OT: One More Off Topic Off Season Thread

[brentashton]

First year of BSC I went there. It was an amazing place. Nice people, more nice people, and quite a lot of nice people. I think I met as many people in one year at Concordia than anywhere else. It was a real community. Was a good place to go straight out of high school. U of A in comparison is pretty sterile and not at all a community. Just too large. Half the people I hung around with or studied with at U of A were from Concordia. Packs of us kept in touch and stayed together. Several people from Concordia I knew years later and they even went to our Wedding. Friends for life except most people moved on to other Cities, countries. Lots of people did really well.

This just for a laugh but when I signed up to go to Concordia couldn't help but think the Old building, Schwermann Hall, looked a bit like Faber college from Animal House which was out around that time. But I didn't throw any beer kegs out windows. Honest.

That is so wonderful about the connections you made there during your time spent there. Sounds like some very long term and meaningful connections. That’s is what is so powerful about university, the people you meet, the long term relationships built. One of my college classmates was Colin Thatchers son Greg, nice and polite but brooding (Google him) , and another classmate, who i actually met before college at a Rotary sponsored leadership camp in high school and we took the same program in University, graduated together, eventually became a Premier in Sask, Brad Wall.

And Kegs, why would you toss a a fully functional beer keg?? Just empties, right Drai?

Dean Wormer…Food fight!! This and FastTimes are two of my go-to movies (and most Bill Murray early work).

I admit, I’m a simple man.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Didn’t know you were an alumn. I thought the only famous alum was Nathan Filion.

My youngest daughter is doing a combined Arts/ BEd degree there and my middle daughter did her undergrad B Sc. degree there. Small college but they have nothing but positive things to say about their time there.

2 of our sons went to Concordia High School.

 

[Drivesaitl]

That is so wonderful about the connections you made there during your time spent there. Sounds like some very long term and meaningful connections. That’s is what is so powerful about university, the people you meet, the long term relationships built. One of my college classmates was Colin Thatchers son Greg, nice and polite but brooding (Google him) , and another classmate, who i actually met before college at a Rotary sponsored leadership camp in high school and we took the same program in University, graduated together, eventually became a Premier in Sask, Brad Wall.

And Kegs, why would you toss a a fully functional beer keg?? Just empties, right Drai?

Dean Wormer…Food fight!! This and FastTimes are two of my go-to movies (and most Bill Murray early work).

I admit, I’m a simple man.

I like the movie Dazed and Confused too. A few memories in there. I've watched fast times maybe 100X through the decades. Wife loves it even more.

A lot of famous people at Concordia too. MLA's, Lawyers, CEO's. Seems like places like that attract a kind of excellence, or reinforce it.

But every weekend there were parties to go to. Pretty memorable stuff. Hopefully its tamer by now with your daughters there. heh. It was some kind of wild there around 80.

 

[Fourier]

First year of BSC I went there. It was an amazing place. Nice people, more nice people, and quite a lot of nice people. I think I met as many people in one year at Concordia than anywhere else. It was a real community. Was a good place to go straight out of high school. U of A in comparison is pretty sterile and not at all a community. Just too large. Half the people I hung around with or studied with at U of A were from Concordia. Packs of us kept in touch and stayed together. Several people from Concordia I knew years later and they even went to our Wedding. Friends for life except most people moved on to other Cities, countries. Lots of people did really well.

This just for a laugh but when I signed up to go to Concordia couldn't help but think the Old building, Schwermann Hall, looked a bit like Faber college from Animal House which was out around that time. But I didn't throw any beer kegs out windows. Honest.

I once applied for a position at Concordia University of Edmonton. I grew up in the Highlands area and my aging parents were still there at the time. I had a tenured position at the time but for family reasons we wanted to get back to Edmonton. I received a very terse rejection letter almost immediately indicating that "since they had many more qualified applicants" they would not be able to offer me an interview. At the time they were still a Lutheran institution and while they did not explicitly require any sort of religious affiliation in their job ad I suspect this played a big role.

 

[timekeep]

OMG! I would totally do this. I love flight (my dad had his private license when I was a child for years and I loved to soar with him in a little Cessna 120) and because I grew up when I did, Apollo, Skylab and the heyday of NASA etc, I’ve always wanted to travel to space.

Even now, I told my wife if I could go to space no matter the risk (and I'm a zero risk taker, I won’t even buy green bananas just like KH) but I would leave tomorrow for the chance to observe our earth from high orbit.

What a rush.

Oh and I’m prone to motion sickness. I despise roller coasters and other midway rides. Yes I’m unique in this way.

