Demand

On my last day in Winnipeg, as my friends were drifting back to work, I went to eat some Taco Time. If you are from Western Canada you have probably had this once or twice. However, if you are from Eastern Canada you probably have never heard of this amazing Mexican fast food establishment. One trip to Taco Time and you will never even consider Taco Bell as an option. That being said, the quality of the the quick service Mexican food has little to do with what I’m writing about.

If you have been reading this blog for a while (first off I want to say thank-you) you know I gave up drinking Coca-Cola a year and a half ago. A byproduct of not drinking that evil concoction is I don’t eat a lot of fast food. When I was faced with selecting a beverage to go with my delicious Super Beef Burrito Combo I chose water. Other than a bit of fruit juice in the breakfast timeframe or beer, I almost always get water.

Here’s the thing. It cost me an additional forty cents to get a bottle of water over a Pepsi from the machine. 

My initial thoughts were how could you justify charging me more for water than for pop? Let’s be honest, pop is water with several ingredients added. Pop is water with a whole bunch of labour added to it. Pop uses water as the base and builds on it so there is no way that water should cost more.

Then the businessman in me kicked in. If you are good at pricing then you price based on demand and not on input cost. This means that there is a greater demand for water than fountain pop, otherwise the retailer, in this case Taco Time, would not feel they could charge more for unmodified water than the upgraded and modified model (pop).

All this makes me very happy.

If you can demand more for pure water than for the most useless beverage on the planet then that must mean a lot of people are choosing to not drink pop. It means a lot of people are choosing a healthier option. More people are being a bit more conscious about what they are putting in their bodies.

I’m going to be very honest here. If you are eating lunch at Taco Time then your health in not the first item on your mind but if you are not drinking pop then your health is not the last thought on your mind either.

I have read a couple of time in the last six months that beverage companies have been slashing the price of carbonated, sugar laden beverages because demand is weakening. I see this as a good thing. Finally more people, including the author of this piece, are cutting a few of the worst things out of their life.

Don’t get me wrong, if you want to have a can of Coke as a treat once in a long while and can keep it to that, go for it. As for myself, I like it way too much and have come to realize that the only way I can keep my consumption to a healthy level is do not drink any at all.

The demand for pop is going down, this can only mean more people are going to live a healthier life and a healthier life is always a better life.

The CBC Needs a Budget Cut

What I am about to do will work much better if you are a fan of a genera of music where the performers write their own material. If you mainly listen to country or pop, this may not have the same impact.

Think about some of your favourite bands. The one you will go see in an arena. The one that has been making albums for a long time. As you are sitting with your friends having a pre-concert beverage of choice, inevitably someone will say, "I hope they play lots of old stuff." 

Now don't get me wrong, we like the new album, there is probably one song that we are really into but we don't know it word for word, note for note like the old stuff. The new stuff may actually be a better made song but the old stuff is just better.

Why?

The band wasn't comfortable when they made the old stuff. They didn't have vast resources.  They had just enough so they were not starving and it drove creativity. They had to be good and they had to do it quickly. Studio time was at a premium. They probably had to play some gigs while they made the album to pay the bills. There was an edge to life, a feeling of us against the world and it made them be better. Once they were well established and had steady revenue from the back catalogue they still cared about making good music but they were not driven the same way.

What does a band starting out have to do with the CBC budget?

In a short answer, everything. The CBC is subsidized and if they do not produce compelling content, they can fall back on the government to pay the bills. They are not driven to create new, original, memorable, or groundbreaking content. 

The good stuff comes from anyone when they feel like they are up against the wall. Apple almost went bankrupt and rethought who they were and what they do. They were desperate but found a way. The CBC needs to be desperate. They need that feeling that we have nothing left to lose so we may as well do something crazy. Because when the crazy starts, that's when the amazing happens.

The CBC used to do a lot of things very well. They are still pretty good at news gathering but CBC Sports is a shell of it's former self and their entertainment programming doesn't make you want to watch.

If the CBC feels the public has turned on them and they have to do better they will. Big budgets don't make great content, great thought and execution does and a little stress in their future will do a lot to bring that out.

The Slow Down

I have been very busy for the last year and for the most part, I have enjoyed it. My job is going so well, I didn't take all my vacation for the year and will have to roll over a bit to next year. Overall, it's been really good and now I have taken some time off over the Christmas holiday.

It's great to have some time to relax at my parents and visit my friends. We can be leisurely. There are very few scheduled activities. For the most part, it is simply a time to enjoy the company of others.

I can feel my batteries recharging.

