On April 5, 2004, CBC reported that “[t]here will be no more loans or grants to small businesses from the province. Businesses will have to make do with tax incentives.” and quoted Development Minister Mike Currie:

“We’ll have to learn to be more creative and innovative and make do with what we have,” says Development Minister Mike Currie. “I have a very capable staff and I’m certain we’ll come with the right answer for the private sector.”

Today the CBC reports “P.E.I. first to bite sandwich deal” and says:

The owner of a New Brunswick sandwich company said he’s moving to western P.E.I. because the provincial government was the first to offer him cash upfront.

Apparently staff will have to be “more creative and innovative” at some later date.

On Saturday I happened upon a balsa wood model of the new federal government building on Euston Street. Today I took a closer look at the artist’s rendering of the building at the construction site. I have concluded that the building will look much, much better if it is built out of balsa wood.

Six years ago Catherine and Steve and I went to Lincoln Center in New York City to see Robin Williams interviewed by Lillian Ross. About halfway through the performance — which, predictably, took on a life of its own — the man sitting next me to an said “son, remember this: you’re at a happening”.

The same thing could be said of tonight’s Eric MacEwen Celebration at the Confederation Centre. A who’s who of Atlantic Canadian musicians gathered to pay tribute: everyone from Lennie Gallant and Richard Wood to Bruce Guthro and Ron Hynes. I think almost every one of the 1,107 people in the audience left the hall thinking “man, this is a great place to live.”

Highlights:

• Wow! Richard Wood is talented; I missed his career from the age of 12 until tonight, so this came as something of a surprise. Do not miss the opportunity to see him live when it is presented.
• Same thing goes for Cynthia MacLeod.
• Allan Rankin and Bruce Guthro, who sang Northwest Passage together at the after-party, have voices perfectly suited to sing together. They should do it more often.
• Lennie Gallant has aged like good scotch.
• Urban Carmichael is actually quite funny.
• Ray Brow may, in fact, be running everything without the rest of us knowing. This doesn’t appear to be such a bad thing.
• That black velour dinner jacket that Kevin O’Brien wears to all formal occassions never wears out: it always makes him look like a million bucks.
• To see Leo Walsh grooving to the sounds of Gordon Belsher and Richard Wood belting out Beatles tunes was worth the price of the ticket. Rock on, funky mandarin.
• Fourteen year old fiddler Connor O’Callahan has more juice in him than a lot of musicians twice his age. Watch this guy.

Much love, respect, and admiration was expressed for Eric. To see so many express so much for one man was heartening; if we could all earn 1% of the regard in which Eric is almost universally held, we would live good lives.

Bob Boyle at the Brackley Drive-in updated his website today with news of their screen rebuild (regular readers will recall that Hurricane Juan took down the screen last year). Bob’s looking for help from the public in advocating for some support from the compensation fund from the government; if you’re able to lend a hand, please do. The Boyles have a great facility in Brackley: arguably the drive-in with the greatest location in Canada. It’s a great place to see a summer movie.

It’s the 49th anniversary of VE Day today (the German High Command surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on may 8th, 1945). Also on this day, Rochester, New York received ten inches of snow in 1989.

Through a lucky happenstance, Catherine and I scored the last two tickets to the Eric MacEwen Celebration tonight at the Confederation Centre: Oliver and I were en route from the Confederation Centre Art Gallery to the Library when we ran into Mac Campbell, who’s helping to organize the event and Mac connected us with two tickets that had just come free.

Speaking of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, you should get yourself there by May 16th to see Taken, a large interactive digital art installation by David Rokeby. It’s the first piece of digital art I’ve ever seen that knocked my socks off.

Oliver and I went out to Strathgartney Provincial Park this afternoon to act as the fan base for a frisbee golf tournament, the first event in the marathon bachelor party for Dan. It turns out that frisbee golf is actually a lot of fun, and isn’t at all rugby-like, which I incorrectly thought it was. The fun continues without Oliver and I tonight, and I’ll rejoin the party on Monday night for exciting paint ball action; the chance to virtually kill my landlords is too enticing to pass up.

I joined the Quality of Island Life Coop today. I don’t know much about the initiative, but they keep peppering me with interesting email messages, and their mission — providing new metrics by which to measure quality of life on PEI — appears both noble and reasonable. They are holding meeting on Thursday, May 13th at the Farm Centre that will introduce their ideas to the greater world; click on the link above, or check yesterday’s Guardian for more details.

Spring is decidedly here on Prince Edward Island now. Thank goodness.

The airline SAS has an online emission calculator that allows you to “estimate your share of aircraft emissions when you travel with us.” Very neat.

If you’re not flying, but you want to calculate your own contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, the Government of Canada can help. Thanks to the PEI Climate Change Hub for this link.

My personal calculation: 6.65 Tonnes/year. That places me above the national average (5 Tonnes) and below the provincial average (7 Tonnes). My biggest contribution, 4 Tonnes, comes from home heating. If I did the following things, I could reduce my contribution to 3.88 Tonnes:

• Caulk, weatherstrip and professionally air seal your home throughout.
• Upgrade attic insulation to R-51 where possible.
• Upgrade basement wall insulation to R-20 where possible.
• Upgrade wooden doors to steel, foam core doors.
• Install a programmable thermostat and set it to automatically reduce temperatures in your home in winter.
• Replace your refrigerator with an Energy Star rated high-efficiency refrigerator.
• Use a cold water wash and rinse instead of warm or hot water to wash your clothes.
• Use a push mower instead of a gas-powered mower.
• Use 50% green electricity in your home.

My MLA, Richard Brown, is the only member of the Legislative Assembly with a real-world technology background, so he’s the closest thing we’ve got to a technology expert in the house. Here’s what he said on Tuesday, speaking about the Atlantic Technology Centre:

But I believe in technology. You have to understand, information technology is software development. That’s where the money is to be made, not in grandiose buildings. I personally would have invested in the people more than in the building myself.

Leaving out the fact that Richard is trying to embarrass the government and score politically, he make a valid point: the new economy isn’t about infrastructure, it’s about ideas.

Dave Winer pointed here in Denmark yesterday, which led me to find Christiania, a group of people who “came to create an alternative life based on communal living and freedom.” Very interesting.