Home again

Sorry for the absence of posts of late. I was down in San Francisco for much of the week on a business trip/vacation.

It was a fun trip. NetSuite had the tech media down for a launch event for its updated flagship product, and what made it fun was they held it at the home of one of their customers, baseball’s Oakland A’s. It was serendipitous, as I was just finishing-up the book Moneyball, about how A’s boss Billy Beane used statistical analysis to keep the low budget team competitive.

Serendipitous as well that the A’s opponent was the Evil Empire itself, the big-budget New York Yankees. It was a chilly night in the open-air McAffee Coliseum, but a great game as the A’s overcame a 4-0 deficit to beat the Yankees 8-4.

I also took a vacation day to explore the city, and had a lot of fun checking out the old ships along Fisherman’s Wharf, touring a WW II submarine, and enjoying the view from Coit Tower. Unfortunately the Alcatraz tours were all booked, that will have to wait until last time.

Busy days

And it seems I missed quite a busy few days while I was away. There was the throne speech reaction, while I paid little attention to, as throne speeches have never really mattered for much. Belinda Stronach shows more smarts than I ever gave her credit for by opting-out of the leadership, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff are in, and Bob Rae stays on the fence. The more he fence sits, the more Liberal he seems.

It’s shaping-up to be an interesting field, with Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden all but in too. The only sad thing (with apologies to Martha Hall-Findlay) is the lack of credible female candidates.

And for those who still insist on pooh-poohing the Liberal field, I leave you with this lists from another party’s race:

Announced they wouldn’t run:
Scott Brison, Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Bernard Lord, Peter McKay, Brian Pallister, Jim Prentice, Bob Runciman, Larry Smith, Chuck Strahl.

Holly-crap, look at all the big names that took a pass! That party must be in big trouble, they won’t be in government for years and years!

Did run:
Stephen Harper, Belinda Stronach, Tony Clement.

Where’s the star power, where’s the big names? An unchirismatic MP/economist that Parliament for a while to run a lobby group, as heiress, and an uninspiring Harris-era ex-Minister? Bo-ring.

But did you know, that unchirismatic economist went on to be....the unchirismatic minority Prime Minister of Canada (for a little while anyway)?

And now you know the rest of the story.

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