However, it seems I can only be lazy for so long. As I become more rested, I find new ideas popping into my head. Ideas on how to make things better, plans on how to work more effectively, and observations of the world around me.

There is a culture shift. The pace of life in Brandon, Manitoba is not the same as Ottawa. People are not in a hurry here. People are not bothered if they hold you up a bit. There is validity to living a slower pace to life and I like to visit this slow sleepy town. However, I may have gown up in a small town but I like the big city life. I like the feeling that people are all around me and the energy that it brings. I like the short walk to get what I need or want. I am a city dweller and I like it.

I will be in Brandon for a few more days, and the slow pace will be nice for the holidays but I'm sure by the last day or so, I will be craving a busy street with horns honking and people chatting about nothing or everything. One of the great things about where you live is when you visit elsewhere, you can enjoy a change, just like I am now.

I Don't Know

If we had a Canadian federal election today, I have no idea who I would vote for. I know who I would not vote for, the New Democratic Party. I am not a socialist and I think their policies would slow development in Canada. I'm sure many of the party faithful are nice people but I live in a nation where it is ok to disagree on how to run the country and when it comes to Canada, I have and most likely will always disagree with the NDP.

Here's the thing, I'm not a card carrying member of any political party but I vote. Like many with no affiliation in Canada I am starting to get Harper fatigue. I don't think he has done a bad job but he's been the Prime Minister for a long time and a change is nice from time to time. It keeps things balanced. That being said, I am not getting swept up in any sort of Trudeaumania 2.0 and as time passes, I'm questioning his ability to be an effective Prime Minister on the national and more importantly international stage.

It isn't the Conservative Party's attack ads. It isn't anything from either propaganda machine. It is simply a feeling that if I had to step behind the cardboard stand, I don't know if I could make a choice.

The Conservatives have been faced with and made some very difficult fiscal decisions and I think that despite what a lot of people may think, the quality of life of the average Canadian is better for it. However, I'm not entirely a dollars and cents kind of guy and some of the cuts have come to programs that provide unique benefits to the community. We can live without them but do we want to?

I don't know what the Liberals stand for these days. They are not saying a lot of concrete things, but they have a very small presence in the House of Commons so they don't really have to say much. I'm sure as the next general election moves closer, they will have something to say. A lot of their popularity seems to be coming from charisma and floppy hair. I hope they are cooking up something a bit better than that for the long haul. They have made some mistakes, to the level that some people have publicly torn up their Liberal Party of Canada membership cards. That's never a good sign and I'm sure it will be brought up in the weeks before we go to vote. You can't give your political opponents those types of moments, especially if they are known for running attack ads.

I don't know if the Liberals were justified in not permitting some people to seek candidacy in specific ridings but if you are going to declare open and transparent nominations in all ridings, it should look like open and transparent nominations. Again, that is low hanging fruit for your opponents. If you can't keep your own house in order how can you run the country?

Ultimately someone will earn my vote. A lot will happen between now and the day we do vote in Canada and my choice will become clear. At least I hope it does, because nobody is impressing me now.

So Much for So Little

Last week I was in South Florida, staying in a very nice resort right on the beach in Broward County. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful but that is not what this post is about.

It is very apparent that there are not a lot of laws in Florida. I saw several people driving motorcycles, not one of them were wearing a helmet. Drivers using handheld devices while driving was rampant. Florida does not have a state wide prescription database so you can go to 5 doctors on the same day with the same pain symptoms and get a prescription for a narcotic each time and there is no barrier to stop you from getting all these filled at different pharmacies.

So, if Florida doesn't have all that many laws to enforce why did I see so much police?

If I was outside the resort, I would see a member of a law enforcement agency about every five minutes. There was city police, Sheriff's Department, and State Troopers everywhere. There was more police around than you see in the rough part of Winnipeg. 

All this got me thinking about the ideas of regulation and enforcement.

On the surface, it would be reasonable to think that if you have fewer laws to enforce, you should need fewer personnel to deliver the enforcement. This may not be the case after all. It may be possible to have more difficulty enforcing fewer laws because the general populous does not have a tendency to ensure they are in compliance. If ensuring you are compliant is the exception instead of the norm then it is more likely that it will not be the default position.

I'm not advocating more laws, rules, or regulations. Most jurisdictions have too many rules about things that just don't need to be regulated. However, good regulation can help mitigate bad decision making and there just seems to be a lot of that out there.

