I’m unclear as to the mechanism by which this plan to outfit concertgoers with PEI potatoes is going to work. Are they expected to take bags home with them?

Oliver and I were down by the docks tonight drinking lemonade, and I spied Anne MacKay and Wayne Barrett across the way. I did some work for Wayne and Anne’s photography business when Oliver was still still in the womb, and this was their first meeting.

Oliver, true to form, grabbed ahold of Anne and Wayne’s daughters’ hands and took them off into the depths of Frosty’s Finds to try on hats, look in mirrors, and generally get to know each other.

His social skills at age 2 have now surpassed mine at 37.

On my July 9 home telephone bill from Aliant there was a $28 charge for a 9 minute call I made with my calling card from a Bed & Breakfast in New Hampshire to home. That’s about $3.00 a minute, which is crazy.

The call was noted on my bill as being processed by ZPDI.

I called Aliant (listen to the comical audio of my first try), and talked to one of their operators and learned, much to my surprise, that all “calling card” calls are not created equal, and that the actual rates charged are not necessarily Aliant’s rates.

The operator suggested that, when in doubt, I call 1-800-555-1111, which is a toll-free call that connects directly to Aliant’s long-distance network, and ensures that calls placed are billed at Aliant’s rates.

Added later…

I just received the following email from ZPDI:

Thank you for your inquiry. You have reached ZPDI which is a billing clearinghouse that processes records on behalf of operator service providers and long distance carriers that provide service for hotels, motels, payphones, and correctional institutions. The operator service provider who processed the collect call is NCIC. The collect call was placed from a phone located at the Peterborough Manor on 50 Summer Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Mr. Rukavina, I realize you were not aware of the rate, however, rates for carriers are designed to recover unique expenses associated with the telephone from which your call was placed. In addition, rates are available upon request and each carrier is required to identify them selves prior to connecting the call. Mr. Rukavina, I am able to offer you a one-time complimentary credit for $10.04 in American funds. The total amount of the calls is $19.50 in American funds. Please let us know if you would like this credit applied to your bill.

As much as a laud them for their quick turnaround, I am suspicious of the quick rush to offer me $10 American. I’ll take it, and be happy, but I wonder if they’re just trying to shut me up.

Just a note about a couple of minor renovations to the website here.

First, you’ll notice that you can now enter the address of your very own website when you’re responding to a note here using the DISCUSS link. Not only will this get your post linked back to your own home base, but the automagical system will go looking there for a FOAF file, and will incorporate your FOAF into mine if it finds one (watch the Reinvented Labs space for results).

Also, I’ve cleaned up the display of discussion items a little — to separate your text into paragraphs you can now simply leave a couple of carriage returns (aka “press [ENTER] twice”) between each paragraph. No need to insert your own paragraph or line break tags.

If the preceding has left you dazed and confused, please ignore and continue on as you ever have, as things are mostly same as they ever was.

I had lunch on Monday with a small group of Island entrepreneurs. At some point in the conversation we realized that none of us had completed a university degree — we had each started university, but left early to do something else (for me it was “wander around for a while, and eventually start a business” and for each of them it was “ramp up the business”).

We compared notes on the flack from our parents brought on by our “early school leaving” decision. While it varied in intensity and duration, each of us experienced some variation of the “you’re ruining your life” treatment. Let’s just say that our decisions to drop out weren’t warmly embraced by our parents.

It has been 17 years since I left university, 4 or 5 since they did. We agreed that none of us have regretted the decision, and that, perhaps because we’ve achieved some business success, our parents have eventually come around.

I’ve obviously had some time to think about my decision, and our conversation crystallized some of that thinking.

Here’s the thing: for us, sons of upper middle-class professional parents each with a university degree of their own, the great roles that university played for our parents — establishing their credentials, outfitting them with professional skills, and, most importantly, bootstrapping them up a social class or two (or three), with all the self-confidence that such a change brings — are no longer of any relevance to us.

My father, for example, was born to working class parents. My grandmother worked in restaurants, grocery stores, and tractor and blanket factories. She used to tell stories about working during the depression for 25 cents a day. My grandfather, whose immigration records list him as a “farm labourer,” worked in the gold mines of Northern Ontario, and later for Massey-Ferguson.

For my father, university was, in no small way, his ticket out of a working class life: he became a professional, a scientist, and as a result lived a life completely different from that of his parents.

There’s no way that university could affect such a profound social transformation on me because I was already among the “university educated” class, and had been treated that way all my life. Combine that sense of entitlement with the work ethic that my parents inherited from their parents, and I inherited from them, and suddenly university becomes mostly about, well, learning. And if you’re sick of learning, at least in the “listening to tweed-suited people expound” way, the motivation to stick around isn’t great.

Add to that the world of technology offering exposure to interesting people, projects, and ideas, exposure previously unavailable to people like me without education or experience, and university never stood a chance.

For the longest time after leaving university I was convinced that there was something inherently wrong with formal education; looking back, I realize that sort of thinking was necessary to make leaving possible, especially because I was leaving, against some resistance, something concrete to enter something of a void. And I needed a reason besides “well, that was boring wasn’t it.”

From the more rational perch of later life, I realize the short-sightedness of that point of view. I don’t regret my own decision to leave, and would do so again if I could go back in time, but I realize both that there are people who actually enjoy structured learning, or at least require the skills and approaches it offers to be able to follow their dreams, and also that university continues to afford people the same socially transformative opportunities if offered my father.

