Sneaky Bugger

Okay, the suspense in this is better than ANY movie I think I've ever seen. I don't know how the person filming it could keep a straight face! I personally felt like running like hell from the cat!!! Creepy little bastard!
I'd be staying awake for a little while after this. lol

Sneaky Cat | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Is There A Doctor In The House?

Oh yes, now there will be.

After 2 freakin' years of having no "family physician" (read: someone that actually gives a crap about going through my chart and making sure I'm alive and kicking), I finally got one today.

My old, wonderful doctor decided to up and leave me about 2 years ago after he decided to go back to the military. In what way or for what reasons I never did ask, but let me tell you I seriously entertained enlisting just so I could still have a doctor.

So there I was, a Doctor O'Neill "orphan" as one of the other docs at my clinic used to call me when I came to see her on walk-ins. There's nothing quite like a walk-in clinic situation. Unless you're overtly hacking up a lung in the waiting room, the whispered, "I need to see a doctor" to the receptionist always made me feel a bit shady. I always wanted to whisper after saying that... "the itch is getting worse". lol

I kept targeting the same doctor at my clinic. If she was on walk-in, I'd go when she was there. If I had any outside testing done, when they ask who your family doctor is, I'd say I don't really have one, but you can send it to her. When the time came for yearly physicals, she'd take pity on me, being an "orphan" and all, and squeeze me in for the "speed grope" version. I really liked her. My age, no nonsense, and run off of her bloody feet every time I saw her.

Today, I lucked out. Prepared for the "speed grope" physical, I was surprised that she also came armed with a couple of forms, as she was now going to "properly" take me on as a patient. As sad as it was, I was freakin' elated!!! I felt like when I was done the paperwork, we should have honeymooned or something... at least had a smoke together. (Nevermind, that's right, I quit.)

Ontario's doctor shortage is ridiculous. I feel for the families with kids who have to rely on walk-ins to take care of them. I really do. I realize that I am very lucky, which is very sad.

I'd love to tell you all who she is, but she really isn't taking any new patients and I swear to god, she swore me to secrecy about even telling anyone. So I decided to post it on my blog. Haha. Ah well, you can't have her anyways.... she's mine, all mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it only took two years.



Flush.

A Really Big Thanks....

A really big thanks goes out to all of my team members for the Ottawa Humane Society's 20th Annual Wiggle Waggle Walkathon.

I am proud of each and every member of the Alta Vista Animal "HotPistols" for every cent we raised. And raise we did, to the tune of $7500.00.

The Ottawa Humane Society has been a passion of mine since working there, almost 10 years ago. That's where Squiggy came from, and where a big piece of my heart still stays. I will never forget what it's like to work there, how hard it is to deal with the scum of the earth day in and day out, and to do a job which you know will never get done. Will I raise money to support those staff and their efforts to help save animals? Hell yes.

To all who put up with my pestering, nagging, whining, badgering, begging and bullying each year when the walk comes around..... THANK YOU. I believe we are making a difference. We are setting the bar for other corporate teams as we now, for the first time ever, have real 'competition' for next year. ("Helter Shelter", we're gonna kick your asses again!!) :) This "competition", albeit friendly, is what an event like this needs though. It sets the wheels in motion, gets people thinking of how to raise some serious cash. Hell, I'm already trying to think of ways to break ten grand next year.

So once again, although I've now said it a million times, I really want to say thank you to everyone who helped us out. We truly are speaking "for those who cannot speak themselves". And we just keep getting louder.

:)

--->Shameless press release plug: http://www.ottawahumane.ca/walkathon/

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Just "Devestation" after "Devestation"

So, I was watching the news when I heard about the closure of the John Deere Welland (Dain City) plant. This is sad. I grew up in Welland and industry is all it has. Well, I should say had... there have been many losses, the latest of which is the local John Deere.

While browsing through the news articles, I found this one, which sadly, demonstrates another loss. The loss of the proofreader at the Welland Tribune. Geeeeezus people... you fucked up the title for the love of god!!!! Arrrrrrrrrrgh. Go figure.

I'm not quite sure how I came out of that city to be such a spelling Nazi... maybe I should have stayed to help. Hahahaha.


