If you had not heard, I decided during finals to purchase a house and took possession less than a week ago. I’ve had my eye on the property for a while and had previously lived here for three school terms so I’m very familiar with it. The sale came together very quickly and I was a little overwhelmed by all the details that needed to be worked out. Dealing with the real estate brokers, lawyers, and the bank was confusing, as it was the first time I purchased a house, but my parents assisted me through the process (my dad is a manager for Ontario Realty Corporation) and I’m pleased with the result.

I got an excellent deal for financing, 4% interest rate (Prime minus .75%) because rates are so low currently. The Bank of Canada has lowered rates by 100 basis points over their last two scheduled dates. I decided to go with a 5-year variable rate mortgage (amortized over 25 years) and take a little risk. A fixed one would have been at 5% and with the slowing economy and inflation under control (in Canada at least) interest rates are likely to remain stable or be lowered. When I got it the mortgage it was 4.5% and it is already at 4%; I’ll track the rates and after three years (about the length of time I plan on holding it) I’ll evaluate if it was a good decision or not. I’m also doing bi-monthly payments to also help reduce the interest I need to pay.

Overall I think it is a good investment. I’m renting to three people and living there so the rent I collect will pay my mortgage and other costs so I’ll live rent free for the next few years (saving thousands of dollars) and when I sell the house I should make a profit given the appreciation of the house and the amount being paid into the mortgage after the interest. Of course I need to deduct lawyer fees and other costs, but the recent trends indicate that the value should increase. With improvements to the area such as the iXpress and the universal bus pass for students (I can’t believe I’m pleased with the UPass but it makes my property more valuable for renting) where one of the stops is only 1 minute walk away, I should have no problem renting. In fact I have tenants committed for roughly the next two years. I was able to transfer leases from the previous landlord, which also made the deal more appealing; less work for me.

In other news, I am officially not a student councillor or board member for Feds as of May 1st. I’m also no longer a member of the Student Services Advisory committee and the only official position I have is Genius Bowl director for EngSoc (to be held on May 26th!). I’ll now have lots of time to work on other things and Waller and I will be starting up an Optimist International club on campus. It will be different being on the other side of the room for IAC asking for approval instead of giving it. I found it intriguing this last term when people claimed my work in Feds was only to a) pad my resume, and/or b) practice for being a real politician. For the jobs I apply for, employers care more about my technical experience at NRCan, Nemak (Ford), and GM than the volunteer mention Feds gets on the second page of my resume. As well, I said I don’t plan on being a politician, either a Feds Executive, or elsewhere. I don’t have any interest in that form of public service.

Right now I believe there are 3 vacancies for engineering councillors. I feel no obligation to help fill them. For the most involved people, you get very little out for the work you put it. I don’t know how Councillor/Director/Governor/FOC Neal does it. He should have won either the President’s Circle award or the Feds Leadership award but instead he didn’t even get a piece of council gear or a meal at the end of the year. Volunteer appreciation severely lacks at Feds and along with apathy it is not surprising why 8 council seats remain unfilled. There is also a definite lack of empowerment. If I ever have a problem I’ll go straight to Chris, Justin, Del, Andreas, or Andrew. The fact is that my representatives are inexperienced (due to the fact of being new to council). It looks like only three councillors have previously served a full year on Feds.

So for now I’m going to focus on school and catch up on my growing book shelf of unread books. On Justin’s advice, I believe the next book I’ll read will be Rawls’s Theory of Justice to be quickly followed by Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

Currently Listening to: Still Alive – Jonathan Coulton

Random Wikipedia Article: Dulce et Decorum Est

The place that I do get the most spam from is through my Feds email. I’d say that 90% of my email spam comes from that account. I was getting some through this domain’s email but I turned it off until I decide how I will deal with it. Mike uses a form on his site for contact, maybe I (and probably Feds) should do something similar (with a captcha of course). The only real email to my Feds account was sent to all councillors, and it should be stated that they can reach everyone by posting to the Council list. Then maybe they can just have a link to UWDIR for if they do only want to contact one councillor and we can save the Feds IT guy time making email accounts that change often. Oh yeah, I see that Feds has a new design for the site. I guess this is a good time to change over before the next term where there will be a flood of traffic to find Del’s number to complain about Health and Dental plan opt-out…

Natalie was complaining last night that I haven’t posted in a while. I haven’t been feeling too well this term, though I’m sure a change of environment will help with that. Maybe living alone in a cold basement in Oshawa wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made. Either way, this is my last week in Oshawa and I will be flying to Thunder Bay for 2 weeks on Saturday and then back to Waterloo on the 5th to start my term as a pretend Arts student. I haven’t been back since last Christmas and from what I hear, much hasn’t changed. Apparently the Golf Dome has been replaced. Thrilling.

