Thursday, January 12, 2006

I was walking in Lexington and happened to walk by the "Commonwealth" office. I guess that's shorthand for the welfare office. There were hundreds of people inside, all sitting and waiting in line to see someone about their case. And I know this isn't profound or anything, but it just occured to me:

One of the fundamental differences between rich people and poor people is that rich people don't wait in line for anything, and poor people spend a lot of their time waiting in lines. A few years ago, I flew with a guy who is worth around half a billion dollars. It was a long flight, and he sat up front with me. During our conversation, he said this "Time is one of the most valuable gifts you can give someone." So what does that mean in regard to the millions of poor people who give up substantial parts of their lives waiting for things 'cause they can't afford to skip to the front of the line?

My present boss understands this at a fundamental level, he is early for everything. If I am early for everything, do I win? When I fly corporate, I spend a lot of time waiting for my customers - we drop them off, then wait until they return. How valuable is my gift to them? How can I even measure it?

Monday, January 09, 2006

I'm in Lexington, Kentucky at the moment on a charter. Lexington is nice enough - the local themes are bourbon and horses. Apparently they have some sort of horse derby here from time to time, I'm sure the name will come to me ;)

The pictures in my hotel room are of saddles and leather boots, so I assume it's about horses. Either that or I'm in a S&M hotel. Now that I think of it, the front desk clerk was wearing a rubber face mask, but I just assumed it was cause the lobby was kind of cold ;)

The past month has been crazy busy - I have been to: Montreal, Baton Rouge LA, Nassau, North Bay, Winnipeg, New York, Florida, and more. This week it's Lexington, then Trois Rivieres Quebec, then Detroit, then Ottawa for the weekend, then Phoenix Arizona, then Fresno California, then I have a week and a half off for vacation. I'm going to visit my mom in Nanaimo and my Dad and brother and sisters in Saskatoon, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Oh, I randomly applied for a pre-approved mortgage through my bank and the crazy people said yes to a cap of $225k. So I'm going to start talking a look at what's out there in the Toronto area just in case I can actually afford to live indoors. I presently live in Oakville, but there's no way that I'll be able to afford a place here - most places start at 600k and go up from there. Toronto prices are truly insane.

In other random notes, I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas (I bought it for myself) and that's been a lot of fun in a geeky way. Also my car got broken into last week, and the fuckers stole my stereo, my sat. radio and smashed in my window for good measure. That made me really angry - when I see people begging in the street I always donate a buck or two (or I buy them food if I think they might spend the dough on drugs etc) and when I shop for groceries I always add the little $5 piece donation to the food bank - I know I am incredibly lucky to be where I am in life and I don't mind passing some of that stuff along. But to smash up my car and just to take my stuff is such a violation that it makes me feel bitter. The stuff they stole wasn't even that valuable - I cancelled the satellite radio subscription as soon as I discovered the theft so the radio is completely useless - they can't even enable another subscription to that unit now. And while they were looting my car stereo and stuff they managed to destroy most of it in the process - I saw a few pieces on the ground by my car that are necessary parts of the stereo units, along with the subs and amp etc. So basically whomever stole from me might get $50 out of the deal from a pawnshop, and now my insurance is going to go up by a huge whack cause I had to make a claim for the window repair, along with the door panel that got broken when they climbed in.

Anyway, other than that, life is great. I'm happy, healthy, and loved. And I'm very excited about going back to Saskatoon for a few days - I haven't been there in 3 years and I grew up there so it feels like home. Since I started flying I have moved around so much that I don't feel like I have any roots except for toon-town.