OECTA Retirement Dinner

Thursday night was the annual OECTA retirement dinner.  Shelley was out of town at her annual arts conference. My date was Katie Brown and I think she enjoyed seeing her Dad's retirement. I travelled with Larry, Lorraine, and Katie to the Tudour Hall.  It was quite a nice affair with the usual meet and greet followed by dinner, introduction of retirees, the requisite retirement award and a very nice piece of artwork. Larry and I were not sure about attending but we were happy that we did.

Monday is a milestone day as I will have 20 days of work left.  The Board has hired my replacement and I start training him on Monday.  That will seem a little weird.

My son Jordan flies in late Monday night and Jaime arrived Thursday for our retirement Mass and party at the Board office.  It will be followed by an intimate get together at Bill Fox's house.

Jim

Lots of Welcomes

Today I received many welcomes from the staff at Taylors.  Jim Leonard, the principal,  has sent the new recruits' emails to the existing staff and they have been most welcoming. I was quite happy to see a couple of staff members blogging about their experiences at Taylors and in Malaysia. At times you start to second guess your decisions and it's really nice to hear about, and from, the staff at the front of the classrooms.

The students really sound too good to be true. Shelley and I have been out of the classroom for some time (current roles of consultant and coordinator) and always planned on going back to the classroom to finish off our careers and look forward to working with Taylor's students.

The advice around accommodation, internet connections, telephones, has been wonderful.

Shelley and I can't wait to arrive.  See you soon ....

Jim

Retirements

We finally have Larry's retirement party setup for Pius X on June 16th from 3:30 - 6:00 pm.  Father Lunney is saying Mass at 4:30 and that will be followed by a meet and greet with his highness (King Louie) before he leads the royal procession off to the Prescott Hotel for meatball sandwiches and beer.  I seem to remember he said something about no speeches ...

Shelley and I are hoping to have a retirement/farewell to the Board on June the 4th.  That should work out well as Father Tom is back from Rome on the 1st and he will be saying mass in the Board Chapel.  My son Jordan will be back from Vancouver and Jaime will be driving from Kingston.  I would like the opportunity to thank the Board for the wonderful opportunities I have had over the past 30 years so I hope they let me have a microphone. Afterwards Bill Fox is hosting a farewell party at his house for Shelley and I.

Basketball is pretty much over for the year.  Coach Brown and I probably coached our last game together.  It was an exciting affair as we lost in overtime but I would like the record to read that it was Coach Brown's loss as he had the head coach seat this time around. The game was the Catholic 7/8 All-Stars vs the public board All-Stars. They were a great group of young ladies!

I haven't decided whether or not to sell my motorcycle.  If I had a crystal ball and I knew I would be gone for 2 or 3 years I would sell it and buy something new when I got back.  However I don't so I will probably keep it. It's a great ride, able to break every speed limit in Canada in 1st gear :-)

Malaysia seems to have mostly scooters and I don't do scooters.

The coach's banquet is coming up in 2 weeks and that is always fun as Larry and I are charter members (free beer) as we are past winners. It's one of the most precious awards I have won in my educational career. We also have the Frank Ryan anniversary party coming up this weekend and I get to see many of the educators I started out teaching with in the early 80's.  The OECTA retirement party is on the 28th of May which caps off a very busy month.

Shelley and I are also having dinner with John and Jill McGrath on the 30th.  It will be our last reality check before committing to the Far East, as if that is an option now :-)

Jim

Back in Ottawa

I arrived back in Ottawa at 5 pm to a cold wet windy day.  When I left Vancouver it was a beautiful sunny morning.  I think I chased the bad weather east. During the flight I watched the movie "Grand Torino" starring Clint eastwood.  Highly recommended for 'guys'!

My daughter Jaime picked me up at 5 pm and we headed home to a wonderful meal prepared by Arnita, Shelley's sister who had been house and dog sitting for the past week. Many thanks.

This week is a busy basketball week with MDP bball tryouts on Monday, all-star practices on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the All-star game at Ottawa University on Thursday.

Jim

Why I hate banks

I seem to have a love-hate relationaship with banks. I love their business model but hate their client relationship or lack thereof. Colleen did get the money order out on time to Purolator who subsequently put it on the wrong truck.  Just goes to show what happens when a good company gets bought by the government.  Purolator is now run by the same folks who gave us our postal system! We eventually got someone to admit they messed up and the delivery would not happen until Monday (we fly back to Ottawa Saturday) even though we paid for next day delivery (Friday).  Fedex and UPS are much better than Purolator in my experience.  Shelley eventually arranged for the wayward envelope to arrive back at the Purolator depot and we drove to Burnaby to pick it up.

Success at last we thought.  The money order was payable to Jordan so off we went to deposit it into his RBC account and ask for another draft payable to the person that Jordan is buying the truck from.  However when the teller (who was most helpful) went off to the next person up the ladder, she came back saying she would have to freeze the funds for up to 5 days.  I questioned why they thought the credit union money order was not good and she said it could be a fake. At that point I almost lost it but the responsible idiot was out of sight by that time. I asked the teller if Jordan and I were not good clients of good standing and she said yes we were.  I then asked if we looked the type to come in with a fake credit union money order.  We were going nowhere with this.  Well it turned out Jordan had $4500 in his chequing account and I had $6,300 in my chequing account so  we used that money for the new $10,000 draft for the truck and they charged me $6.30 for the new draft. 

At this point it was too good to pass up so I asked why the big charge and the teller said because the bank was guaranteeing the funds :-) Just for fun I said, "Can the seller take this guaranteed draft and deposit it into his bank account and access it right away?" and she said probably not, they would have to call that branch and verify the draft was good (i.e. not a fake).  If this sounds kind of cyclical then you are thinking the way I am.  Drafts are a waste of time and money.  I then asked if my 20 year old son asked for $10,000 cash if that would create a problem with a money laundering question the teller stated they would not feel comfortable handing out $10,000 in cash to him. You have to love the business model.