Currently Listening to: It’s Beginning to Get to Me – Snow Patrol

Random Wikipedia Article: Bill C-60

Tonight are the premieres of both House and Boston Legal, my two most favourite dramas currently on TV. I only have watched the occasional episode of Boston Legal since The Practice ended but I really got hooked on it recently. I’m still catching up on past seasons so I’m hesitant to watch the new season.

For those who enjoy internet memes, I’ve been enjoying ‘lolsecretz‘. It’s a mash up of Lolcats/I can has cheezburger? and PostSecret.

I’ve been blogging about the Ontario General Election and if you’d rather just read those posts you can go to jeffaho.com/election. Feel free to post a topic if you’d like me to talk about it or comment on existing topics. For more election coverage go to pulse.feds.ca/election.

I guess it is noteworthy that the Canadian dollar hit parity with the US dollar last week. It makes it more tempting to visit Boston for the Thanksgiving weekend, though I may just go to Ottawa instead. It has been a while since I’ve been back (hmm…I can’t recall when I was back since I moved away almost 2 1/2 years ago).

Currently Listening to: Smooth – Santana

Random Wikipedia Article: Cohiba

Part of this process is getting a variety of topics off my list that I’ve been meaning to mention, but have neglected. Some are comments on news, some are mini rants, some are just topics that have been on my mind. I’ll warn you that this is going to be eclectic, as tying up loose ends can be, but no one is forcing you to read them. Lets start with a few pet peeve rants:

Local News Papers: Wow. They are horrible. While in the hospital I only could read news papers for my news (instead of the internet) and I don’t believe I’ll ever buy a Record again due to fluff stories. Same with the Chronicle Journal. Give me my Globe over a local paper any day.

Standing Ovations: I went to the Stratford Festival and saw Oklahoma, and while it was good, it was definitely not standing ovation material. Unfortunately it’s a common trend for performances I go to. Has society just lost its ability to judge truly great performances and standing ovations are the new standard of applause? What do you do when there is an exceptional performance? I hope to go see King Lear at the Festival, and it better be really good if people give it a standing ovation…or…I’m complain on my low traffic blog.

Engineering Technology: If you have a diploma in Engineering Technology, you are not an Engineer. You are an Engineering Technician or Technologist. Simple as that. Take some pride in your education and profession and stop pretending to be something you aren’t.

Okay, lets hit a few things really quick: Bob Barker has left the Price is Right , Richard Stallman is coming to campus , The Loonie reached a 31 year high , Unemployment reached a 33 year low , Waterloo was named “Most Intelligent Community” , Omar Khadr won a legal ruling , Comuzzi joins the Tories …Really that’s enough said on those topics. If you want to know more about my views on any, just ask.

Some interesting things were brought up this week in the news, the abolishment of the penny and a national do-not-call list. I support both, the first because it is fiscally the right thing to do, and the second in my view allows for individuals to choose solicitations or not. Oh, and apparently the government is looking into how easy it is to harm a lot of people using dirty bombs.

Topics that relate to me…I put myself on the waiting list for a Peace Tower Canadian flag, estimated arrival time, 2025. As well, a BC Supreme Court ruling struck down the part of the Indian Act that says Native Status can only be passed through the male line. It will be appealed, but in the end it may mean that I will have full Native Status…like my Mother, Grandmother, aunts, uncles, and three of my cousins have.

