule so I think the "A" restaraunt would win
In a personal note 7-8 years ago I did the Cops for Cancer thing at the school and had my own kid do the buzzin which was cool for him to do.
We immediatly went to England for a Family reunion after this and it took a while to figure this out but everytime I went into a store or pub or train station by myself the clerk would act leary and people would appear uncomfortable with me. I asked a cousin and they had been having real problems in Exeter with skin heads and the shaved heads were thier "colours" and the look they felt they owned as a badge of distinction.
So I understand to some degree how shaving the mop, in the right circumstances can have a negative effect.
In a Pub I was enjoying an IPA at the time because I was full of Strongbow and a bunch of Skinheads were monopolizing the pool table, being loud and boisturus they saw me and assumed because of the look they was some sort of kindred clan thing going on. My responce to thier "hey buddy, pal" thing didnt go over well. But that is another story. I did have a lot of back up by the time things got rolling though.....:)

a lost opportunity

bub — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:56:08 -0400

I can't help but wonder..why restaurants and pubs over the area haven't hopped on the reverse bandwagon to garner more publicity. I would have expected to see entire bar staff and restaurant owners as well doing the summer cut for attention..and maybe some fundraising.
Ahem..attention Greenhorns..I for one would like to see Frank with a shaved head...and ..umm not to mention Shayla...
;)

**********************************************************
"How does one "Throw a camel toe?Either you did or you didn't! "
-ZenLisa

Boycott Nathaniels

mxyzptlk — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:33:09 -0400

I wonder if the owners of the restaurant would turn away a female customer with a shaved head and tell her to come back when her hair grows or wear a wig? Oh, really, why?Because we are shallow and intolerant and only want a certain look to our staff and customers. Someone in the SunTimes paper yesterday (Saturday June 7) claimed that Nathaniels is one of the two best restaurants in the area. I wonder where his proof of that statement is. Personally I hope they go bankrupt. I will not be dining there again and, in my opinion, the food ain't that great. I understand having certain standards, but properly cut short hair on a female (or male) is not a violation of any local social 'norms' from what I can tell. Their approach to the situation was a bad move in a small community like Owen Sound. They don't even have the courage to face the community without their lawyer! There are lots of other good (and better, in my opinion) restaurants in the area...boycott Nathaniels!
kltpzyxm

who is Nathaniel anyway?

Jolley Good Show

garym — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:39:59 -0500

Sorry Shane, but I just could not resist the pun, because it is true, a fab show, an amazing show, no one could question Larry's chances and he came through with some 48%, but while out in the wilds of Canada the Greens claimed only 4% of the popular imagination, here in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound we show our Green Conscience at 13%. noticably ahead of the NDP and nearly half the voting mindshare of the Liberals ... and on a budget of how much?

Nearly nothing, that's how much.

Cool move. If only my car could get that sort of mileage, we wouldn't need a Green Party!

Anyway, seems it is all pretty much over now, not much chance for any suprises as the stragglers tally in, here in B-G-OS we're nearly half for Larry Miller, and the final score across the Great Nation seems very much that, and with only twice the popular vote of the Greens I might add, Gilles Duceppe is the defacto Prime Minister of Canada, with no less than three (3) Leaders (sic) of the Oppositions.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Don't mean nothin', but ...

garym — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:12:02 -0500

Kudo's to Elections Canada, as promised, the first results were there on the page within 45 seconds of the NRC official timestamp for 10pm, and here's an interesting factoid: at 17.4% of the votes, Green Party hopeful Shane Jolly is just a half-percent point behind the Liberal newcomer Verona Jackson.

ok, ok, yes, I know, that was when there was only one poll reporting, and now that there are 5 of them in, he's slipped to nearly 9 points behind, but like I said, it don't mean nothin', it's just a factoid.

at 2% of the potential votes counted, it's 52% to 22.8% to 14.9% to 10% ... I leave who's who to your imaginations ;)

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Noma Lights

bub — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 12:00:01 -0500

Just after the second world war, Noma Electric company started manufacturing christmas lights on 14th street west(where the sally ann is today).It employed over 300 people, until foreign competetion closed them up, and the name was sold.

Home of the Christmas Light

garym — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 20:05:33 -0500

Ok, Home of the Lights may be stretching it a bit, but maybe not: I heard somewhere (probably CFOS morning show) that the Festival of Northern Lights has an unintended claim to a lineage in that Owen Sound was, once upon a time, the home to one of Canada's largest manufacturers of Christmas Lights!.

Anyone know any more about that?

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Relevant indeed!

sabrinus — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:59:54 -0400

Ahh...a tasty vegetarian lunch at the Marketside and then a stroll across the street for some serious book-browsing at "The Ginger".....

...heaven.

Now, one can add some web-browsing too the menu...

...darn close to Nirvana!

The festival of lights was beautifull

Bob — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:55:13 -0500

Paralegal looking for work, any suggestions? Bob

MyÂ family especially liked the dinosaur lights.Cant wait forÂ next years display.Â hey any survivor fans here? Bob

The Magic Compounded Annually (with Interest)

garym — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:05:25 -0500

I'm not exactly sure when Owen Sound started this Festival of Northern Lights, but we've been going for years and last night took another drive through the main avenues of the display.

And that's when it struck me ...

Christmas, as we all know, is a time for family and giving and the celebration of the Christ-child and all, but it is also intrinsically a celebration of tradition. Every year, we don't just deck our halls with Holly, we dig out every ornament we have going back as far as we each can in the living scrapbook of our Christmas decorations, a lucky few able to dig out heirloom ornaments, others making do with stuff maybe bought at Zellers but reminiscent of the decorations Grandma used, or Great-Grandma.

After these many years of the Festival of Northern Lights, I'm seeing a new bit of magic acruing in the organic and incremental nature of the displays: Where other towns haul out the same fixed set of downtown decor every year, Owen Sound has decor that grows every year, and that means each new crop of lights, each new season of favourite characters, each new technology in Christmas displays, it all gets woven into a total tapestry that truly tells a story of who we are and who we were if only just a few years ago.

And it's our story too: As we drove by, we see the Teletubbies now all but forgotten in the toy-stores but it brings back those memories of teppatippies in our own house not so long ago, and the Smurf brings back even earlier pre-schoolers trundling about, there's string lights, mini-bulbs and even those old one-inch clunkers that my Dad would patiently test every pre-Christmas season. Hands up those who remember the Year of Those Icicle Lights!

Bravo, Owen Sound, through the Festival of Northern Lights, you've turned a boring plain old any-town tradition of slapping up the same old worn wreaths into the transformation of the entire downtown strip into one massive all-family Christmas Tree!

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

$2500 !!

garym — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:49:03 -0400

Just got a note from Kate:

Thanks so much for getting the word out I was very succesful with the efforts tonight, our walk went perfectly. We were able to raise $2,500, and I will continue to have money coming in this week and next, so I am so impressed with the generosity of the community.

If you wish to post the amount we raised, and that the walk was very succesful on your weblog, that would be great. Again, thank you for your support and your encouragement!

Post it??? I want to SHOUT it Thanks for the update, Kate and most of all thanks for taking the initiative to go out and do something about this situation in Iraq—you’re an inspiration: If one girl can do $2500 with one determined act, just imagine what we all could do.