Marven Whidden Simply Put

Toronto through the eyes of a mobiler

It's nice to see a company promoting their product to the general public, even better to let the user sample such product before we have to pay for it. Case in point, Samsung.

Every year, Samsung creates a street team called the "Mobilers". They do this in almost every territory they operate in. To date, more than 600 people have been through the program. Stripped down to it's basics, the program gives people the opportunity to be given a technological toy (in this case, the well known Galaxy Tab) and be assigned to exploit it on a number of missions set by Samsung.  With financial incentives, along with a grand prize which happens to be a trip to London to be Canada's official torchbearers at the 2012 Olympics.

Most of you will remember my friend Joel Lightman, who wrote the theme song to Genny's election campaign last year.  He was fortunate enough to be chosen as a Samsung Mobiler and has come up with something very unique for one of his missions. This mission has the team promoting the city in which they live, Toronto in Joels case. They will be competing against cities such as Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

Using all the application functionality provided by the device they had been given, his team hit the streets. Rather than do a typical old boring "Tourism Toronto" type video, they decided to spice it up a little. This is where you come in, by watching this video.

After all, everyone knows Toronto is the best city in the world.

Generals stumble out of the gate

 
In a year where the Oshawa Generals were supposed to contend for the OHL title and possibly a shot at the Memorial Cup, the season hasn't started out as planned. The 2-5 Generals currently sit in 7th place in the Eastern Conference.

I know you don't win the cup in October, but you can either help or hurt your chances and this years team has stumbled out of the gate lame. I also realize that we are missing 2 players still trying out for the pros, but every team has that situation.

Last years scoring powerhouse Christian Thomas has three goals in six games, two of those goals coming in last nights loss against Windsor. Did he return to the Generals upset about not making the Rangers, is he hurt? I hope for him and his team he picks his game up to where he left off, or any chance of making the WJC this December will be out the window.

When you include the likes of Boone Jenner, Nicklas Jensen and Lucas Lessio, this team should be burning out the oppositions red light on a consistent basis. Can Kevin Baile get the job done in net, or do we rest our hopes on a 17 year old who never played in the OHL before?

It is obvious we need help on the back end, or should coach DePiero need to be held accountable for this team sinking the way it has?

One thing about the OHL is there is a quick turn over when it comes to being your year. If this is our year and were playing like this, I can't imagine the next few seasons.

Committee controversy, imagine that

I knew there was going to be some kind of controversy with the selection process to the EFW-WMAC advisory committee. I wrote in a previous blog that I was informed late in the afternoon that I was appointed to this committee. I didn't include that it was subject to approval from council. I didn't feel that was relevant as all decisions must be approved.

I received a few comments to the previous blog, which I normally do not comment on, but will for this. One comment talked about back room dealings. I have no idea how the people who were chosen came to be. Truth be told, if the other three people who were appointed walked past me I would have no idea who they are, I wasn't in charge of selecting the committee. As for how and why these citizens were chosen, you will have to ask those that did the choosing.

It was questioned how could I be informed when it wasn't passed at council. I find this to be a rather odd question considering the names were brought forward in a public meeting, and anyone attending this meeting could have called me to tell me who was selected. Since the question was raised I will answer it. I E-mailed someone who was in attendance and asked who was appointed, that is how I knew. No controversy there.

Another comment suggested that I was only nominated at the GP&A meeting, not appointed. If the person who commented had read the minutes from that meeting they would have seen the word appointment was appropriate.

Moved by Councillor Neal, seconded by Councillor Traill
THAT the foregoing Resolution #GPA-586-11 be amended to delete the word
"appointed" in paragraph 2 and replace it with the word "nominated"; and
THAT the process be amended to allow each Council Member to appoint up to four
nominees and Members vote for their preferred four nominees from the list, with the four
applicants with the most votes being nominated.
MOTION LOST

I understand that some people who applied and were not appointed would be upset, this is life. This committee must be allowed to do the work it was appointed to do, rather than have to answer to questions that they had no control over.

Horrible tragedy

 
There probably was some consoling last night as men on their way home passed by the seen of a horrible tragedy. A beer truck had lost some of it's load. Apparently late last night in Oshawa, a beer truck swerved to avoid hitting a van at an intersection.

The resulting corrective action caused approximately 40 cases of beer to fall off the truck.

I am not sure where this beer truck driver received their driver training from, but in my opinion, they should have nudged the van if they could have done so without any bodily harm to the driver. Countless hours of work from those beer workers should not have been left laying on the road.

This incident didn't cause nearly the interruption of traffic which one would have thought, according to police. The reason for the delay to reopen the intersection was waiting for wives to come and pick their husbands up.

Need something to line your bird cage with?

It seems as though a local paper in Oshawa has brought forward a complaint about local councillor Bruce Wood purchasing a new car. They try to link Mr Woods purchase of a Cadillac to integrity when making decision on city matters, I personally don't see the connection.

Why anyone would care about what type of vehicle a councillor would buy is beyond me, other than to cause some type of controversy when there is clearly none. Whether Mr Woods was driving a Cadillac or a VW bug, he receives the same mileage allowance, so nothing there.