I still haven’t made up my mind on the referendum in the fall on electoral reform, specifically, Mixed Member Proportional Representation. I’m leaning towards not supporting it. I believe some type of electoral reform is needed, it’s just that MMPR puts more power in political parties by the lists as opposed to something like STV, which is about actual candidates. Parties play a role in weeding out poor candidates as nomination meetings, but MMPR to me seems to open it up for parties to elect members who would otherwise not be electable. It’s not very democratic from what I see. Either way, my decision is not final, and I’ll continue reading about the topic.

Now for a topic that’s been on my list for a long time. Take a look at this comparison of two different channel groups for Star Choice programming. Notice anything interesting? They are both the exact same price. I’m thrilled that Star Choice caters to the homonegative TV viewing crowd.

Currently Listening to: Powerthirst
Random Wikipedia Article: Salvia divinorum

I had an emergency dental exam yesterday because my tooth ache just got unbearable. It’s been sore for 3 weeks but I’ve been busy and don’t have a dentist here, so I just didn’t go. So I was finally fed up and googled Windsor dentists. There just so happened to be one down the road from my work and they had two dentists (so I thought it would be easier to get in quick). I was right, and they offered an appointment 1 hour later. So I went there and quickly got in, got x-rays and talked to the dentist, and he believes it was a little mistake with a filling I had 5 weeks ago. He took out his drill and relieved some pressure (note: no anesthetic…which is not very pleasant for someone complaining of searing tooth pain). Either way, it seems to have helped because it already feels better. I have a follow up appointment next week.

I forgot to mention before that Lyle called me from Victoria (where he’s doing Navy Training for the summer) on the long weekend. It was nice to hear from him. I didn’t even recognize his voice, partly because of the reception, and partly because no one ever calls me in Windsor so I assume automatically it’s just for my roommates. I didn’t even think people had my phone number here. (I know my grandparents always seem to phone the wrong city…that’s the problem with moving every 4 months…that and not having your dentist nearby.) I think Lyle only has 2 weeks more in Victoria as well.

I had an interesting weekend, with Council and all. I was pleased that my motion for the Feds to support a Positive Space initiative on campus and draft a formal policy passed. It was funny though that it’s discussion was 3 times longer than the budget. Oh…informative interjection…Student Unions are activist organizations. There is a reason why 10’s of thousands of dollars of student fees go to CASA and OUSA. It’s also activist on campus, representing student interests. Why the interjection? Because Sai Kit said during the debate on my motion that Feds should not be involved in political activism. [insert maniacal laughter here] I wonder what our Vice President Education would have said if he was there…

I have thought of an interesting topic which might warrant a law paper being written on it. It has to do with Employment Equity and self-identification. Put yourself in my situation; where I do not support Employment Equity on grounds that while its intentions are commendable, its methods are reverse-discriminatory. This poses a dilemma in which I may not wish to self identify on applications (such as for school or employment) because I know that that identification will be used to support Employment Equity actions, but I have been given the option to self identify and with the option given I should be allowed to. By using my self identification for the purpose of advancing employment equity at an organization it seems to me to prevent me from choosing the stance against employment equity.

I guess what needs to be investigated is if it is constitutional to allow self identification for use in Employment Equity initiatives without offering the option beside it to refuse (I guess it should be a question in the affirmative, authorizing use) the rights for the information being used for Employment Equity. If it is not, then it might require that thousands of companies change the options on their application forms. How I see it is if you are offering the option to identify (thus associating yourself with that group), you should be allowed to without supporting a cause (e.g. employment equity). The Charter ensures you the right of association (Section 2.(d)) while ensuring you the right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, etc. (Section 2.(b)).

In a totally unrelated direction, I take you to the matter of youth criminal prosecution. The Conservative government is seeking to lower the age of criminal responsibility for children from 12 to 10. A previous version of the article stated that “The Tories said anyone over 14 years of age should automatically face adult sentencing for serious violent or repeat offences.” (It seems to me to be very unjournalistic of the Globe and Mail to quietly remove this instead of just issuing a retraction of the phrase) It is also worth noting that the Conservative platform stated “Anyone 14 years or older who is charged with a serious violent or repeat offences is “automatically” subject to adult sentences” which is slightly different from the article’s original claim.

