There are many galling aspects of the Murphy Group’s plan to staff their music festival food concession with unpaid labour, but here are the three most egregious:

First, by securing the concession by bidding low on the contract (what with having no wage costs and all), the company acted in an anti-competitive fashion, leaving more public-spirited businesses that actually put value on workers out of the running.

Second, the company insults the thousands of volunteers doing actual volunteer work every day across PEI by using the word volunteer to describe unpaid workers: volunteering isn’t about “doing work without getting paid,” it’s about contributing to the community in a meaningful way. It is a matter of the heart, not of the pocketbook.

Finally — and this galls me the most — businesses often do stupid, ugly or disingenuous things based on the notion that they are, at least, creating “jobs and opportunities for islanders.” And more often than not we citizens blindly look the other way: it’s hard to argue with putting food on the table of our friends and neighbours. By removing the pesky obligation of wage costs and other annoyances of being an employer from the equation the Murphy Group is simply engaging in a bald-faced money-grab, and is revelaing, perhaps, that they view their of actual employees is as a inconvenient but (sometimes) necessary obligation on their road to self-aggrandizement.

They should do the right thing, pay employees a fare wage, and apologize for this bungle.

Revealed here:

Although many consider the Red Oak to be the tree on the Provincial Coat-of-Arms (adopted in 1905), this has never been formally recognized. The acorns visible on the largest tree appear to be those of white, rather than red oak.

Mount Allison Dendrochronology Laboratory. Interesting.

The Mount Allison Dendrochronology Laboratory (MAD Lab) was launched in the fall of 2003. The MAD Lab was formed to investigate tree-ring related research questions in Atlantic Canada. The first priority of the MAD Lab is to establish extensive tree-ring chronologies in the region. These chronologies will form the foundation of various projects, from researching annually-resolved proxy climatic records for the Atlantic region, to dating historic structures in Maritime Canada.

Last year was the first time in a long while that I didn’t acquire any computer gear. Well, I bought a mobile phone. That’s actually more of a computer. But otherwise the same old servers and the same old laptops have served us well here at Reinvented HQ.

In that spirit, here’s a list of the tiny bits of analog technology that I can absolutely not be without here in the office:

1. Standard-Duty Slide Lock Utility Knife (A) - I became an Olfa user when I apprenticed in the composing room, back in the day when the tools of the trade were a knife and a line gauge. I use my knife mostly for slicing open envelopes these days, and there’s nothing like it for that.
2. Gaebel 12” Printers Line Gauge - Another composing room holdover. These days I use the inches scale more than the agate lines or points; I also use it as a guide for keeping my place when going through bank statements and similar reports. It will last forever.
3. Swingline Commercial Desk Stapler - This will also last forever. Never jams and built like a tank. My world grinds to a halt when I run out of staples, so I always keep a spare box around.
4. Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Marker (Black) - For writing on CDs, on file folders, to address big envelopes, and for when I run out of pens and need something to write with (because you may lose pens, but you never lose a Sharpie).

Give me a MacBook and those four items, throw in a few Bic ballpoint pens, and you’ve outfitted my office. What are your own analog must-haves?

Sometime in 2050 a student will be tasked with writing about life in the old days in Charlottetown. To ensure that they have a complete picture of the minutiae of our daily lives, here’s how it goes every morning in our house:

• 6:50 a.m. - Clock radio goes off, thinking it’s 7:00 a.m. (it’s been running early for 2 years and we’re so used it we can’t change it now) to the voices of Karen and Mitch on [[Island Morning]]. Catherine gets up.
• 7:00 a.m. - Oliver gets up. Or at least complains about being too tired to get up.
• 7:02 a.m. - Catherine out of the shower, downstairs making breakfast and lunch for Oliver.
• 7:05 a.m. - Oliver goes downstairs for breakfast.
• 7:08 a.m. - I’m still in bed, waiting for Mitch to deliver the morning news headlines.
• 7:12 a.m. - News headlines done; into the shower.
• 7:35 a.m. - Ablutions complete, get dressed. Oliver on his way upstairs to get dressed (unless he’s running very late), and sometimes we’ll race to see who can get dressed first (“I have my underwear on, how about you?”)
• 7:47 a.m. - Downstairs for breakfast of yogurt and cereal, a six-year old habit that started with Dan’s Outward Bound trip (yes, it’s really better with yogurt).
• 7:50 a.m. - Watch first 15 minutes of last night’s Daily Show on the DVR. If Oliver isn’t dressed yet the “Oliver, are you dressed yet?” call and answer begins.
• 8:05 a.m. - “Oliver, it’s time to get your shoes on.”
• 8:09 a.m. - Out the door. Sometimes we straggle and it’s 8:10 or 8:11. 8:15 and we’re in the “late for school” region, which rarely happens.
• 8:12 a.m. - Meet the woman with the salmon-coloured hat walking her son to school in the opposite direction, usually at the corner of Prince and Kent. Sometimes we also wave hello to Gary MacDougall on his way into The Guardian.
• 8:15 a.m. - Meet the long-haired guy with sun glasses walking his son to school in the opposite direction. Or sometimes it’s the same son, but the cool-looking mother.
• 8:16 a.m. - Say hello to the retired postal worker out walking his dog.
• 8:16 a.m. - Say hello to the woman from Prince and Euston on her way back from dropping her son off at the school.
• 8:18 a.m. - Maurice is backing his Toyota Yaris out of his driveway; we wave hello. If we’re early we’ll have a chat with him about his house renovations (today we talked about his new fence and how he rounded the tops of hundreds of rails).
• 8:20 a.m. - Stop at the “Reduce Speed” sign just before the school (part of the multi-year “path to independence” project). I say “Have a good day at school” and Oliver says “Have a good day at work” and runs to be at school before the bell rings. Usually the bell rings as he’s running. Sometimes he turns around and says “Or have a good day at the gym. Or at your meetings.”

And our day has begun.

Back in the days when Highway #7 running from Peterborough to Ottawa was my corridor-of-choice, I recall a weekend where my friend Stephen Southall and I decided to stop at every restaurant between Peterborough and Tweed and have a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich. As you might expect, it was an exhausting but ultimately satisfying day.

More recently on the BLT front, BLT From Scratch Summertime Challenge! from Michael Ruhlman:

A collective challenge for all of you who really love to cook: Make a BLT from scratch. No, this does not mean raising a piglet for the bacon or growing your own wheat to grind into flour. Yes, extra credit for either, but I want this to be a challenge that everyone can accept, whether you live in a Manhattan walk-up or rural North Carolina, Alaska or suburban splendor: make a BLT from scratch, photograph it and send the photo to me. If you blog, blog about it (and please link back to this post to encourage others to accept the challenge).

From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.

A great idea.

Leonhard’s Café and Bakery on University Avenue has been slowing building out their “patio” and last week the tables got tiny chairs. As a parent of a formerly-tiny child, I applaud this: with the exception of McDonald’s, restaurants almost universally ignore the fact that children eat out too.

The Alibi Lounge, taking over the old Royal Tandoor space on University Avenue, was supposed to open last week. But it didn’t. But they explained the delay well:

There’s just over 12 hours left for you to place your online bids in the Prince Street School Silent Auction: online bidding closes tomorrow (Friday, June 5, 2009) at 12 Noon, and then in-person bidding starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Spring Fling at Prince Street School, closing at 7:30. So bid online, and if you really want something, come to the Spring Fling to make sure you’re not outbid.

Some new items have just gone online for bidding:

• 9-Hole Green Fees at Countryview Golf Club
• One night at the Quality Inn on the Hill
• Two 30-minute Piano Lessons with Natasha Hall