I can handle heights, CN tower or skyscrapers. Not sure I could trust someone harnessing me up right.

 

[DavidHasselhoffsFist]

I have to ask. whats with Green bananas? Whats the risk, that the wife whacks you up the head for not picking better ones? heh

Higher starch levels that we can’t digest. Once ripe the starches drop from 70% down to 1% and turn into sugar. In other words your wife doesn’t want you to get fat

 

[Drivesaitl]

I once applied for a position at Concordia University of Edmonton. I grew up in the Highlands area and my aging parents were still there at the time. I had a tenured position at the time but for family reasons we wanted to get back to Edmonton. I received a very terse rejection letter almost immediately indicating that "since they had many more qualified applicants" they would not be able to offer me an interview. At the time they were still a Lutheran institution and while they did not explicitly require any sort of religious affiliation in their job ad I suspect this played a big role.

Interesting that you mention that. I've known a lot of profs from there and even longterm ones and the Lutheran affiliation is only a requirement for the positions that are obviously requiring it like Religious studies. The higher positions there as well would probably prefer a Lutheran background. But many profs had no such background and many were not necessarily religious. Several were agnostic at best if not some atheists around. Maybe weird to know all this but Concordia was the kind of place where Profs would actually talk to students. If students hung around after last class there were profs there that would speak about any topic with students for hours. Would never occur today I guess.

I'd applied there too and with 30yrs experience I got a form letter rejection. What I did learn is that the closed shop nature of hiring at Concordia was a who knows who type of thing. Several instances it seemed as well where positions were advertised but out of necessity to do that, and where somebody possibly was already selected.

That said I forgot to mention that Concordia had some of my favorite Profs of all time. They did manage, usually, to select good ones. There were some suspicious hires though.

 

[Stoneman89]

I once applied for a position at Concordia University of Edmonton. I grew up in the Highlands area and my aging parents were still there at the time. I had a tenured position at the time but for family reasons we wanted to get back to Edmonton. I received a very terse rejection letter almost immediately indicating that "since they had many more qualified applicants" they would not be able to offer me an interview. At the time they were still a Lutheran institution and while they did not explicitly require any sort of religious affiliation in their job ad I suspect this played a big role.

I take it you weren't open to converting?

 

[brentashton]

I once applied for a position at Concordia University of Edmonton. I grew up in the Highlands area and my aging parents were still there at the time. I had a tenured position at the time but for family reasons we wanted to get back to Edmonton. I received a very terse rejection letter almost immediately indicating that "since they had many more qualified applicants" they would not be able to offer me an interview. At the time they were still a Lutheran institution and while they did not explicitly require any sort of religious affiliation in their job ad I suspect this played a big role.

well, their loss of a good man I’d say. I went to a catholic affiliated college at the U of S, St Thomas More, back in the day. I think now of what that had to do with higher education and critical thought (but of course we do understand what it’s about. Institutions still want to ensure that thought paradigms align). Somethings never change…sadly.

 

[brentashton]

I like the movie Dazed and Confused too. A few memories in there. I've watched fast times maybe 100X through the decades. Wife loves it even more.

A lot of famous people at Concordia too. MLA's, Lawyers, CEO's. Seems like places like that attract a kind of excellence, or reinforce it.

But every weekend there were parties to go to. Pretty memorable stuff. Hopefully it’s tamer by now with your daughters there. heh. It was some kind of wild there around 80.

When I went to U I was an 11 on the volume knob, my kids seems to be at about 3-4 with a lot of treble and little bass.

 

[bellagiobob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1820500170133631167

 

[SupremeTeam16]

I was in the city this weekend and hit a fast food drive through for the first time in forever and learned that the city now makes them charge 25 cents for the bag your food comes in. I knew they had done that for single use plastic bags but it absolutely blew my mind that they are making them charge for paper bags. But yet they don’t make them charge for the wrapper burgers come in or the fries container or poutine containers, or cups or literally anything else except the bag.

The funniest part is that the guy in front of me just went to grab his order out of the plastic bin and when he did he dropped napkins and straws on the ground and then they just handed him new ones. It make me think, now that people don’t have bags to put their garbage in so they can throw it on the floor and toss in the garbage later how much more of those burger wrappers, fries containers, drinks cups and everything else is just going to end up out the window and on the ground.

 

[timekeep]

I was in the city this weekend and hit a fast food drive through for the first time in forever and learned that the city now makes them charge 25 cents for the bag your food comes in. I knew they had done that for single use plastic bags but it absolutely blew my mind that they are making them charge for paper bags. But yet they don’t make them charge for the wrapper burgers come in or the fries container or poutine containers, or cups or literally anything else except the bag.