While I believe I agree with this (I have faith in minors abilities to make decisions, though many people do not), I am very upset over the hypocritical position of the Conservative government. This is because last month the Conservative government said that they want to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16. If you are going to acknowledge that a 14 year old has the mental capacity to be criminally responsible, should they not also be allowed to have sexual relationships? Heck, the government allows people as young as 12 to possess firearms! Yet they don’t have the capacity to make relationship decisions? The Conservative government should not be allowed to pick and choose what topics it can impose age restrictions on.

Along with that, why not allow the right to vote for people as young as 14? Around that time is when students (in Ontario at least) take a Civics course, and many are more informed than their adult counterparts. Maybe if students got the chance that early to get politically involved then they might be more likely to continue being involved as they get older. There is a lot of youth apathy since they are prevented from participating. It may be part of a solution to the large scale problem of low voter turnout. Well, I’m a little off topic from the original dentist story…I’ll blame it on the pain. And popped collars.

Currently Listening to: George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue

Random Wikipedia Article: Book of Concord

As many of you know, this term has been very disappointing for me. I should not have returned to Nemak. But it’s almost done and no need to bore you over the details.

I will give you a short review of Windsor, after living there for over 7 months. On a scale of 0-10 hazy pollution clouds (where 0 is current Beirut and 10 is Ottawa) it gets 3 hazy pollution clouds. There are not to many positive things I have to say about Windsor, so consider it to perform bad in all categories but the few I mention. Really the only redeeming detail I can think of is that it has a decent service industry. I must say that when I call a cab it comes usually within 5 minutes (and has the cheapest fare in any city I’ve been to). There are always ample ones waiting downtown or at the train station. It’s very convenient. As well, there are quite a few clubs and bars that have cheap cover and very cheap drinks. (as cheap as $1 mixed drinks some nights)

Windsor locals are very peculiar. I found out that they use the imperial Fahrenheit system for temperatures above 0 C and then switch to the metric Celsius for sub-zero temperatures. In fact when I say a temperature like 35 C they all look confused. On the topic of temperature, it’s absurdly hot and humid. Two days last week it was mid to high 30’s which with the humidex was 50 C. I’ve become a little climatized since moving down south, but these temperatures are way beyond my capacity to deal with. Many of those days I just took my mattress and just moved to the basement to get some relief.

I found something new about Thunder Bay. When people who have been to TBay talk about it after being away, I frequently hear mention of Persians (No…not Iranians), or the Hoito but I was ordering Chinese food a few weeks ago and I had a craving for Bon Bons (No…not candy) and apparently they are a TBay thing. Basically for those who don’t know, they are dry deep fried breaded spare ribs. There’s one place in TBay that Kas orders from when I go over and they have the best ones I can ever find. But they don’t have them down here. What they do have in Windsor is the best Hot and Sour soup ever at Wah Court. I may even miss that soup…but I certainly won’t miss Windsor.

I seem to be perpetually sick since I returned from TBay about a month ago. Maybe it’s the haze or the heat, or maybe I have an infection and need some antibiotics. (It might have to do with my body not dealing well with the air conditioning at work change to humid heat at home) Either way it’s been really irritating me. I went to a walk in clinic to try to get some tests for my kidneys (Oh yeah, doctors are monitoring my hypertension finally and were doing tests). Clinics and hospitals always depress me, but I can’t help wondering why each person is there. After the receptionist noted that my home is on a funny name for a street (Why do people think that Dog Lake Road is such a funny name? It’s the road to Dog Lake. What is wrong with a lake called Dog Lake? Surely it’s better than the pretentious Lake Superior…), I sat down for an hour and a half and watched people go by.

One of the first people I noticed was a couple probably in their 70’s. The husband looked in pretty bad condition and they were waiting for a on call doctor to come in. The nurse was explaining the delay to them. If I caught it right, the man had shingles and it was pretty severe. The wife sat there looking very devoted but concerned. Made me sad. Another was a woman in her late thirties/early 40’s sitting alone with a huge black eye and a expression that looked devoid of any hope. I hate to make judgements (well…maybe not) but it’s hard to draw anything but domestic abuse from the picture. Next a Muslim man came in with his wife and two daughters in their early teens. They sat down while he went to register. After waiting, the wife was called in, and after a few minutes she came out and called her two daughters in. It was an interesting series (from my observation) as I couldn’t see why the daughters (who to me seemed the real reason they went) didn’t go up themselves to start. Different culture I guess. It is interesting to speculate though.