Some places it may be difficult to set up individuals to make good decisions. If you live in an under-regulated American state and you believe freedom means you can do what you want because nobody is going to tell you what to do, then it may be difficult to lead someone to good decision making. That being said, we need to move in that direction.

Nobody likes to be micro-managed. Everyone likes to feel like they have control of their life but, if you don't know how to make good decisions or you don't see the value in making good decisions for yourself and your community the cycle of bad decisions will continue.

Good decisions are built on the foundation of good knowledge. Good knowledge comes from education and experience. If we can get more people living in a paradigm of good decision making we will need less efforts in law enforcement and that can only be a good thing.

One of the great aspects of travel is it shows you how others do it, there is always something good to take away and always something from the not-so-good file. The more we mix things up, the better we will all be, and better decisions will result.

Foo

In my opinion, one of the greatest rock bands ever is The Foo Fighters. After the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, the drummer of Nirvana went into the studio to make an album. According to several interviews he really didn't know what would come of it. Twenty years later, one of the best bodies of work is still growing. That drummer's name is Dave Grohl and I think he is one of the most interesting people in the world.

For me, the turning point of Dave Grohl was many years ago when he appeared on the The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. He sang the Elton John song Tiny Dancer. I have a copy of the performance on my iPod and I never skip the song. It's just a guy strumming a guitar singing off the teleprompter but the honestly in the performance and the how he connected with the audience changed my opinion from just another rock star to someone connects through music.

The latest Foo Fighter project is called Sonic Highways. It's an album and more. The music is great. Attached to the music is an eight part HBO series where the band goes to a different city each episode, talks to some of the local musicians about the local scene and history. From these interviews they write and record each song from the interviews.

The episodes are riveting.

Not only is the series informative but as the series trailer says, it's love letter to American music. It would have been very cool to be a part of the making of the series. The raw honesty and reverence shown by the band as they enjoy the journey jumps off the screen.

Another cool part of this project is during the same week that the HBO episode airs, the band plays a small but important venue from that city. We are talking about cool places like the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and the Roxy in Los Angeles. Places that matter to music in the cities they stand in.

The Foo Fighters have sold a lot of albums and sold a lot show tickets. I'm sure they have a few extra bucks to take on ambitious and expensive projects. I know not every band out there could do this even if they want to. It's not that they can but that they do things like this. They let us in to see why they love music. Not everyone is prepared to let the public in.

You may not be a fan of The Foo Fighters, you may not have heard of them. That's okay. If you like music and want to see how some seemingly regular guys make it, I suggest you check out the HBO series Sonic Highways. It will grab your soul and not let go. It will make you love music even more. It will teach you something and capture your imagination. It will make you want to create something. It is that good.

I'll be honest, I really liked The Foo Fighters long before Sonic Highways but I find all this so inspiring. It is one of those projects that can change the way people see things. That doesn't come along everyday.

The Long Ribbon of Asphalt

I travel for my job and I make weekly trips to Belleville and Kingston, Ontario. It's a routine drive down freeway highway. There can be a lot of traffic but there is a median, on-ramps, and multiple lanes.

Starting a the beginning of November, regular trips to Sudbury, Ontario have been added to my tasks. Sudbury is about 500 kilometres away down a two-lane, undivided highway. This time of year, a lot of the trip happens at night. It is a very different experience from driving down the freeway.

As I was driving out to Sudbury, I started to think about a long two-lane highway through remote country. I grew up in a small town on the Canadian prairies, I have driven many miles down two-lane highways. Even with traffic all around you, I feel isolated. There are stretches where people don't really live. To access the highway, you simply drive up to the intersection and turn the way you want to go. It has a simplicity you don't experience on the freeway. It reminds me of home.

Although this lifeline for these communities is not at the state of the art, it is still well above a dirt cart path that was probably the first over-land route through this area. When you don't have the width and infrastructure of the freeway, it looks different as you drive between hills and through valleys.

The real key to enjoying a trip like this is to not be hung up on how long it is going to take you to get there. You will be held up by traffic. You will face some weather. You will lose time. However, I have satellite radio and music on my phone, synced to the car. I can find music that matches the mood and enjoy the drive. 

You probably won't be able to use the cruise control for a lot of the trip. For some reason a lot of people in Ontario don't embrace the magic known as cruise control and their speed varies greatly as they travel from place to place. Because you will get trapped behind slower moving traffic, you will have to disengage the cruise control and accept that you will be held up from time to time. 

All that being said, I am nostalgic for the feeling of driving down the two lane highway though vast wilderness. It takes me back to a simpler time and sometimes we need a bit of that in our life.