Olympic Primer - Part Two

Tickets

The great winter showcase of amateur sport charges fans prices no amateur could ever afford to pay. Of course, some sports are more in demand than others. Hockey tickets will be by far the most coveted, but the problem is that no one knows for sure which teams will be playing in a particular semifinal or final game. Should Team Canada bow out before the medal round, look for thousands of tickets to suddenly become available.

There are a few other sports which can garner huge prices for tickets that are legally scalped on the authorized VANOC site. Figure skating is probably second, after hockey, in popularity among winter olympic sports in this part of the world.

VANOC is the company created to put on these games, and are essentially folks appointed by the powers that be to try to make the various levels of government look good. In return, the provincial government will make sure it appears that the Olympics don't bankrupt our children's future by saddling us with decades of debt.

They do this in a variety of ways, like being petty about sponsorship and Olympic logo copyright. For example, their legal team went after (unsuccessfully) a Vancouver Greek restaurant with "Olympic" in its name--just because the restaurant had been operating with the name for 40+ years didn't mean that they should be allowed to keep it.

Then there's the use of our tax dollars to indirectly prop up the games. Sure, billions of tax dollars are going directly into the game venues, security, highway and other upgrades, but there's more than that. Three provincial crown monopolies: ICBC (insurance), BC Hydro, and BC Lotto have bought 1.4 million dollars worth of Olympic tickets. BC Hydro is spending over a quarter million dollars to book a luxury suite for all 33 hockey games in GM Place. (Which will be named "Canada Hockey Place" during the run of the games.)

Funny how there's money for this, while millions have been cut from health care and education this year.

VANOC has set up a website for ticket resales. It's legal to scalp tickets in BC, but when you buy your tickets, there's a bit of legalese you agree to that states that no one but VANOC can resell them for more than face value. Want tickets to the gold medal hockey game? At one point last week (when the article I read was written) the cheapest pair of tickets for the men's gold medal final available were listed at $4444.00. There were a pair of better tickets on sale for $9998.00.

I'm sure if you want biathalon (ski, shoot, ski some more, shoot some more event) tickets they're cheaper, but when you figure in inflated hotel costs, there is no way regular folks can afford to see these games live.

Olympic Primer - An Introduction

Since the world's attention is turning this way in the next little while, I thought I'd offer some background for those of you not fortunate enough to inhabit this part of our globe. (the unofficial version)

I thought it might be worthwhile since my counter tells me I've had recent visitors from: the U.S., Honduras, Ireland, France, Venezuela, Hungary, the Philippines, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the U.K., South Africa, Korea, Greece, India, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and Namibia.

So for now we'll start with

Part One - Whistler

On NBC, you'll probably hear reference to "Whistler Village" but it's rarely called anything but Whistler in this part of the world. The population of Whistler is officially 10,000 (or so) but during ski season there can be a lot more people there.

Whistler's development really got going in the early 80s when Nancy Greene (Olympic gold and silver medalist in Grenoble in '68, plus a number of world cup titles) and her husband began flogging it as they themselves opened a resort there. There was a fair bit of government money that went into the development of Whistler in the 70s and 80s, much to the chagrin of other mountains in the province which were not being tax-funded and were struggling during some years with fairly bad ski conditions.

In fact, Whistler was offered the 1976 Winter Olympics when Denver, originally scheduled to host them, declined due to financial issues, but the government at the time didn't want to be saddled with potential financial disaster (the '76 Montreal Olympics were clearly showing that to be a distinct possibility) so they were held in Innsbruck, Austria that year.

Whistler is a playground for the rich. It is not generally a mountain that those on a budget can enjoy during peak season. Three or four-day lift passes for adults this time of year run $278, compared to Mount Washington where a full day adult pass is $61 or a half-day is $46. Mount Washington is here on the island and actually has more snow than Whistler. Silver Star in the Okanagan is $71 per day, and of course, Aspen, Colorado is generally more.

