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must wash hands

Posted by  on 25 June 2009, 1:35 pm
during yesterday’s coffee break, i stopped at a starbucks in vancouver to have the morning ‘fix’. while i was sipping away…i had to take a short trip and ‘check-out’ the facilities at the location. the first thing that jumped at me was the sign ‘employees must wash their hands’. first thing i thought about was something along the lines…’great…but have you told them how to do it properly?’.

make my way to wash my hands, and i noticed the short ‘how-to-wash-your-hands’ picture-gram (and as soon as i get a chance i’ll post a picture of it). in short, the diagram itself was made up for five pictures showing different stages of the washing procedure. as you can imagine, i was quite pleased that the instructions were there, they were clear and had subtitles to each picture in order to explain what to do. first you wet your hands and then you get soap. then you wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds, and after you rinse them. you take paper towels after and turn off the water with the paper towel (as to not contaminate yourself from the dirty handle…thumbs up for this to starbucks).

seeing this brought a few questions. i do wonder if other training was offered to employees besides the posted information (which does most often get ignored). the second thought was…i wonder why they did not put a picture to tell the employee to use the paper towel to open the door when getting out of the bathroom…afterall there are some who do not wash they hands and will have to use the door handle to get out. so…for the same reason as to why one should use a towel to turn off the running water in the sink…one should use the paper towel to open the door when coming out (thus one would also require a garbage basket at or near the door). and the third thing (and this is probably nit-picking) is…to my knowledge one should wash one’s hands with soap form 30 to 60 seconds (given different sources). perhaps i am being picky on this…but at least they have these up there.

overall, i am quite pleased to at least see information about this posted. yes, most employees tend to ignore signs, but at least efforts are being made. i hope that training went along with the information, but if not there’s still time. and while i wonder why the employees bathroom is common with the public bathroom at starbucks (most likely due to space constraints)…it’s comforting knowing they took the time to instruct about washing procedures, unlike others.

Filed under health, safety, vancouver. Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
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rental adds

Posted by  on 15 June 2009, 11:21 am

recently i started to pay a bit more attention to rental adds on craigslist, keeping an eye on various places, seeing how the rent in specific areas is, and so on. i figured i should at least be somewhat informed on the prices of areas of interest when the time comes to spread the wings…and leave the ‘nest’. anyhow, long story short….i also figured that if something pops up too good to miss i will contact them asap. and, so i did. a few adds on craigslist were just that…’too good…not to contact’. cheap yet offering quite a bit. so, i send an email, asking for information and when/where to set up a meeting to see the place.

first (of two emails to two different adds) email i send was on saturday and i receive quite a lengthy email in response with too much information in regards to the religious views as well as the type of ‘volunteer’ work they do in africa. now, before i go into how the two different emails are alike…what put me off responding to the first was simply the request of too much personal information to be kept on ‘file’ by the person. so…given i didn’t respond. however, on sunday i run into another add that sounded like quite a deal…so i emailed again, asking for a time to see the place. same type of email comes back as a reply. i guess…i needed two emails to fully confirm that if an add on craigslist is too good to be true…then it is…

the two responses…both spend time focusing on the religious views as well as the support work done in africa by the potential owner of the place to be rented…now, i highly doubt that two different apartments, at separate addresses in downtown vancouver have either the same owner…or different owners that do the same type of work (keep in mind…the names on each email are different). they both asked pretty much the same nine (or so) questions…and both had the keys with them in africa…which are to be mailed if terms agreed upon. the apartment can be viewed from the outside…but no interior inspection…until agreed to rent the place… not to mention…the information requested is to be kept on file…in case receipt is to be issued…

i guess i needed two adds to make the full conclusion that what seems too cheap for what is offered is most likely spam…or an attempt at phishing for information. i recall the ‘bank-type’ emails being sent out…or various network website emails asking for username/password to be re-typed, etc. but i must state…i wasn’t expecting this…

here’s the set of questions to be filled in as part of the application received in the second email:

========= RENT APPLICATION FORM ============

PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
Also,Pls answer these questions below:

1)Your Full Name______________________________________

2)Present Address(where you reside now) & Phone Number______________________________

3)How old are you _____________________________

4)Are you married ______________________________ _____

5)How many people will be living in the apartment___________________________

6)Do you have a pet _________________________________________

7)Do you have a car __________________________________________

8)Occupation _________________________________________________

9)How long are you willing to stay _________________________________________

10)When do you intend to move in _________________________________________

11)1 month Or 2 month deposit needed ______________________________________

12) Pictures of all the Occupant that will stay in my apartment______________________________________

oh, and before i forget…both owners are willing to give the apartment based on trust alone…provided you fill out the (or answer) questions…
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this is love…

Posted by  on 11 June 2009, 3:07 pm
one could arguably define it as the most complex and important emotion that humans hold…it comes in various shapes and sizes, and for the most part there’s as many definitions of love as there are people. instinctively each person at some point or another will say they felt as if they did ‘love’, however agreeing on how it feels and what it is…that’s another story. quotes and various ideas about love have been spread around through civilizations. it has been used as a reason to smile and to hurt, a reason to cherish someone and to fight with or against someone…it’s been written about and it’s been sang about…everywhere you go there’s some sort of reference about love…yet for the most part it remains an emotion…an emotion that is so vivid to those who believe they feel it…yet illusive…

on the other side, science seems as if it has no boundaries…as long as there are unknowns there is someone that will be willing to study it…as it turns out there is someone studying love, helen fisher, and she’s been studying for around 30 years so far. without entering the discussion of when do we draw boundaries about what we study or how far we study…her research is bringing about evidence of how one starts to love, how it expresses itself in the body and it is starting to hint at us being able to determine why sometimes we just can’t help it but feel the way we do about a particular person…so love might be blind…but as it turns out it’s only blind to the human eye…

here’s a video (it’s about 20+ minutes long…but i can assure it’s worth it), enjoy…

at some point…i’ll have a bit more time to fully state my thoughts on her research and what this means to me in particular…but also to what this can mean to society as a whole…
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