Good morning... It’s grey and cloudy out again. But it does not appear to be raining.
I slept in again. It’s 11:39am, and I woke-up about forty minutes ago.
I was up late last night cleaning. I had a small pile of DVDs outside of my closet, that I had not made room for on the shelves inside my closet. So, last night, I made room for them and put half of them away. There are still more to be put away but I will probably wait until after I come back before finishing that job. I was able to vacuum my floor and use hardwood floor cleaner on it. I dusted my shelves, nightstand and dresser. So things in my room are cleaner now.
I’ve been wasting too much time playing “Internet Reversi,” a free game that comes with Microsoft Windows XP. The game is almost as addicting as Facebook, and you can waste just as much time with it as you do on Facebook. In fact, I’m playing it right now, when I should be concentrating on my morning pages.
It’s now 1:10pm. I took time away from these pages to go have some cereal. I then wasted time online, browsing around. I de-fragmented my hard drive. I fixed a towel rack that had come crashing down.
And I just ate lunch. A chicken sandwich. I did some light packing in preparation for my trip to Ottawa. I leave on Wednesday. My little dog Kikko is crying by the bedroom door. I’m done my sandwich and so she has it in her mind that she just has to go to see what Mom could be eating.
This is kinda cool to see: New recycling targets set
Translink makes me really mad…
As I posted earlier, I’m not happy with the fact that bus fares are going to increase in January. It seems like they just went up. Also, Translink is moving more and more towards an honour based system across the entire system – whereby drivers will no longer enforce riders to pay or show proof of payment. In addition to not having turnstiles at our Skytrain stations, Translink is doing a great job at not ensuring people pay. Furthermore, how can they track ridership if people do not have to clock in. If I remember correctly, in New York City, even those with monthly farecards are tracked because they swipe their cards every time they go on a bus or onto the subway. In Vancouver, there is no way to tell how often someone uses a bus pass. And that’s sad.
Hopefully the businesspeople who will be running Translink when its new model is created will have the business sense to put in a proper system that ensures the majority of riders pay and one that tracks how often people actually use the system, regardless of how they pay. Then maybe they can justify future increases.
Not in the mood to write…
I’m not in the mood to write today. Not that moods matter. They don’t. So I’ll just keep on writing even if the writing hurts and I’d rather be doing something else. Even though I feel as grey as the cloudy sky outside.
Website work…
I haven’t done much to my own website lately. I’m going to try and post online today copy of complaints related to the 2005 Kwantlen University College Board of Governors election that I felt was improperly handled. Apparently there are complaints surrounding the 2007 election that are also not being properly handled. I personally feel that Kwantlen needs to wake up and put in place a proper quasi-judicial system for any student lodged complaint. When it comes to student complaints, Kwantlen just doesn’t seem to get it.
I’d also like to see the new Regional University Act address this lack of procedure by having within the act allowances for each school having an independent and autonomous Ombudsperson with the power to investigate and report on both the University and the Student Association.
There is something else that I wanted to post about in relation to my website, but I can’t think of what it was right now.
It will come to me.
Oh, on another note - I really like the University of Alberta Students’ Union website.
Other KSA Work…
Not too much else is going on. I have to make an agenda today for tomorrow’s finance committee and I should get some minutes done that I’ve been putting off doing for a while now. I keep meaning to get to it but other stuff comes up.
I’ve also been struggling with the fact that we haven’t really opened much up in terms of our staff positions, especially at a senior level. There are some cases where I am fine with the fact that we did not open up a position – such as with our General Manager or our Financial Controller. In those cases, we essentially restored things to where they were prior to the pervious administration. But there are other positions that should have been opened up for competition (such as more of our Member Services / Business Office positions, or the Commercial Services Manager). It just keeps eating away at me when it should not. I think it has the perception of looking bad – that we just hire friends or family when I know this is not the case. I have brought this complaint forward already, and will be addressing it when we revise our Hiring Procedure in June. We can’t deal with it sooner because Mohammad Kallas is on leave (in order to pass or amend Executive Procedures, all members of the Executive Board have to be present at an official meeting of the Executive Board). Whenever we don’t open something up for competition, I think we are taking the easy route. And in the end, I don’t think students elected us to take the easy route. We have to do what is right.
I’m also frustrated with the drawn out process of finding a Speaker and hiring an Ombudsperson. The Ombudsperson issue is tied up right now because of the situation with the union, but we should have a Speaker by now. Like many of our positions, we haven’t posted the position publicly, but we have received resumes. I think I will put forward a motion on this issue at Council tomorrow – that the General Manager and the Primary Appointments Committee post the position from the time the General Manager returns from vacation until the 4pm on Thursday, June 14 (with postings going across all campuses and online, and via any other forum as the GM sees fit such as newspapers, etc.); and that the Primary Appointments Committee meet to review submissions on Friday, June 15, with any necessary interviews being conducted the week of June 18 with a recommendation for hire going to Council by the end of June.
I haven't seen any more articles online regarding the situation with Takhar or Daljit Sandhu.
Anyway, I’ve been avoiding writing my pages this morning – I’m half way through the middle of page three. It's kinda like how I've been avoiding exercise over the last few days. All day, I’ve been wandering back and forth from my computer to do other things (including staying at my computer to play Internet Reversi). It’s time to get some real work done.
- Steve
PS. Looking outside, it's now partly cloudy (or partly sunny - however you want to view it).