But it's not lift tickets that hurt as much as the overall cost of staying at Whistler. For Mt. Washington, there are reasonable accomodations available at the bottom of the mountain in the Comox Valley, but with Whistler, if you want to get in a decent day's skiing, you pretty much need to stay there for a night at least. That means if you have an AAA membership, you can get a nightly rate at the Delta hotel of $360. (yes, the Canadian dollar is worth less, if you qualify for that discount it will only be $343 U.S.

Those who live there don't need to worry about such problems; if you want to buy a condo to enjoy Whistler every ski season, it will run you about a half-million for a 800 square ft. condo:
http://www.propertiesinwhistler.com/whistler-homes/index.php?&page=3

Of course, during the Olympics, posted hotel rates are meaningless. There will be no vacancies; there haven't been for quite a while. Those who have even tiny rooms for rent can make a killing as people scramble for accomodations once they've managed to luck into Olympic tickets.

Tickets. That's a story for next time.

Facebook Creeping for the Greater Good

Last Christmas, my dad didn't bother with the subscriptions Mom used to buy us each year to a major publication known for heartwarming stories and condensed books--we'd all decided it had become too insipid and slipped from inspiring tales of everyday people to something more like People magazine with its increasing focus on pop culture icons.

Then they sent us the gift subscriptions in Mom and Dad's name anyway--same with my sisters. He decided to pay for them, path of least resistance, I guess. He quit paying for his own, though, figuring they'd just stop sending them.

They didn't. They did start sending him nagging letters demanding payment for magazines he didn't want. By this fall I told him I'd deal with it. I wrote the magazine, directing my strongly-worded letter to the name at the bottom of these repetitive annoyance mailings.

That was October 1. I made it clear: no more money was coming from my dad, and no more subscriptions were wanted.

Then, a week and a half ago, we get a card notifiying us my parents had given us another gift subscription. No--Mom always bought those and she died in February. Apparently, though, to this great magazine (so great the american side of the company is in bankruptcy protection) even telling them by letter won't stop their negative billing campaign.

So, last weekend I found what I had bookmarked back when I searched (unsuccessfully) for email addresses for people in the publication to make sure they knew we were opting out. (I guess email addresses would make it easier for people to tell them to stop sending them unwanted crap.)

I had researched the guy whose name appeared on all those statements. He was real, and fortunately, before Facebook changed all the privacy settings, I figured out which one of several guys with the same name was actually him.

I sent him a facebook message. I copied the wording from my previous letter and made a bit of a threat about going to the media about their harassment of a bereaved senior citizen at Christmas time.

Within a few hours I had a return message. He would get someone on it on Monday. He was true to his word. The email apology came from that person with assurances they wouldn't bug my dad any more.

Score one for facebook creeping.

It's that time of year

...when there are lots and lots of concerts and performances going on. This is a clip from an excellent music concert at my son's school a couple of weeks ago. (He's on piano in this one.) I've always liked this arrangement of Ode to Joy--now they just have to add some movement to complement the singing.

My daughter won't be attending her concert tomorrow--she wasn't feeling great this afternoon, and as we were on our way home a bit early from school, my wife called to tell us my father-in-law had just passed away.

It's a bit tough at this time of year, and hard on the kids to lose a second grandparent this year, but he was ready, and there will be lots of family and love around the next while to comfort my mother-in-law.

More clips and stuff to come soon, I hope.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Sports Collectibles Dealer

Yeah, kid, I've seen your Reggie Jackson rookie card. You've shown it to everybody in the school about half a dozen times, now. No, I don't know when lunch will be over--why don't you go out and pla... er, show some people outside your baseball card?

No, it's my lunchtime too. Really? I've told her a hundred times not to book my lunch... oh, what the hell. Just keep that it away from this pastrami; you could cut the value of that card pretty quickly with my lunch all over it.