I’ve been reading a lot more than I usually do, to pass the time, so I’ve been ording books off of Amazon. If you order $39 it’s free shipping and since I refuse to pay shipping, I aim for just over that mark. My last order I picked 4 books and I was around $2 short to fill in the order. So I tried to look for something cheap and saw a book, Spellbound, for $3, so I said what the hell. I had heard of a documentary on the US spelling bee called Spellbound and assumed it was the novelization of it. Well…I was wrong…it was a romance novel, which I refuse to read. Serves me right for not reading the description. I have to figure out where to remove it from the recommendation engine on Amazon because now I’m getting recommendations for junk. Sigh. I’m sure I can find someone who wants it. (Mike? heh…just kidding…shameless plug!)

Well, I think that’s enough for today. I’m off to Waterloo again on the weekend then a few weeks later back for Frosh Week (and maybe a few minor months of school).

Currently Listening to: Gone Forever – Three Days Grace

Random Wikipedia Article: Hoito

Tomorrow I’ll be in Waterloo to help out at Student Life 101. I missed my own SL101 2 years ago, and I think I just didn’t get out of bed during the last one, so it will be my first time seeing what it is like. I haven’t obligated myself to too many activities so it should allow me to roam around and help out where I feel. Nothing worse when volunteering for these things than being stuck at the same station the whole day long. At least there will be some air conditioned buildings…it’s been so hot this week, and I’ve got a cold from the office a/c and hot humid air outside. My eyes have been buring for 5 days too.

In not so suprising news, Bush has vetoed his first bill, one that would slack off the ban on Stem Cell research he implemented. That’s all fine and dandy, and he proudly says he did it for the first time on moral grounds…despite the fact he uses signing statements on any bill he doesn’t like to change it to what he does. In a fabulously staged photo-op he brought out parents who “adopted” embryos. They saved them he claims, which makes me wonder why he doesn’t take a stronger stance. Clearly every embryo is alive and sentient and we should crack down on those mothers who’ve had miscarriages. Clearly they did something wrong in the eyes of God and killed their child. Maybe we should execute them. Oh, and damnation to any women who ever has a period as her egg could have been fertilized and become a baby! That egg had the right to be part of an embryo and have a life! It’s negligence on the part of the women for not getting knocked up when she had a chance…of course no one would ever believe that by donating eggs that would die either way to be used to create stem cells which could save lives would be a good idea. Nope, because God says it’s wrong. I can’t wait for Mike’s abortion blog post. (That was sarcasm for the few people who would have snapped at me)

After reading Mr. Ignatieff’s book I’ve considered many of the concepts that he brought up. One that stuck out was the fact that is someone doesn’t plea for assistance in defending their rights (i.e. they don’t believe themselves that their rights are being infringed on) then they aren’t being violated. This is the foundation of non-interventionalist policies. It allows others to take action when there are bad things happening (like the Holocaust or Kosovo) but allows different cultures to be left alone (like the actions towards many Muslim women that they themselves don’t feel violated). If I were to put this logic towards a fetus (which up to a certain point is not sentient) then abortion isn’t a violation of a fetus’ “right to life”. This phrase implies that a fetus/embryo is actually alive, but not just alive in a strict biological sense. No one cries over the death of an onion. Lots of things are alive, but the thing that distiguishes human life is sentience. There has to be a certain level of awareness, which requires a minimum of physical development.

I’ll go on record of when I believe human life begins. I believe that it happens during some time within the womb. Since I’m not a biologist, I’m not sure around what time it would happen, but from my understanding of the process, I’d guess sometime in the second trimester. So I’ll go ahead and saw that fetuses/embryos aren’t alive in the first trimester. It is worth noting about my above logic that even though past that time a fetus still cannot claim its rights are being violated, before that time we can be confident that we are not because it is not even sentient yet. By drawing in the arguement that it will be alive later is wrong. I could say the same thing to someone that is alive that because one day they will be dead, they don’t have rights. When ajudicating rights, it must be done in the present.

