North of the 49th

It is 9:33pm as I write this.

It is still light enough outside that I just came in from reading on the front porch without the assistance of any artificial light.

I know I'll hate it in December when it's dark at 4pm, but right now it's awesome.

La Donald is running for President ......... Seriously

So Donald Trump, the comb over that walks like a man, has announced his candidacy for President . Well technically Donald has announced his intention to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but you know what I mean, in fact he's even printed the buttons, because we all know you can't be taken seriously as a candidate unless you have buttons.

There are a bunch of problems with Trump's campaign starting with the fact that while he is a "bad hair" billionaire he's also given a bunch of folks haircuts on the way there.

Trump has declared corporate bankruptcy four different times and while some will vigorously defend Chapter 11 as "just sound business" there are many others that feel four times is a tad excessive. Still one of the more interesting sidelines of Trump's announcement is that as a candidate he will have to file a detailed financial disclosure which means people will finally get a good luck at how much he is really worth . During his announcement speech, wildly cheered by actors making $50 each to do so, Donald brandished a one page net worth summary that placed his personal worth at $8.7 billion, more than double Forbes magazines estimate of $4.1 billion, but really we aren't here to quibble over a measly $4.6B discrepancy, suffice to say La Donald is, as he said, "really, really rich".

Getting past Trump's questionable business ethics the two biggest issues I have are that he has never held office, I mean never, and that may be a bit of an issue, but still running the country is much like running a business and he's had great success there, notwithstanding those four bankruptcies of course. Still Schwarzenegger had no experience before he was elected Governor of California and we all know how ell that turned out, though really Arnie was no worse than the previous Republican Governors . However in today's vast and varied political landscape maybe the board room philosophy can work.

But the biggest problem with Trump is that he's a big fat liar . I know that's often not an uncommon flaw among politicians but Donald is, to take his own phrase, a "really, really big liar". Since his announcement the disclaimers have been coming out of the woodwork, CBS news launched a piece detailing Trump's problems with the truth using data gathered by FactCheck.org and while it may have come as a surprise to some the lies had already been well documented over the years by the excellent site PoliticalFact.com, a site maintained by the Tampa Bay Times newspaper which regularly judges the merits of American broadcaster and politicians statements and grades them on a scale that goes from "True" to "Pants on Fire". As you can see the site has researched some nineteen different statements by Trump over the years, two reached the giddy heights of "Mostly True" while thirteen fell under the "False" or "Pants on Fire" rating.

Now I don't honestly think Donald Trump has any chance to win the Republican nomination but the concept of severely right wing billionaires actually running for office rather than just bankrolling the Republican party does change the dynamics a bit. In the mean time the Koch brothers will still be able to toss one of these guys at the electorate in 2016, and they all have better hair than Donald.

Easiest Move Ever

We moved, it didn't cost me a dime and it was almost painless.

Okay we didn't move, barring a lottery win we are unlikely to move until daughter leaves home and I can downsize. The Vancouver real estate market is the second most expensive in the world, behind Hong Kong but ahead of London, New York and San Francisco so I won't ever be buying but we had the good fortune to find a reasonable rental in a fabulous area and we've been here for almost 14 years. Our landlord is neglectfully benevolent, meaning it might take longer for the dryer to get fixed but the rent increases are also irregular. Rent increases in Vancouver are limited to 2.5% per year and can't be applied retroactively so the years in which my landlord forgets to raise the rent save us all the way down the line, as a result I now pay roughly 20-25% below market value for our 2 bedroom suite on the main floor of a character house in one of the city's more desirable neighbourhoods.

Last month I got an email from my landlord saying he had commissioned a painting firm to paint all three of his rental properties, one is on the same block as ours while the other is three blocks away. Landlord apologized in advance for any inconvenience and assured me this was not a precursor to selling the house, which I knew anyway because our lovely little character house will meet the wrecking ball hours after it is eventually sold, the same fate as 750 homes have already this year in Vancouver but that's another story. A week or so later a sign went up on the lawn and a day or two after that the painter knocked on the door to explain his schedule and advise me when the outdoor plants would have to be moved etc., I asked him what the new colour would be and he said landlord hadn't specified and did I have a choice, in fact I did. Our house has always been referred to as "the purple house" and I enquired if he could come close to matching the original which was a deep indigo hue. he brought out his colour samples and between us we came up with something really close, the painter was very happy as he said "I like to see these older houses stay with their character colours".

We have been blessed with a sensational month weather wise, as opposed to the past few years when the sixth month of the calendar year was generally referred to as "Junuary" for it's wet, cool conditions. The result was the house was totally finished in about a week with minimal inconvenience and I must say it looks great. Given my druthers I'd have preferred new carpet and stainless steel appliances rather than a paint job but it does make my neighbours happy, in truth the old girl had become a little drab. The painting crew moved down the block and I figured that was it until this past Tuesday when I had a knock on the door and answered to see our mailman on the top step with a wry smile on his face. I asked if he had something he needed signed but he just handed me the mail and said "You know you screwed up the address, right ?". In fact I did not know but when I checked he was in fact correct, when putting the numbers back on the house our painters had become confused and moved our house three blocks east, our actual address is 853.

I thought about leaving it, but we changed it back.