"Plant's closure devestating say local, federal and provincial politicians"
Posted By Allan Benner, Derek Swartz and Kaesha Forand/Tribune Staff
Posted 3 hours ago
Welland
The impact will be “devastating.”
The loss of 800 well-paying jobs at John Deere's Dain City plant will have a ripple effect on the city.
“When you lose these well paying jobs in the community, the community is going to suffer,” said Welland Mayor Damian Goulbourne.
Just as the momentum was building towards getting this city’s industry back on its feet, the pending closure of one of the city’s largest private-sector employers “is a real blow,” he said.
“We’re back in the summer of 2003 all over again. But this is even more devastating because it’s even more jobs,” he added.
But Welland, he added, “is a resilient community. It’s always able to find a way to overcome and keep its head above water.”
Goulbourne learned about the pending closure at about 3:30 p.m., Tuesday. A few minutes later, he said he was on the phone with the plant’s general manager, Donald DeBastiani.
“I think everyone’s pretty shaken up right now from the front line staff to the senior management.”
He said he was hoping the city could play a role in helping the company change its mind and remain in the city.
“I have offered. They can use city hall if need be to help lobby other levels of government, if that’s where some of the solutions lie,” he said.
“Also if there’s anything that we can do from the city’s perspective, I’ve offered them that assistance, but it seems from all the feedback that I’m getting that the decision’s been made. But that door’s open and that offers there.”
There isn’t much, however, the city can do. Goulbourne said the problem lies with the value of the Canadian dollar.
“That’s a big piece of this,” he said. “How is any city or province able to control that?”
Goulbourne said he has also contacted the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, which offered any assistance it could to help the displaced workers.
The workers, he added, are “my number one concern right now. ... Our focus is on this tragedy that has fallen upon our municipality and the families.”
This isn’t a recession, said Welland MPP Peter Kormos.
“When it’s a recession, you lose jobs but then you get most of them back when the recession’s over,” he said.
This is worse.
“This is globalization and free trade – thank you Mr. (Brian) Mulroney, thank you Mr. (Jean) Chrétien coming home to roost,” he said.
It’s not that there’s not market for the machinery being manufactured in Welland. It’s simply that it’s cheaper to manufacture that equipment in Mexico.
“This is the very same crisis that existed a year ago. It’s the continuation of manufacturing job losses in the province of Ontario. It’s confirmation. If people didn’t think there was a crisis before, well they’d better start to think there’s a crisis now.”
In the midst of the crisis, Kormos said both the provincial and federal governments have done nothing but “wring their hands and say I feel your pain.”
“Neither of those governments have a plan to retain those manufacturing jobs. Neither parliament is prepared to sit to debate it,” Kormos said. “To be fair, we haven’t heard any discussion about the manufacturing job losses at the federal parliament.”
Kormos said the New Democrats have been confronting Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty regarding the issue of manufacturing job losses since the October election, “trying to ring alarm bells and trying to have him understand that he has a responsibility to develop a plan to save those jobs.”
Kormos said the New Democrats called for the provincial legislature to be recalled as recently as three weeks ago, to allow the government to work towards developing a strategies that could help keep manufacturing plants open.
He said the New Democrat’s “Buy Ontario” policy is one plan that could have helped save those jobs.
The province should also be looking at developing an industrial hydro policy, as well as allowing tax credits for new investment and new products and better technology.
“None of that would cost the taxpayer very much, if anything at all. But all of that would go a long way towards saving some of these jobs.”
Welland’s Liberal MP John Maloney’s thoughts were with the workers. “They’ve just had the bottom fall out of their lives, quite frankly,” he said.
And the federal government, he added, should be doing whatever it can to assist those people, he added.
“John Deere has been an industry in the Niagara Region and Welland for decades and this is just a shock. It’s just shocking.”
Despite the global economic pressures, rising fuel costs, and lack of support from the federal government, he said he thought John Deere was “very stable.”
Thanks to the quality of the products they manufacture, and the skills of the company’s workers, he said John Deere seemed like a plant that would whether the troubles that have laid others to rest.
The fact that they couldn’t, he added, is even more troubling.
“That’s troubling as well that even the most stable industry could be vulnerable,” he said. “That’s very upsetting and disconcerting.”
