1. You’ve been beaten at Risk so often by your adolescent that your getting a complex
2. You’re going broke after making so many auto deposits over at pokerstars
3. Your privates are getting chaffed from…..
4. Your heating company has called looking for an advance payment
5. Your spouse has cleaned the house
6. Your once docile canine has eaten the laundry room door
7. The little one has actually produced melody on her toy piano
8. You’ve baked bread
9. You’ve finally put to work that grocery delivery app
10. Dum te de dum…..you’ve unboxed and glared intently at your elliptical trainer  

What I like about Browns Social House: It’s friendly and has high padded bar stools with foot rests. It has properly controlled climate. Décor not overly imposed by big screens. Happy hour. Four dollar draught. Quick service. Reasonable prices. Did I say that? Square bar accommodating for socializing. You’re not there just for the booze, right?

While much focus has been on the driver of the Humboldt bus crash, it’s become evident that an insidious behavioural pattern of distraction while at the wheel is underlying the cause. Although it was a flapping tarp and not a cell phone, every single driver who owns a smart phone and is compelled to jump to its chime indicating the latest facebook notification should take heed. Speaking to passengers is distracting, changing CDs is distracting, and soothing crying babies is distracting. Some minds may be better equipped to deal with distractions than others but should you really be assigning yourself the confidence to multi-task while at the wheel when one misstep can lead to a life-long occupation of guilt. 

It’s certainly easy to judge this man responsible for the deaths of these Humboldt teens but hypocrisy given one’s own behaviour is peculiar.

In addition to the driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, law enforcement and the regulatory framework of the transportation industry must also answer to this event. We put doctors in this country through seven years of training and a driver of a transport truck through three weeks, if that. Mr. Sidhu  may have lacked training in how to properly secure a load. Our justice system is structured in such a way that police tend not to put resources where they believe that the probability of conviction is low. I postulate that in the minds of law enforcement, the process of obtaining the necessary evidence to charge a suspected distracted driver is not worth the application of resources and hence this matter is at large with you and I witnessing distracted drivers in metropolitan centres daily.

If the financial penalties were materially strong and the justice system had the practical powers to enforce, we could actually make headway toward significantly reducing this problem.         

He was one of the very nicest people that I’ve ever come to know and he was my boss for a brief period of time around 2003. He practiced public accounting and the dynamic between the two of us was mutual respect. Upon helping him through one tax season, I pursued another opportunity which helped paved the way to establishing my own practice. 

Al should have been winding up his practice right around the time I had come on board. However; it’s clear that his clients and the game of golf were preeminent interests which weren’t going to go away. We had lost touch between my tenure and his passing but I can only imagine that he had a tremendous home life with loving people around him. Evidence of his high intellect is referenced from his obituary listing his university graduation at the age of 19 from our common alma mater, the U of A.

Upon reflecting this morning of one particular collaborative effort on a file with Al, I just had to draft a blog post in remembrance of him. He was one of many fine folk instrumental in assisting me with the street level application of tax accounting.  Al was one of those people who knew exactly how to treat people respectfully. He was a soft spoken big man who carried clout through his unspoken word.   

It’s no secret that this was a vibrant period in modern music. A sampling -many of which had lesser popular appeal.

1. Heartbeat City – The Cars
2. Come Undone – Duran Duran
3. Annie’s Song –John Denver
4. Show Me The Way – Peter Frampton
5. I Go Crazy – Paul Davis
6. Heaven Can Wait – Meatloaf
7. Sorrow – Pink Floyd
8. Since I’ve Been Loving You – Led Zeppelin
9. Still Got The Blues – Gary Moore
10. The Love Parade – Dream Academy
11. The Perfect Kiss – New Order
12. Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
13. Aubrey – David Gates and Bread
14. If You Could Read My Mind – Gordon Lightfoot
15. Light In The Tunnel / Human Race – Red Rider
16. Thunder In My Heart Again – Leo Sayer
17. Crucified – The Fixx
18. Slave To Love – Bryan Ferry
19. Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
20. Talking In Your Sleep – The Romantics