Spring is coming

Ok it's been a while.. Nothing spectacular has happened although it's been a stressful few weeks with work and friends.

For work - we had the big bosses up here from the US and they let go of our purchasers. It was a consolidation move to centralize purchasing in the USA. What people didn't like was the two fellas were told they no longer had employment here and were immediately escorted out of the building without even having a chance to say good bye to anyone. That's rough especially since we all worked with them for over 5 years. The reason for them going though made sense and in the end it turns out they really didn't have a good grasp of what they were doing as the US has filled in and found a mess of problems that should never have occurred. So a good thing for the company but I can't help but feel bad for them. It seems strange to not see them any more and not to have at least said good-bye.

For friends - hum. I seem to be having issues with both my best friends. One a female and one a guy. For the girl we seemed to have clashed recently over world issues.. Iraq specifically. Well, actually this clash occurred right after the Iraq invasion. She took the US side, I took Canada's position and then we locked horns to a point where we really can't discuss this anymore without raising our voices. I would imagine this is not all that uncommon... Although I've known this girl all my life and we've never argued let along clashed on anything on this scale. It's kinda sad. It seems to have now boiled over to how we see everything else and we're discovering that we really are very different people at heart. She is much more conservative, right wing and pro-business... I am really much more liberal, left of centre and pro-struggles against governments and big business.

All this came to head over a discussion about Paul McCartney coming to Canada to protest the seal hunt. Now we both object to the seal hunt but I am suspicious of big celebrities making grandiose new conferences on issues far flung from their normal environment. I wasn't aware McCartney had been doing this for years however and I guess my protests over his presence just set her off. For me I ask why Paul McCartney is concerned about seals on an ice flow off Newfoundland when his own country has just bombed the hell out of Iraq for a cause that so far has proven to be non existent. Anyways, we butted heads and it then came down to how we see the world, how well we respect each other's opinions, how well we listen to each other, do we listen to each other in fact and I suppose we were questioning our intelligence and ability to decipher the events that shape our worlds.

The sad truth is the truth these days is almost meaningless. It seems our aim is to find sources that confirm our beliefs and hope that enough people support the same sources and then it becomes the truth for us whether or not it really it. Thus the huge divide in American society and for that matter all of us that judge them on their actions. God knows everyone is judging them these days.

For the male friend... I offered him and another friend to take my Air Canada points and go on a trip somewhere in the world they fly. I have enough points to really go just about anywhere so the three of us could have a good time in some far off exotic place. First they happily accepted then they hedged... then they said they were planning a trip on their own then the last time he wanted me to go to Toronto with them to see how we all got along. Ok, looking at it like that I can see this was a mistake on my part. I should never have made this offer. I'm very disappointed in this reaction and quite frankly now I'm not sure how to get out of it would hurting anyone's feelings.... or just wait until they finally say for me to go on my own... which is depressing enough as that is. Crap.