This weekend I went south of the border to the United States and did some shopping. With the Canadian dollar worth equal or more than the US dollar for the first time in about 30 years it was time to go shopping!

Until recently I drove a Mazda 626, but it was 10 years old and the costs of maintenance were increasing to the point where it competed with payments on a new car. Things like transmission failures and timing belts and cooling system problems were becoming more popular than I liked. Although I loved that car, and paid whatever it took to keep it healthy, I knew it was time to move on.

On your way up the ladder of success, you will encounter situations where things don't always go well. Most people think in a cause and effect mindset, which goes along the lines "if something went wrong, then someone is to blame..."

It is mid-July, and it has been raining now for 7 days in a row (which I learned was a new record for this area). I have written before on my efforts to lose some weight. At one point, it was coming down quite steadily. That was a year or two ago. Since then I got distracted, and it leveled off.

Clarity is important. You can be smart and know so much, but you need to be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas to others. If you don't have clarity, it is like a beautiful picture that noone can see. You might as well not have no picture at all.

I notice from the logs that a lot of people get here by searching for "customer appreciation day ideas". I imagine all these business owners around the world, deciding to hold a customer appreciation day, and then they use google to do some research on the topic. But I wonder, why just one day?

I recently got elected club president for the Port Moody Canoe and Kayak Club and so I set about organizing a schedule of interesting paddles. One of the first club events I decided we would go from Rocky Point to the Twin Islands in Indian Arm for a 2 day paddle. It was our first overnight paddle/camping, so within the few weeks prior to the event we had to obtain suitable camping gear that would fit in a kayak.

I was talking with someone on LinkedIn recently, about happiness. He asked what makes you really, truly happy deep down.

The question implies my happiness is controlled by external sources. To answer the question constrains you to believing that other things or events can make you happy.