So what's the plan? Really? You want to trade cards like this for a living? I don't care if your uncle says sports collectibles are hot right now, I think it may go like this:

You'll have to hit up your uncle and everyone else you're related to for a start-up loan. You'll get an incredibly small space up in a mall like that one by the airport. You'll spend weeks building your initial stock by buying everything that seems undervalued on Ebay and elsewhere online. You'll read the obituary pages faithfully, looking for estates of sports fans who might have the occasional autographed baseball or signed jersey.

Even though you advertise your grand opening in collectors' magazines, on their websites and in all the local papers, the public is lukewarm to your business. Collectibles are a luxury, and in tough times people don't bother with that framed uniform or historic home run ball. Plus, you've only got the budget to stock C list collectibles anyway.

Still, you eke out a living by working every moment the store is open, thus hiring as few staff as possible. It's a stressful existence, though; you're always barely ahead of your creditors and all it will take is one stroke of bad luck to destroy your dream.

You scramble to find quality collectibles and eventually agree to a deal with a sketchy "collectibles acquisition agent" who goes to major sporting events and athlete appearances and harasses stars to sign all manner of sports clothing and memorabilia. You know some such agents use sketchy tactics like lying about sick kids to get donations, but you try to ignore your pangs of conscience when new items are sent in. Eventually you figure out the acquisition agent is taking such a big cut you're not making enough from the deal to bother renewing it after the first year.

Then you get a bit lucky. That cousin of yours--what's her name, Tessa?--the one who wants to be a Budweiser girl, agrees to come and work for you on weekends. What? Oh, yeah, she's been in here to share that little dream before. My guess is she'll be available when you need a temp. employee just the same.

She attracts collectible geeks like Star Trek conventioneers are drawn to, well, any female that will talk to them. Your weekend business picks up, and eventually you feel confident enough to leave her in charge so you can run a booth at a collectible convention in Dallas.

You learn a lot that weekend. Simply put, you have plenty of time to study your more successful competitors since virtually no one comes to your boring booth, and you take notes. The ones who have the biggest crowds offer either hot girls or sports celebrities.

The following month you take Tessa with you to another convention, and she helps you make enough to cover your convention merchant fees. Still, you realize a celebrity would draw even more people, and fortuitously, an agent drops his business card off at your booth and offers to help make that happen.

He's a representative of an agency who offer a stable of more than 200 ex-athletes from nearly every major sport, and when you call him he faxes you a list of stars with their appearance fees listed beside each one.

One in particular catches your eye. He's a well-known former major league batting star, famous not only for his home run and RBI stats, but also because of the controversy that erupted when his use of steroids was exposed. Despite his slightly tarnished reputation, you know he'll bring in fans, eager to meet someone so well known. You're surprised that he seems underpriced, so you decide to call the agent and book him.

The deal is completed, pending the bank's approval of your extending your line of credit to help cover the appearance fee. The bank manager hears the name of the ball player and smiles, agreeing to help provided you'll get his son an autographed ball.

Everything seems fine, and you excitedly arrange advertising and promotions to let everyone know who's coming to your store the following weekend. You even get a plug on a local sportcast when one of their reporters drops by to ask about the upcoming visit, though you're disappointed when the reporter and cameraman decide that Tessa would be a better choice to appear on air.

Sure enough, the publicity works, and when the limo you hired shows up in front of the store to deliver your guest, there are close to four hundred people waiting for a peek. The star athlete stumbles as he disembarks, then curses loudly, pulls a can of beer out of his pocket, and takes a long swig.

"Let's party!" he yells, and with a sinking feeling you realize that maybe there was a reason for his discount fee.

The rest of the afternoon is about damage control. You apologize for his crude comments to female customers and try to focus his energies on signing items for fans who are growing rapidly disenchanted with the drunken lout.

At one point he disappears into the bathroom, and finally after 15 minutes you go looking for him, only to find him passed out. You call a cab and try to get him out of the store, but he's discovered Tessa and insists she needs to go for a ride with him.

She's probably worked at a few places by this time that have given her relevant experience in dealing with drunken admirers, and she slickly twists out of the cab after the semi-conscious celebrity is buckled in. You sigh with both relief and despair as you watch him disappear.

