Zeus The Zebra Dog

Isn't this cool!! A dog, Zeus (one of Mavis' her dogs), painted like a Zebra. This a feature Hollywoof Grooming Parlor also offers: Creative Grooming. Zeus is an American Eskimo who got accidentally shaven by a incapable groomer a couple of years ago. She decided to do something funny and got great response when walking him. Zeus is also know as Zeubra. He roams the Hollywoof Parlor every day and could well generate business, as the customers respond enthusiastic. To have your dog painted like this is yet another step but might well be very successful in the future as any design can be considered depending on the breed.

First 2011 breakfast outside.

At last we had a breakfast outside this morning. Rain, wind and above all mosquitoes kept us from sitting outside. Just this morning there was enough wind to keep the buggers away from our deck, so we grabbed the opportunity. Bottom left you see Riley, an American Eskimo, we saved from the shelter where his previous owner would have taken him; just because the breed is somewhat hard to handle. Joka could not stand that, hence Riley got a new home. Chances are we end up with a couple more, time will tell. At least he is adapting real nice now he knows he has a caring home and Fox needed a matey to play with and above all to boss around. And believe me he does; especially when food of whatever kind or size is involved he accepts nothing from Riley. Even an empty plastic (environment friendly :-) ) bag, when we unpack groceries, Riley is not allowed to come close to.
In case you are wondering about the grass; the JD STX38 lawnmower broke down, I ordered a new JD 1023 but I'm still waiting like in 2 weeks. Needless to say I'm starting to get pissed off. I ordered a JD for a reason: it's locally (reed North America) manufactured, given the current economic situation this is not more than logical to me. But if they don't deliver? Go to the .......?

Vancouver Riots, interesting read.

Following is a letter of apology from Tim Kwong, a rioter, who turned himself in to the Police. Following this is an awesome response from a nurse working the E.R. at St. Paul’s:

A Letter of Apology to Vancouver and Family and Friends

Hey Everyone ! The status is : I Turned myself in to the VPD today at 12pm I am now being charged on 4 counts. I am Truly Sorry for what i have done !!! I have no excuse for my actions during the Riot. To my Friends, Family, Coworkers, and of course all of Vancouver and BC i am SORRY for what i have done. I would like to say on my behalf that I LOVE VANCOUVER ! I’ve been Born n Raised here all my life !! and that This Town means everything to me !!! again i understand that my actions caused did not show any of that ! But i hope you one day see that i do care about this town and my friends n family and this is NOT like me !! I am ashamed at what i have done, I know i may never gain the respect of this town again. But I PROMISE that i will do whatever i can to make this up !! I am a big believer in Cleaning up your mess !! I WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to make things right ! I hope this will incite some of the other rioters to do the right thing and turn themselves in !!!! I will do whatever it takes to help out and clean this town up and do what i can to prevent actions like this from ever happening in our town again. I know I deserve all the hate ! but please be respectful and don’t hate on any of my friends or family or co workers since these actions are only caused by ME and ME only !!!! Again SORRY VANCOUVER ! SORRY BC !!

 The below letter by Nurse J.J. was in response to Tim Kwong’s apology:

Tim,

Just because you can string an apologetic sentence together does not mean you are sorry. Perhaps I should make you aware of the consequences of your action. To you, it’s just an overturned car that you set on fire. To me, it’s walking into an overflowing ER and helping treat a girl with a severe asthma attack because she was exposed to the noxious, acrid smoke of a burning vehicle. To her, it was just a chance to be a part of a group cheering for her team. Little did she know that later on, we were thinking of sticking a breathing tube down her throat if her condition did not improve.

To you (yes, I am lumping you with all the douche bag rioters in the ER that night) it’s a chance to congregate in the ER waiting room, pounding on the triage window demanding to be seen for teargas exposure and cuts from looting and fighting, while posturing and bragging about how you kicked the crap out of somebody and smashed shit up. To me, it’s taking my time away from the little old quiet lady having chest pain or taking time away from the person you “shit-kicked” for trying to stop the looting.

To you, it’s just a fight. To me, it’s the ER social worker looking for a teddy bear to console a 4 year old girl because she just witnessed her dad get a broken nose as he was trying to get his daughter out of the hot zone.

To you, it’s writing a letter saying “you will do whatever it takes to help clean the city.” To me, it’s walking home after a long shift and seeing all these people at 7:30 in the morning armed with garbage bags cleaning up YOUR mess and realizing that these people have more class in their pinky finger than you could ever muster in your whole life.

  To me, it’s getting home to shower, only to have my elderly neighbor knock on my door and ask me if he should make an appointment with his doctor because he was experiencing shortness of breath which later turned to chest pain in the morning. He did not think about leaving his window open as he went to bed at 9 o’clock. The smoke from all the burning cars made it to our building, into his room and triggered his asthma, which then raised his heart rate, which then became a small heart attack.

   I asked him why he didn’t go to the ER, and he answered, “I turned on the tv this morning and saw the rioting, I did not want to be a burden.” To you, it’s just an overturned car that you set on fire.

  Why am I blaming you for all this?  Because you are the instigator. You ask people to leave your family, friends and co-workers alone?!  I think they need to know how much of a colossal douche you are. Remember that your parents worked themselves to the bone so they can move to this country and give you your god-given right to flip cars over and set them on fire.

You, Tim Kwong, are a Douchtard.  Apology not accepted.

Alberta job market goes from recovery to growth

‘It has taken quite some time, but employment in Alberta has finally returned to its pre-recession glory’At least that's what the Edmonton Journal says, read here. It kind of makes sense with the rumors I hear, but does not, yet, translates to big projects floating in. The big engineering firms in Calgary are loading up engineers by the hundreds. Last week I talked to one; they all got a 10% pay-raise but a lot of them still do the walk-about, to the competition, for a couple of $$ more. So if they are busy; we should be getting busy also, right? We will see what happens.
Basically I am a happy camper, if I look at Europe I do not see it coming back online any time soon; as I had expected Italy is next, add Portugal and Greece to the equation and you see what I mean. So our decision to go in 2008 was and is a good one. Cheers.

Off they go

Off They Go.......

Collection Gone

Today I reduced our so called collection by 2 vehicles. We were fed up with them and someone at Trailblazer RV advised me to put them on www.kijiji.ca (sort of marktplaats.nl) for not too much money. Believe it or not but both were sold within 5 hours after publication. So this morning two happy people left our property, leaving behind a couple of $$ and another happy person. Getting the RV on the new owners truck was a bit of work but in the end we succeeded. The F250 was picked up by Cliff's Towing from Leduc; clearly he had done this before because he was was done in 20 minutes. Glad they are gone, putting an end to a stupid buy in the first place. But everybody is entitled to do something stupid every once and while, right.

Hollywoof Opened

On June 26th 2011 Hollywoof opened it's door to the public. We had a Grand Opening with a celebrity dog from Edmonton. Response was great, especially the colors people are appreciating; they are happy colors. The first week was really good, almost 100% booked. If it continues this way it will really take off. People are walking in telling they have been waiting anxiously for us to open as the location is very convenient to them. Word of mouth is already doing it's thing as the last couple of days potential customers are referred to us by our new customers. M&D and Waiward employees will receive a 10% discount, something I still have to set up and announce company wide. Friends of us build the counter for free, awesome.
So after almost 2 months of hard work by us and all the professionals we are in business and things are looking good. The $$ poored in and hopefully we will see a good return and is expansion not that far away, one thing I learned the last couple of years: "Think Big".  Most importantly Mavis and Joka are happy and smiling again. That's good. And the cake on the picture, baked by Mavis' her sister, tasted very good.