What I’ve really come to understand, and I would hazard a guess the same would apply to my luncheon colleagues as well, is that my opportunity to thrive without a university degree is something I was able to do almost entirely because of the determination of my grandparents and parents. It was only through their efforts that I gained the self-confidence, the understanding of the pleasures of hard work, and the ability to learn on my own that I was able to do what I did. In a sense, the echoes of their university educations were powerful enough to let me ride on their crest.

My brother Johnny has been without reliable DSL service since Sunday — he’s had periods of 12 hours without any service at all, and it has been on and off at random intervals otherwise. His service provider is Telus in Vancouver; Telus technical support has told him it could be a couple of days before they solve the problem.

By way of trying to help Johnny self-diagnose, I came across this this page at Telcordia, which summarizes the technical challenges for telephone companies providing ADSL service. My favourite paragraph is:

It’s been much smarter, so far, to not even try to sign up any customer whose loop is the least bit questionable, even though you’ve already invested the cost of qualifying that loop. And if such a customer asks for ADSL, it’s smarter to just say “You can’t have it” and let the customer’s frustration end there. You’re in the very awkward and unwelcome position of having to try to discourage customers from buying a service they want and you want to sell them. You’re lopping off chunks of your customer base at both ends, maybe losing a quarter to half of your potential ADSL market before you’ve started.

David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue is scheduled to appear on Charlie Rose tonight.

As reported in Hansard, in a letter to Bernard Landry, Premier of Quebec, Brian Tobin, then a member of cabinet, wrote the following:

On April 29, 1999 the Newfoundland House of Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing the Governor General of Canada to issue a proclamation amending the Constitution of Canada by changing the name of the Province of Newfoundland, where it occurs in the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada set out in the Schedule to the Newfoundland Act, to “Newfoundland and Labrador”.

And so began the process of officially changing the name of Newfoundland to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Last night I went to write “St. John’s, Newfoundland” in a sentence, and realized that perhaps I should write “St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador” instead. But that seemed an odd thing to write, so I decided to check with the Protocol Officer in the Province of Newfoundland [and Labrador].

This morning I received email confirmation that the proper way to reference St. John’s is, indeed, “St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.” Right now it seems as awkward as “flight attendant” or “people of colour” did when they first came on the scene. And I expect that, like those phrases, “Newfoundland and Labrador” will come to sound normal with time.

In the meantime, perhaps I should be pushing for a constitutional change to recognize the name of our fair province as “Prince Edward Island, and 100 Prince Street?”

Dave Hyndman pointed out that The Guardian has a new website. This presumably a result of their “guess who owns us this week?!” situation no longer making them eligible for inclusion in the Canada.com portal family.

The site is obviously a work in progress (although not as much as when Dave grabbed a screen shot). The “Bus Routes” link provides bus information for St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Classified section is “coming soon!” There are no restaurants in the restaurants listings. The photos appear to have been scanned with a 1932 Cockshutt tractor. And so on.

And then there are quality Microsoft errors like this one.

While the site is not “well designed” by any meaning of that phrase, it’s nice to see The Guardian break out of the Big Portal and into a smaller one. Although why exactly The Guardian should be part of a portal at all, especially one as wonky as Transcontinental’s, is beyond me (does Transcontinental actually expect that people will have brand loyalty to “Transcontinental papers?”)

Here’s hoping that Transcontinental holds on to The Guardian for long enough for the bugs to wear out, for the design and navigation on the site to improve, and for the paper to get used to this new medium. Again.

On June 22, 1973, thirty years ago, I received my final report card for Grade One at Rolling Meadows Public School. My teacher that year was Mrs. Kemp. Here is what she said about me.

Under the section Language Arts (this was a new term in 1973, and meant “Reading”) she said:

Peter listens attentively but is not always willing to accept what he hears such as the correct answer on a work sheet. He is still reluctant to accpt constructive criticism in correcting mistakes.

Under Speaking, I was rated as follows:

Peter speaks clearly and distinctly. His thoughts are very well organized and presented accurately. He has a vast knowledge which he courteously shares with others in discussions.

I think that last bit there means “thinks he is a know-it-all” in pleasant language.

Under Self Expression Through Writing Mrs. Kemp writes:

Peter has a great imagination when it comes to writing stories. We are still working on capitals and periods.

For Art she simply indicates:

Peter is showing improvement in picture making.

And for music:

Peter participates very little in singing.

My Physical and Health Education progress is described like this:

Peter has shown improvement in large muscle activities.

I honestly have no idea what a large muscle activity is, but it sounds very impressive — perhaps I could lift other kids over my head and twirl them around?

Finally, under General Comments, Mrs. Kemp signs off:

Peter is making good progress in the year two program. He seems a little happier.

A little happier? I guess this means I was a sad kid earlier in the year, which does jibe with my recollections.

The odd thing is that you could take Mrs. Kemp’s point-form summation of my progress 30 years ago, and most of it applies, in one form or another, today. I’m still not willing to accept what I hear, I’m still an annoying know-it-all, I’m still working on capitals and periods, working on my pictures, and participating very little in singing. I’ve been working hard on the large muscle activity, and every day I try and seem a little happier.