The results of the day are mixed; you sold more merchandise than usual, though not quite enough to cover the appearance fee, and a local bar owner, impressed by Tessa's acumen in dealing with the athlete, hires her as his manager, depriving your store of the one thing that kept some customers coming in.

A couple of sports writers pen scathing editorials about the horrible example set by your guest, and letters to the editor from outraged parents complement their efforts.

You manage to clear out enough merchandise by having a "blow out sale" to cover your obligations to the bank, but you're on thinner financial ice than ever.

The final blow will come when a number of your collectibles are exposed in a fraud investigation as counterfeits. Apparently your sketchy acquisition agent went beyond finding collectibles, he also liked to invent some of them. Dozens of angry customers return to demand refunds, and when you can't manage to satisfy them, many file suit against you and your store.

Don't lose that Reggie Jackson card. You can trade it for a warm blanket when you're living in your car.

How H1N1 leads to frostbite

Well, in kind of a roundabout way.

I work in the new wing of our building, opened in 2002. The stupid heating/cooling system is of course, state of the art, and can't be adjusted by any of the mere mortals who work in our building. Apparently, to make any changes, someone must bring a special computer in to hook up to the system and feed data back to Vancouver where adjustments can be made.

Or something like that.

Doesn't matter anyway, since a flaw in the design makes correcting the problem impossible.

You see, our theatre and the band room share a common heating/cooling thermostat somehow. That means that on days like yesterday and today, we have a problem. We've had an H1N1 vaccination clinic in our gym the past couple of days.

That means no P.E. classes in there. That means that the grade 9 and 10 band kids are all in our band room at the same time. All 145 of them.

That makes the temperature rise pretty quickly. That makes the cooling system blow air from outside into the band room. Unfortunately that means that the sub-freezing air is also blowing into my theatre. Thing is, it's already not that warm in there.

We bundle up in our jackets and try to get out of the line of the air vents. I turn on 30,000 watts of stage lighting to try to bring up the room temp. one degree or so. Today I brought a little space heater from home and kept it running for the morning.

*sigh* Reminds me of my very first high school job in Prince Rupert. We had climate control there too, and the windows were bolted shut to prevent folks like me from disturbing the finely-tuned system that meant one fan blew car exhaust into my room any time anyone idled by the "no parking" sign.

I had to threaten to throw a chair through a window before the principal came down with a screwdriver to help me sabotage that system. I wonder if taping over our fans would cause some sort of system failure now?

(After yesterday's incident where a band student plugging in some amps caused a power failure that darkened the school and some of the surrounding neighborhood, I'm reluctant to find out.)

Hope you're all keeping warm where you are. Clear and cold here, and about -6 (21 degrees F) right now.

We're just waiting by the phone at them moment, looks like my father in law is getting near the end and we're hoping a bed in hospice is available tomorrow.

Stolen

Don't even know the original creator of this list; saw it on a hockey newsgroup I frequent:

Random Thoughts

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least KIND OF tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this -- ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice-mail. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Mom what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Thought you might enjoy it.

UPDATE: I think they may have come from here: http://www.ruminations.com/site/

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Publisher

Publisher, huh? Probably go something like this:

You'll graduate from a writing program and take an entry-level job at a reputable publishing house. Long hours for little reward will pave your slow climb to the middle. You end up in the reader pool; learning to quickly peruse a manuscript to determine whether it's worth a serious look. After a while, though, you realize it's like looking for a needle in a haystack; 99% of those you label "interesting" still get rejected.

You slip into a routine, and fear that you may become lost forever in this unsatisfying, predictable job, instead of getting the chance to publish blockbusters and make careers. Then, through a moment of inspiration, you get your break. You create a new revenue stream for the company while solving an expensive problem at the same time.

Even though your publishing house, like most, accepts submissions online, many others feel it's too easy to just ignore an email attachment, and instead choose to send a hard copy of their work. It may well be true that the real thing in hand gets a better look than tired eyes can offer yet another story on your computer screen.