I was a branch administration officer with the Royal Bank early on in my professional career and that 60 minute discourse reminded me why I quit.

So now we are back in our hotel room, mission almost accomplished.  We came to Vancouver to put Jordan's life back together.  His body is healing.  He needs a car to get to his two part-time jobs and that transaction should happen about 8 pm tonight.  Get this, once we get the papers in exchange for the draft we go over to the "London Drugs" store to pay for his insurance and get his license plates.  Go figure, in Quebec you can buy beer and wine in corner stores and in B.C. you can buy auto insurance and plates in a drug store.  Ontario get with the program!

We have to get ready for dinner as we are going out for supper with Lauren's family (Jordan's girlfriend) to say thank you for the loving care he received from them over the past week. It was much appreciated!!!!

Jim

Some Progress

Jordan went to the doctors today and his stitches were removed. They were begining to bug him so it was good they came out. He also seemed to have much more energy today.  We then visited an insurance company recommended to us by Lauren's dad. The company was much better than the one Jordan was using and we found out that his blemish free driving record in Ontario should have been applied to his B.C. insurance except the other company was too lazy to request the info from the Ontario companies.  The good news is that he will be able to afford collision on his new vehicle that we hope to buy tomorrow night (Friday) before we fly home on Saturday morning.  Jordan will be buying a 2003 Ford Sports Trak pickup truck that he feels quite safe in.

Colleen of the Ottawa Credit Union was quite helpful in Purolating out a draft for $10,000 to enable Jordan to complete the purchase before we leave.

We still have not been able to make contact with the RCMP officer who has yet to return our phone calls.  So much for the legendary Canadian police force!!! We will leave that problem in the capable hands of Virginia, our local ICBC contact who is also trying to get the report out of teh officer.

My daughter Jaime is back from Orlando and working as the Queens camp supervisor for the summer. Apparently the Orlando graduation trip was a big hit with the 4 girls.  Next up is her actual graduation ceremony in a couple of weeks.

Jim

In Vancouver

I flew out to Vancouver on Tuesday and arrived at 8 pm anxious to see Jordan.  He was waiting at the baggage claim and I gave him a big hug.  One side of his face was still quite swollen but his gash was cleaned up considerably and looks more like 3 inches than 5 and is in a good place (if scars can be in a good place) so the ladies shouldn't mind it :-) He is still on medication as his teeth and the side of his face still hurt.

Jordan is also quite nervous in a vehicle which is quite unlike him as he also rides a 1000 cc motorcycle quite competently.  I imagine this anxiety will diminish over time. I did get a good sleep Tuesday night, having finally seen my son is recovering nicely.

Wednesday was a busy day. We started off at ICBC (BC goverment insurance) where we saw his Volvo and cleaned it out.  It looked like Jordan had been living out of his car as there was so much 'Stuff' in it. The good news is his Ipod and MacBook were working.  I ordered him a new Blackberry and Rogers was quite accomodating as they gave me the same hardware update price I had used when I had bought Jordan his Blackberry at Christmas. We took pictures of his car and I will be posting them as soon as I get time.

We still have not managed to make contact with The RCMP officer and neither has ICBC. That is a major holdup as we are hoping to get some money for Jordan's vehicle from the insurance of the other driver. In the meantime Jordan and I went truck shopping. Turned out that there aren't many people trading in or selling their good 5 year old trucks in this economy but we did find a nice 2003 Ford Sports Trac that was in our price range.  All we need now is to get hold of the RCMP officers accident report.

Later on in the day Jordan and I went to his places of work to talk to his bosses and tell them when he would be back to work.  His next dental appointment is this coming Wednesday so he plans to start working next Friday.  The basketball coaches he works with as an intern coach with the Vancouver Titans simply wonderful as is the facility they play out of.

The next 2 days should see a truck purchased and all the legalities taken care of.  If that gets done then we can fly back to Ottawa relieved that Jordan's life is back on track.

Jim

Provincial Midget Girls Bball

After our best week of practice we came out and played our biggest stinker of the year. Go figure, sometimes it just does not make any sense. Saturday's game was much better and we played 3 superb quarters of basketball and went into the 4th quarter up 12 points.

Well we managed to get outplayed 18-4 in the 4th which was a bit of a disappointment but it is not like we have not done that before this year. If the game was only 24 minutes long we would be Div 1 champs. Again, go figure. However I was not unhappy with our performance and we had some really nice comments about our play from other coaches.

The 3rd game was an easy blowout for us and we won by a comfortable 15 points. Afterwards we headed out for dinner at east Side Marios. I decided to tell the young ladies that I would not be back coaching them next year as I would be on the other side of the world for a year. I will miss them as they are a wonderful group of individuals, all with their own personal charm. They should do well in life :-)

Mike and I headed home afterwards as I wanted to get some information on my son Jordan who was hit head on late Thursday night by a drunk driver. His car (Volvo thank goodness) was totalled and he had to be cut out of it. He isn't as pretty any longer as he will have a 5 inch scar on his chin and neck and has to have some dental work done. However, nothing that won't heal and we are thankful he will be alright. He is most upset that his Blackberry and Ipod both flew through the window into the oncoming pickup truck. Too bad they did not end up impaled in the drunk driver!

Monday night is full circle as Larry and I have tryouts for our Board's 7/8 all star team. That event was what got me started coaching the Kanata girls. Hopefully 5 of them will come out and help Larry and I with the drills and selections which would complete the cycle.

It's all good.

Coach Dale