This all started when failed candidate Barry Dunton wrote to councillor Wood questioning his purchase as "in poor taste in consideration of economic times"

Maybe Bruce Wood knows how to manage his money and through smart investments was able to buy such a beautiful car. Maybe he won the lottery, my point is who cares, this is such a non-issue.

Funny thing is the paper that reported this is a very useful paper, if you have a pet bird and need to line it's cage.

EFW advisory committee

Yesterday afternoon I was informed that I had been appointed to the EFW-WMAC advisory committee. People have since asked what that is and why would I want to be on such a committee. Allow me first to say that I am very humbled to have been chosen to sit on this committee, as there were 14 well deserved people in the running.

To answer the first question, I will simply refer to the ad which was posted in Clarington This Week. 

 Waste Management Advisory Committee (EFW -WMAC) will act in an advisory role to the Durham Works Committee on issues or concerns which arise with waste diversion, waste management, environmental performance and monitoring of the EFW Facility, including the construction and operational phases.

The second answer to why I would want to be part of this is simple. Why not!
I understand and am quite aware of the issues surrounding the incinerator, and one thing I know for a fact is, it's here to stay. So why wouldn't I want to learn and advise council and the region on recommendations to ensure this is run as clean as possible?

Another thing is I believe I have the ability to make an opinion based on fact, and not hearsay. Will I believe everything I am told? Let's put it this way, I am one of those people that trust, but verify.

I will update the good people of Clarington and Durham as soon as I have more information to pass along.

Living free is the best way to honour our troops

 
Sometimes things that seem so simple get blown out of proportion. Take the case of Mike Sullivan who was promised a banner recognizing his sons efforts for serving in Afghanistan by the former mayor of Clarington. The banner was never hung as a lack of hardware was not available, even though such hardware could have been purchased at any hardware store, Home Depot or Canadian Tire.

Although I am not 100% positive, I don't believe the town owns the pole in which Mr Sullivan wants it raised on, I believe these poles to belong to the local electrical distribution company.

Now the former mayor writes to Clarington council accusing them of an unnecessary delay in raising this banner. He never did discuss why as mayor, he couldn't accomplish this matter in an appropriate time frame. Using the excuse of a lack of hardware should only satisfy himself.

This matter is a touchy one as there isn't a person out there who doesn't want to honour those that served, and are still serving. Personally, if such a banner was presented to me, I would have purchased a flag pole and had it proudly displayed on my front lawn.

Current mayor Adrian Foster now finds himself in an unwanted position as this matter has bloomed to unnecessary attention and speculation. He makes a strong point, if we do it for one, how can we not do it for others.

I am positive this will work out in the end as the municipality is also looking towards how to honour all troops, both serving and who have served. In my opinion, this is something we do each and every day by living our life as free citizens, after-all, isn't this why we went there to begin with?

Green party feeling the blues

What is an election lately without someone complaining about unfairness? Like the last Federal election, the provincial election has upset the Green Party from being left out of the one and only scheduled leaders debate, big deal.

How is it that a party who has no seats believe they should be invited to the big dance?
Independent candidates are not invited, and to say because you're running a candidate in every riding gives you status, well, I don't think so.

To further state you're running second in two riding's only proves you shouldn't be there. Don't get me wrong, they have some solid ideas, but unfortunately some isn't enough. What about health care, taxes, jobs and not just green jobs. You can't run this province on windmills alone when it comes to electricity, its not feasible.

The squeaky wheel doesn't always get the grease, but hard work and perseverance will pay off in the end. If there is one member of the Green Party elected this October, then they should have a place in the debate, but that is still four years away.   

They're off!

Now that the election is officially under way, who has the edge?

I believe this is going to be an interesting election, one that is going to be hard to predict, although I will say it here that I think it will be a PC minority Government with the NDP as official opposition.

There are so many questions that will be answered on Oct 6th, such as have people had enough of Dalton and his no new taxes? Is Tim Hudak a Mike Harris clone? Can Andrea Horwath play the Jack Layton card to gather votes?

who gets your vote?

Unofficial end to summer

Even though the calendar says it will be summer until late September, we all know the unofficial date to the end of summer is this coming weekend. And that just sucks. The nights are cooler which is great for sleeping, but most of us have air conditioning to combat the heat at night.

The days are getting shorter, leaves are starting to die and the mornings are cool and crisp. Children are being taken by their parents for back to school shopping and the corn is at it's peak, who wants this?

Who doesn't like to walk outside wearing next to nothing or at least see all the pretty women wearing next to nothing? Sure there are people who ski that want colder temperatures, but they need to get over that, maybe try water skiing.

I suppose we will still receive some warm days, but they will mostly be found during weekdays when people are at work. May and most of June were not the warmest months for us in these parts with all the rain we received. July and August have been spectacular, but is that it for us, two months of warm weather out of twelve?

As a Canadian I am entitled to gripe and complain but I guess I should get over the fact that soon, and very soon, the parkas and toques will be coming out of storage. Guess at the end of the day there is only one thing left to say....Hockey!!!