Maloney is expecting the closure to have a “huge economic impact, not only to the immediate job losses, but to the spinoff jobs to the companies that supply John Deere. They themselves, as a necessity, will have to cutback their operations as well. This may lead to significant job losses. Throughout the region. It’s going to have a huge economic impact on this region.”
Meanwhile, the federal government has done little to help the situation for Ontario’s industries.
Maloney said Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and finance minister Jim Flaherty have spent the past two and a half years “delivering an anti-Ontario message to investors, and have neglected to support our struggling manufacturing industry.”
Maloney wrote a letter to the federal Conservatives less than a month ago expressing his concern about the lack of economic programs for the Niagara region and southwest Ontario, yet other programs to assist industry are available in other parts of the country.
“We’re a depressed area and we need help down here with a capital H. Frankly I don’t think the conservatives have any plan for our economy. In less than two years, they squandered a decade of economic growth and budget surpluses created by the previous Liberal government. That’s the reality.”
Maloney said he will continue to lobby the federal government for new programs “to help attract new industry and shore up existing industry. We cannot afford to lose major industrial plans like John Deere.”
In a media release, Maloney said “... Never have I seen such losses in Niagara. This is a huge loss for the city of Welland and the Niagara region. It is a profoundly sad day.”
Ward 1 Coun. Rick Alakas called the pending closure of John Deere “a huge loss. The first thing that I think of, unfortunately, are those workers and their families, and the impact that has on them.”
“But then you step back and take a breath and you realize just how large an impact this is going to have on the city of Welland and probably the region,” he said. “That’s 800 good paying jobs, wages and benefits that are gone immediately from the plant in November 2009, but then you start doing the multiplier. You realize for every person who’s earning a wage there, they’re spending money in the city of Welland or in other Niagara communities, never mind all the companies that are providing services to that facility. It’s a huge impact. Huge impact. It’s devastating.”
Although Alakas is also the president of CAW Local 523, which represents workers at Lakeside Steel and other employers, his local does not represent John Deere workers. But the same issues that led to plans to close John Deere are evident across Ontario – and Canada.
“This is what we’ve been talking about for some time now. Canadian manufacturing is under a huge threat,” he said. “We’ve lost well over 400,000 jobs in the last five years. We just set a record for 32,000 job losses in the month of July in Ontario alone.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said.
Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey was shocked by the announcement, the pain from which will be felt throughout the region.
“It’s in Welland and they get the (tax) assessment, but it directly affects Port Colborne,” he said shortly after hearing the news.
Badawey feels terribly for the 800 workers and their families. But he said the closure presses home the point that Niagara needs help from provincial and federal governments to create a level playing field
“This is becoming too chronic in Niagara. Blows like this – whether it’s General Motors or John Deere – are regional blows.”
On August 25 the mayor asked Port Colborne city council to consider a motion calling on the provincial and federal governments to extend economic development programs to Niagara such as those that exist in northern and eastern Ontario.
Even before the John Deere closure Niagara had the lowest median income of any census metropolitan are in Ontario.
“I hope (the closure) gets the attention of the provincial government, the minister of economic development and cabinet itself,” he said.
Wainfleet Mayor Barb Henderson also did not have advance warning of the announcement and was left reeling by the latest body blow to Niagara’s manufacturing sector. She echoed Badawey’s concern for the families directly affected.
She said the region has to look at working to come up with solutions to help Niagara’s disappearing manufacturing base.
“I don’t know what the answer is but we need to look at it regionwide,” she said.
The agricultural community of Wainfleet is familiar with the famous green machinery and equipment produced by John Deere.
“News of the plant closure comes as a shock to us. It certainly isn’t something we anticipated. I know a lot of Wainfleet residents work at John Deere due to its close proximity to Wainfleet,” said Wainfleet CAO Scott Luey.
“We’ll be sad to see them leave,” the Niagara area.

The link to the above article... http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1182209&auth=Allan%20Benner,%20Derek%20Swartz%20and%20Kaesha%20Forand/Tribune%20Staff

Anyway, it all makes me sad. *sigh*



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