1. Eat organic and fair trade as much as possible. Mass market farms are run corporately by big business. Often times, the bottom line is more important than providing healthy good food, at the expense of the farmer, worker and consumer. They will have to use pesticides, which is unhealthy for all of us in the long run and owned by, yup, a big corporation.

2. Shop at your local stores. If that pair of jeans, scissors, milk, bread or whatever, is up to 25% more than the big box store, buy it! That is a local retailer who took the great chance to start their own business. His or her job and entire livelihood is fully dependent on your dollar. The big box store? No one gets rich working there, except the “1%” who own that big corporate thing.

3. If it’s not local, buy regionally. I live in British Columbia, Canada. If its not made in my city, I hope the company is from BC. If not from BC, I hope it’s Canadian. If not? North American. It will help to keep the jobs here and not outsourced.

4. Change your bank. If you currently use one of the big banks, who consistently have net profits in the billions, move to a credit union. Just as long as they provide you even better service, not just for the sake of leaving a big bank. And from what I’ve heard, most of them do.

Care to share any of your thoughts? Anything you can add?

My next post will be for the local businesses.

iPhone 4 is awesome!

Imagine, you put bread on the top, push the button down, then a few minutes later toast pops up.

So where does the bread go?

Magic right? I know!!

* Props goes out to Bill Waterson who created Calvin and Hobbes, from which the inspiration for this blog post came from

But if you live in the Pacific Northwest, the winter may not bring as cold a weather as Manitoba (-50C at times), and crazy blizzards, but we get rain.

A LOT of rain! It’s dreary, my clothes get wet, and parkas just don’t make people look sexy.

So what do we do to stay up and happy?

The pale skinned love the tanning salon. But c’mon! I’m Filipino. I’m already a lovely shade of brown. Caramel colour is fantastic!

There’s also vitamin D! About 5,000 iu a day can keep you nice and happy.

But without all that what else can we do to stay up and keep happy thoughts?

Did you wake up? Awesome! That’s a great start already!

Have you seen how awesome the colours of fall are? When I drive around Victoria and see the orange leaves, it’s an amazing sight!

What about how children giggle and laugh as they splash through puddles? Intoxicating!

What about the beauty and serenity of the first snowfall? Gorgeous!

Now it’s getting darker earlier, but on the first day of winter, December 21st, the days start getting longer already! You know what that means? It means spring is just around the corner, and the days get longer again!

See? There’s always a reason to smile in the winter. If not, get some vitamin D drops. For $20, it’s enough to help you through the dark times. Haha!

Ferris Wheel from the Saanich Fair 2011

Whenever I think of a Ferris Wheel, I always think it’s the 1970′s.  I can’t believe these rickety things are still around in the 21st Century!  But it’s fun, I’m sure.  You can see “the whole world” when you’re at the top, and the bonus is, you don’t barf because you don’t move as fast as a roller coaster.

So I think I may just change my name to “Awesome”. I can almost imagine the public pages for me at work.

“Telephone line one is for Awesome, Awesome line one.”

Hmm. Maybe I’ll just start with Facebook.

(Please add your comments below)

1) Be grateful you’re alive or
2) continue to be miserable.

I hope you choose number 1.

Almost!

* All images are the property of Neil Duazo.  Using any of these images for any reason is prohibited. *

Well it’s a bit too mean, really.  But if you’re in a place with an economic crisis or live in a third world country (United States of America), the title may not fit you.  But I live in Canada, and so far the job situation is pretty good.  In certain parts of the world, and Canada is no exception, often it’s who you know rather than what you know, that can help with landing that job.  (Read more.)

What I really mean for this particular title, is that I honestly find it mind boggling that people who struggle to find a job.  I’ve been in that same situation before, not having an income for almost 2 months!  But what I realized back then (16 years ago) was that I wasn’t applying everywhere.  I really and literally mean EVERYWHERE!  I set myself up with perimeters.  No fast food, janitorial, Tim Hortons and coffee shops, and the list goes on.  I’m sure we all do.  If you have a Masters degree in music or biophysics, why the heck would you apply to work at A&W?  They make great onion rings, but you didn’t spend close to six figures going to school to flip burgers!  But I don’t have a degree and back then, I just needed a job to pay bills.  But, I didn’t apply everywhere.

Over my 38 years, I’ve had the extreme pleasure to meet so many people new to this country.  Imagine, they took the risk to trust someone, to get them a job in Canada to either be a caregiver or to work at a fast food restaurant.  They’re leaving their family behind, leaving their jobs, which took years of schooling to accomplish, and arrive here to take care of your children or serve coffee and doughnuts to us.  Did you notice?  They’re here to do jobs we won’t!  “We have to work, so someone has to care for my kids.”  “I don’t want to do graveyard shifts and flip burgers, or drive a taxi” so we have to import people from thousands of miles away, to do it.  Shame on us Canadians!  Do we have so much pride in ourselves, that people with more education than us, are doing these jobs?

I have literally met people with BSc in Chemistry, Business Administration/Management, Accounting, lawyers, doctors that left great jobs “back home”, to come here and change your babies (or grandparents) diapers.  To make sandwiches for your little ungrateful and spoiled kids.  To sweep the floors of a school at night, while working at a fast food place during the day.  And all because we won’t do it.

It’s a real shame that we’re like this.  And I love all these people that come and do all of these jobs.  Whatever money they make, gets sent back to their families — aging parents, newborn baby, sick siblings, etc.  They do this because of love, compassion and the greater good.

I’m tired of hearing “oh, I don’t do that it’s not my job.”  “I don’t work during the summer.” “I should be entitled to a higher wage” while doing nothing.  You know what?  I know someone who will do a better job than you.  It’s that guy in the Philippines, that girl in Korea, or that family from Africa, who only want to make a difference for their family.  They will take any job, any overtime, any time, and work harder, faster and smarter, just to advance.  Who are only happy to be here in this amazing country, where they can work and not feel like a slave, where they can practice their right of religion, and say whatever they want without feeling like they’ll be jailed or killed.

So don’t complain about not finding a job, because I guarantee, you haven’t applied EVERYWHERE.  Just look at those Filipino guys I know in Dawson Creek working at Subway, and that Indian guy cleaning floors at night while working at 7-11 during the day.  They can do it, so can you.

This is a video I took of my boy, playing in a sack race.  Clearly he’s not the fastest.  But if you’ll notice, every time he fell down, he got up again and continued on the race until he finished.  How is this so inspiring for all of us as an example to life?  If every time we fell down, every time someone tells us we can’t do “it”, we get up and prove them wrong or finish?

Life isn’t awesome all the time, so in those times that life gets really, really hard and we fall, get back up again and keep going!  Falling & pain is temporary, but when you get up, you’ll eventually finish.  If a 6 year old can do it, so can we.  The reward will be awesome.