The funniest part is that the guy in front of me just went to grab his order out of the plastic bin and when he did he dropped napkins and straws on the ground and then they just handed him new ones. It make me think, now that people don’t have bags to put their garbage in so they can throw it on the floor and toss in the garbage later how much more of those burger wrappers, fries containers, drinks cups and everything else is just going to end up out the window and on the ground.

Not much thought is put into decisions like this now. I have a couple of buddies that I went on a trip with, and one won't pay those charges so its a mess. After the first time driving we decided to eat in only.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

Not much thought is put into decisions like this now. I have a couple of buddies that I went on a trip with, and one won't pay those charges so it’s a mess. After the first time driving we decided to eat in only.

Seems like a money grab disguised as environmental action. I’m all for reducing as much single use plastic waste as possible but making people pay for paper bags that double as garbage bags just seems like a great way to ensure more trash ends up on the ground, at .05 I could see the majority of people begrudgingly paying, at .25 a lot of people are going to be saying no thanks.

 

[brentashton]

I was in the city this weekend and hit a fast food drive through for the first time in forever and learned that the city now makes them charge 25 cents for the bag your food comes in. I knew they had done that for single use plastic bags but it absolutely blew my mind that they are making them charge for paper bags. But yet they don’t make them charge for the wrapper burgers come in or the fries container or poutine containers, or cups or literally anything else except the bag.

The funniest part is that the guy in front of me just went to grab his order out of the plastic bin and when he did he dropped napkins and straws on the ground and then they just handed him new ones. It make me think, now that people don’t have bags to put their garbage in so they can throw it on the floor and toss in the garbage later how much more of those burger wrappers, fries containers, drinks cups and everything else is just going to end up out the window and on the ground.

I know where I’d like to shove my paper straws… RCMP security detail prevents it.

 

[brentashton]

Seems like a money grab disguised as environmental action. I’m all for reducing as much single use plastic waste as possible but making people pay for paper bags that double as garbage bags just seems like a great way to ensure more trash ends up on the ground, at .05 I could see the majority of people begrudgingly paying, at .25 a lot of people are going to be saying no thanks.

I go to the USA as you all know. They are gratuitous with plastic shopping bags anywhere you go. I collect them all winter and when I head home I have enough to keep me in bags and my parents, for 6+months, who I give half of them too. We use them as garbage bags in bathrooms, home offices and generally to put other items in as the day goes. Did I say I have dogs shit to pick up daily.

Yes here in Canada we are saving the environment by outlawing plastic shopping bags because if we didn’t have them what would I replace the one I use with? Oh, new plastic bags you say that take more energy to produce? Good grief.

 

[PositiveCashFlow]

 

[timekeep]

Seems like a money grab disguised as environmental action. I’m all for reducing as much single use plastic waste as possible but making people pay for paper bags that double as garbage bags just seems like a great way to ensure more trash ends up on the ground, at .05 I could see the majority of people begrudgingly paying, at .25 a lot of people are going to be saying no thanks.

I doubt if anyone is making in money off of the actual bag charge, its more of political tactic.

 

[harpoon]

Well maybe not making money, but the shops are certainly saving money. I just hate corporate hypocrisy. Oh yes, we want to save the earth blah blah blah. Look how green we are blah blah blah. But we’ll pass the cost of all that straight on to our customers. And get them to bag their own purchases at a self check out whilst raising the price of everything. We are being taken for mugs.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

I go to the USA as you all know. They are gratuitous with plastic shopping bags anywhere you go. I collect them all winter and when I head home I have enough to keep me in bags and my parents, for 6+months, who I give half of them too. We use them as garbage bags in bathrooms, home offices and generally to put other items in as the day goes. Did I say I have dogs shit to pick up daily.

Yes here in Canada we are saving the environment by outlawing plastic shopping bags because if we didn’t have them what would I replace the one I use with? Oh, new plastic bags you say that take more energy to produce? Good grief.

I’m in the same boat, I would always reuse plastic bags for various things and definitely have had to make adjustments and in some cases same as you just buy other plastic bags.

I think like a lot of things these days that are meant to alter people’s behaviour, they work to some extent but more often then not it’s not a meaningful difference, the result is often just that people have less money.

I doubt if anyone is making in money off of the actual bag charge, its more of political tactic.

The city doesn’t even collect the money, businesses just keep it all because it’s too expensive to administer programs these days it’s not worth the revenue.

So basically just taking money out of peoples pockets and putting it into the pockets of corporations. I think about how many .02 paper bags McDonald’s sells a day for .25 when they used to give them away for free. Pretty sweet deal for them.