It’s pretty much the weekend now. Lets hope my train arrives on time for once.

Currently Listening to: Hips Don’t Lie – Shakira

Random Wikipedia Article: Triskaidekaphobia

I was in Toronto last weekend, the second time in two weeks (the first being the Autoshow, which I’ll get pics up when I get a chance to set up this gallery I’ve been meaning to do). I never really liked Toronto…and I think I like it even less now. I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario Friday, and was disappointed at the exhibits. I know it’s under construction…but it’s barely a gallery at the moment. The Frank Gehry exhibt was nice though. Though….overall Toronto is disappointing. Despite the fact that every time I come I find the CN tower to be smaller than I think it should be (is that really only as high as we can build these days…come on civil engineers!), only in Toronto will a person be asking people for money while wearing a Tommy Hilfiger toque, then swear at you when you say “Sorry”.

I’m also disappointed at the hotel we stayed. We were staying at the Delta Chelsea at $380 a night and they made me pay $10 for high-speed Internet and it’s not even wireless? Horrible. The Eaton’s Centre wasn’t impressive and generally the food we had wasn’t that good. I did really enjoy my Prime Rib at the Canyon Creek Chophouse. (Thanks Mike for the recommendation). To top it off, the Greyhound bus didn’t have enough room between me and the seat in front of me to easily use my laptop. I’ll probably take Via next time as I had a very good trip last term from Windsor to Kitchener with them.

Of course the main reason I came to Toronto was to see the Lord of the Rings musical, another let down. I guess I was expecting something miraculous for the most expensive musical ever staged. It was way too long (proving you can’t effectively write three books into one musical) and the theatre was so hot that we were all squirming in discomfort by the final act. The songs lacked memorability and the orchestration was nothing original. The acting and choreography was well done though, and what I did enjoy very much was the set. Consisting of 3 rotating rings (the inner two which broke into segments) and a centre disk which rose and sank to imitate everything from a forest, to a ridge, to a volcano. I’ll probably write a formal review for the Iron Warrior, or maybe the Imprint.

Now that I have my new computer I hope to get back to writing real entries and not just quick updates. That way I can get Mike and Kas off my back!

Currently Listening to: The Toronto Song – Arrogant Worms
Random Wikipedia Article: Political Spectrum

I just watched the Canadian Women’s Hockey team win Gold…I’m in a quite patriotic mood today because of it (and despite my dynamics prof noting to the whole class I’m of Finnish decent…after the Canadian’s lost to Finland yesterday…). Something about us standing higher than the Americans just makes me beam with joy. You’d think that with 10 times the population of us that they’d be able to get more medals than us…apparently not (right now they have the same at 14). Let’s hope the Men’s team can do as well!

Oh…I forgot to mention a while back that I won (with Christine Steele) the Mechanical Department’s Sanford Flemming debating tournament and we are progressing to the Faculty level. With that win I award all my readers with an insightful observation from the latest book I read, The Hacker Ethic: Modern capitalism thrives off of the exploitation of intellectual communism. I love it because it’s ironic.

Well…it’s going to be a slack week with no labs or tutorials (that are worth going to) left, the Autoshow on the weekend, and my birthday early next week. My computer has been delayed being shipped…but they upgraded the processor, so I am content in waiting for it a bit longer.

Currently Listening to: Nothing (Because I accidentally wiped my iPod)
Random Wikipedia Article: Avro Arrow

It’s been a little rough lately as my Dell Notebook computer had a motherboard failure and I’ve been mooching computer time off of my roommate Yassir (Who I’m eternally grateful for…well…maybe not eternally…but pretty close). I just had the motherboard replaced 5 months ago and it went again and they refused to replace it, I bought a new computer (and won’t ever again buy from Dell). I haven’t got it yet, but it will be a big change. Say it with me: “MacBook Pro.”

Oh yeah….election…well it seems there is a Conservative Minority (with more Liberals than I expected), just as I predicted, with my Liberal Candidate winning…so it’s not too bad. I expect a very short parliament…and another election…oh goody. Well, I’d better get back to studying.

Currently Listening to: Sic Transit Gloria… Glory Fades – Brand New
Random Wikipedia Article: Celebrity Jeopardy