This creates tons of waste paper--you don't return manuscripts due to handling costs, even if the author includes return postage. Rather than paying for disposal of the rejections, you work out a deal with Duraflame to convert the manuscripts to fire logs, and the company gets a small income while eliminating recycling fees.



Your supervisor promotes you to head of the reading team, and you get to pick and choose the scripts you read. You also now appear on the company's internet employee list, which means you have to get an unlisted phone number and take your personal security seriously. Those who work in areas people feel passionately about are always at risk from wackos, and publishing company employees are sandwiched between poodle groomers and child pageant judges in the top ten death threat recipient list.

Still, things are lining up to earn you that coveted promotion to management when suddenly, it all comes crashing down.

On national television, your company is named by the author of a wildly successful new series about teen leprechauns as one of the big publishers who rejected her work. Her first novel, Ginger McGillicutty and the Shamrock of Doom, was what everyone had been looking for--the successor to the Harry Potter and Twilight series, the next great magical teen story. The financial windfall for the company that published the series pushed them into first place in your industry, and led to an investigation at your publishing house to find out who passed up the golden goose.

Your name is found when the paperwork revealing the story's rejection is uncovered. You're fired with no more than the obligatory severance package, and know with your epic failure quickly becoming a water cooler legend, you stand little chance of being hired elsewhere.

You use your severance money to start up a vanity publishing house. You know a printer that works cheap--your company quit using them after their substandard glue led to customer complaints--and you know that there are enough deluded but solvent writers around to give you a shot at success.

You buy annoying ads on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and you also buy a stolen list of Nanowrimo novel-writing contest entrants for a direct-email campaign. Sure enough, your business succeeds and you're earning enough to live comfortably.

As you rebuild your self-esteem you start to think about creating a legitimate publishing arm for your company. You've just hired your start-up staff when the second great disaster takes place.

Yet another tough copyright law gets passed, and this one goes beyond everything previous in protection of all kinds of intellectual property. It also allows for stiff penalties for those who publish stolen ideas, even if such mistakes are made innocently. Suddenly, emails from people who've spotted plagiarism in a variety of your clients' works start showing up in your inbox with annoying frequency. Most ask for a payout to keep quiet about your company's complicity in these situations, but you're unable to find the hush money required.

Soon legal fees, fines and court awards have driven your company to bankruptcy. You declare personal bankruptcy yourself a year later, and end up in a ratty rooming house in the rough part of town, where a draft and poor diet ultimately contribute to your death by pneumonia.

Almost no one attends your funeral because, ironically, the newspaper doesn't publish the obituary sent in by your former assistant when the payment cheque bounces.

Deck the Halls with Awkward Moments

1. On Friday evening my wife and I had a lovely dinner out and then decided to do a little Christmas shopping after. We ran into some folks we know; the wife works with my wife sometimes, and their daughter's in my program, and had a great visit outside a store for about 45 minutes.

Awkward moment: I ranted at one point to the husband about how much I hate the program we use for attendance and grades in this province (by government mandate) only to discover that he's been working on the software for over a year now. I wished he'd mentioned what he'd been doing for a living since leaving the navy before I made the remarks about the software designers having compromising photos of government ministers to blackmail them into forcing us all to use the program. *sigh*

2. 12th grade student sent in her "fave five" to local station that plays the songs I don't love (see posts recently) and was selected for this lunchtime's winner. She took the phone call here in the theatre, then I put the station on the theatre sound system when the segment came on. Remember that "Whatchya Say" song I ranted about before? She hates it to. The radio station ignored two of her requests, and passed off that song along with another she hates as two of her "fave five". Nice--the city hears her name, her school, and these songs she despises as her favorites.

Oh, and her big prize? 4 tickets (worth 4 bucks apiece) to a Christmas craft sale. I doubt anyone who actually listens to that station would likely go to any craft sales at any time of the year.

She's considering her legal options...