 

[timekeep]

I’m in the same boat, I would always reuse plastic bags for various things and definitely have had to make adjustments and in some cases same as you just buy other plastic bags.

I think like a lot of things these days that are meant to alter people’s behaviour, they work to some extent but more often then not it’s not a meaningful difference, the result is often just that people have less money.


The city doesn’t even collect the money, businesses just keep it all because it’s too expensive to administer programs these days it’s not worth the revenue.

So basically just taking money out of peoples pockets and putting it into the pockets of corporations. I think about how many .02 paper bags McDonald’s sells a day for .25 when they used to give them away for free. Pretty sweet deal for them.

They have to charge the .25c, the city bylaw states that, not a money grab. The bags are probably cheaper than .25c each, so they are making some money off of them, I guess. Its still a dumb policy that the govt has come up with.

 

[Fourier]

Interesting that you mention that. I've known a lot of profs from there and even longterm ones and the Lutheran affiliation is only a requirement for the positions that are obviously requiring it like Religious studies. The higher positions there as well would probably prefer a Lutheran background. But many profs had no such background and many were not necessarily religious. Several were agnostic at best if not some atheists around. Maybe weird to know all this but Concordia was the kind of place where Profs would actually talk to students. If students hung around after last class there were profs there that would speak about any topic with students for hours. Would never occur today I guess.

I'd applied there too and with 30yrs experience I got a form letter rejection. What I did learn is that the closed shop nature of hiring at Concordia was a who knows who type of thing. Several instances it seemed as well where positions were advertised but out of necessity to do that, and where somebody possibly was already selected.

That said I forgot to mention that Concordia had some of my favorite Profs of all time. They did manage, usually, to select good ones. There were some suspicious hires though.

Small schools often have better atmospheres than larger instututions. Years ago I did an academic review of the Science Faculty at another smaller institution in Edmonton. I was extremely impressed by what the students I spoke to said about the quality of their interaction with their professors. Many had actually transferred from the U of A because of the more personal engagement with both students and staff.

That said not all "big schools" are impersonal. One of the things I have like best about my own institution is getting to know so many outstanding students, but also being able to turn around the studies of some students who started off with issues. Unfortunately, in recent years it has been harder and harder to do both things. In the second term of my first year at the U of A I had a core class with 4 people in it. Most of my major courses had 10 or less. These days that would never fly.

 

[joestevens29]

I was in the city this weekend and hit a fast food drive through for the first time in forever and learned that the city now makes them charge 25 cents for the bag your food comes in. I knew they had done that for single use plastic bags but it absolutely blew my mind that they are making them charge for paper bags. But yet they don’t make them charge for the wrapper burgers come in or the fries container or poutine containers, or cups or literally anything else except the bag.

The funniest part is that the guy in front of me just went to grab his order out of the plastic bin and when he did he dropped napkins and straws on the ground and then they just handed him new ones. It make me think, now that people don’t have bags to put their garbage in so they can throw it on the floor and toss in the garbage later how much more of those burger wrappers, fries containers, drinks cups and everything else is just going to end up out the window and on the ground.

I'm more pissed off the city council dictates the minimum price of the reusable bags. Just went up July 1st

And yes I foresee more littering because of their stupidity.

 

[joestevens29]

I go to the USA as you all know. They are gratuitous with plastic shopping bags anywhere you go. I collect them all winter and when I head home I have enough to keep me in bags and my parents, for 6+months, who I give half of them too. We use them as garbage bags in bathrooms, home offices and generally to put other items in as the day goes. Did I say I have dogs shit to pick up daily.

Yes here in Canada we are saving the environment by outlawing plastic shopping bags because if we didn’t have them what would I replace the one I use with? Oh, new plastic bags you say that take more energy to produce? Good grief.

I use to get mad when I'd go to the grocery store with a basket and end up with 6 bags. Yet when I'd bag it I'd get away with 2 bags.

Now I regret not getting more bags when I could've. Like you say they are perfect to reuse for so many different purposes.

Often I'd just use them as garbage bags if I knew I as going out of town and wouldn't fill a full bag. Now I just say f*** it and waste larger bags.

 

[K1984]

I keep wondering where all the reusable bags that I don't need that I'm forced to buy will end up in the end.

I normally keep bags in my trunk now, but occasionally I'll forget to bring them back to the car necessitating purchase of another reusable bag if I need to pick some stuff up on the way home. Refuse to use the shitty paper bags with no handles that rip easily.

Wonder if the City has a genius plan to somehow make all the reusable bags magically disintegrate when they inevitably end up in people's trash?