strictly

personal

1 GO through phases, of
“course. And there are times
“when I go into communics
“tions frenzics, spitting out
-letters, faxes, memos, arti-

cles, listening to radio and

TY, reading papers, maga- .

_ Zines, books, punching out

“phone calls. © - ‘

In this mode, Lam, as a wise old
: editor once observed, a compulsive
“communicator.
And then there are the other |
times, when I try to lock myself |
°* away from the noise.

“; e:L don’t answer the phone, 1 get
my son to do my modeming. |
don't check the answering.
machine.:1 refuse to leave voice-

mails. I refuse to speak to eleciron- |.

Jeep Cove forests. forever

“Your cover story “Forest friends”
score“ victory.” in-.North. Van”
Wednesday, June 7, was found to be |.
most encouraging in our household.
"We did not find an opportunity to -
ign the petition in support of forest
preservation but our signatures are

; -Mancouver as an

ic switehboards,

th facet, 1 refuse to speak into
tape recorders of any kind. This is
possibly a side-effect af having a
manic-depressive personality.

Yet Pr not depressed. [just
dow t want to leave or receive any
messages. It’s overfoad,

Communications ovecoad,

i dont know what percentage af
the population suffers from this
malady, but J suspect there are
more of us than you think,

In such an anti-communications
mood, | find | start letting my mail
and all the litte yellow slips with
phone numbers to call back pile up
on my desk at work.

It's even worse at home, My
files are already so thick that | bog
down trying to look through them,
As-yet-unfiled news clippings have
inundated the desk in my office.

Oh, Pil get out of it. My mood |
will swing again in a couple of
weeks or months, then Pll go on
another burbling jag.

At least, the demands of my. line
of work —- communicating — will
force me-back into the great media
interface zone.

Yet —- 1 wonder sometimes.
Maybe one of these times [ won’t
come out of it.

Older guys often do become

“reclusive,” as it is so quaintly
» described. ;
_ In our type of information-. °
hypersaturation, | am beginning to

“investinent™ nor
as ‘part of some‘ shrewd: financial

-manoeuvre: lam here because I love

‘this placé. Pintend to live here until

‘| diezand when that happens I
‘would want (ifthe Jaw would allow
’ it) for my friends to find a place for

me somewhere above the “develop-

here in. spirit-and: would be. there .

were. the. document before us now. .
:I is’ indicated in. your. articies “

hat. hundreds ‘of millions of dollars’,

re at stake. if development does not

1 ‘ging’ ‘of the watershed began, From:
.” Lwhom: is: ‘the’ chlorine purchased?.
Who ' benefits monetarily. from this
éw requirement?. a
‘Mr. Mel Palmer says h hundreds of”

millions are at stake. oo

” “responsible for"
. more, "than before.

ment line” on Grouse Mountain.
What would happen to the devel-
opment. revenue?: District’ budgets
would be'incréased thereby justify-
ing: increased salaries for district
executives. as they would be.
and :* "managing

"There are always ways to fi nd.
miore revenue if we use our heads, |
but once the trees-are cut — they’re-

gone! At least for my lifetime.

AL for’ one, did not move to North’

May I suggest to Mr. Palmer that
he take his “offshore” type of devel-

_opmental “thinking to .someplace :
where it's Appreciated and more ‘in’

| ~ INTERMEDIATE CARE SOCIETY :
- ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The. ‘North: “Shore.

| ‘Society.

| . meeting ‘in. the activities
‘Cedarview lodge on. June 23, 1995, at}

| 730 pm.

Cedarview ‘lodge

alate Care|
is holding: its annual general |
‘room of. the

‘is located at 1200]

Cedarvillage Close, North Vancouver.

Ail weicome (although voting i is restrict.

”

ed to paid up members!)

| For. further information please contact |.

Cedarview Lodge at 984- 4251 ;

suspect, a degree af reclasiveness
inight he a survival strategy,

There's just too dana much
stuff coming aus.

If you answer your phone every
lime it rings, you can spend the rest
of your life on the phone.

already spend more ime on
hold than all of iny ancestors com-
bined.

Speaking of being on hold, Pam
also beginning to suspect that some
of the new forms of communica-
tions — voice mail, for instance ~-
are actually bad for us politically.

As somebody who frequently
has to phone governnicat offices, |
san tell you that it is much harder
to track down bureaucrats than
ever.

In the old days, the phone might
ring fora long time, but sooner or
later it would be answered by a liv-
ing civil servant.

It was virtually a cight that a
government phone call would be
unswered,

Even if it was a secretary block-
ing for her or his boss, you could at
least get his or her name, and you
could harass them later if the boss
didn’t get back to you.

Now they can hide forever,
because there’s no law saying they
have to answer their voice mail.

And if, somehow, you eventual-
ly do track a bureaucrat down, he'll
just pretend there must have been a
technical problem with the voice

anid iver

tune. with local thought processes.
I would gladly pay more on my

district .taxes to’ buy out Mr. -
Palmer's contract, with the district. :
“and creplace him with, someone
‘whose thinking parallels that of .-

North Van District residents,

‘Edward Thomas

North Vancouver

PAM. & ALAN

WHEN DO YOU LOWER
-YOUR ASKING PRICE?

Your house on the North Shore has been on the
market for three weeks and you have had some
nibbles from interested buyers, but no bites.
You are’ beginning tv have some nagging
doubts that you may have priced the property
‘too optimistically, You want to sell for as much
as you can get - but, even more important, you
just want to sell it! .
I may be time to sit down with your Realtor
‘for a serious conversation about what to do.
Remember that while price is the major factor,
it is not the only consideration. A“ price
reduction may be in order, if your home is
overpriced. but you should consider other
issues. Are you making your house easy for,
Realtors to show? Have you compicted the
necessary repairs and cleaned up your property’
in order to nuke il as appealing as possible?’
Review with your Realtor the current market
conditions and the prices of other homes in
your avighbourhood. Is the price of your hone
comipetitive or is the marketplace telling you
that buyers j just don’t want to pay what you are
asking? If all indications point to ‘a price
reduction, it’s better to do it sooner thas ts

Pam and’ Afan Skinner are ‘licensed realtors with
RLYMAX Crest Realty, 988-7368

Apart from their pooted educational qualifications
MUA, CGA. B.Se. BAL 1.Comm, Pam tas ‘an.
estensive backgriund in Wills and Estates with a
major trust company and Alan was formetly a

banker with one of the major chartered banks

‘To contact vis e-mail skinner @direct.ca .*
Visit our Internet site at | :
a hnpsthew Jurock.convskinnertimt

mail.

Voice mail in government
offices should be banned, The
bureaueratis should HAVE to
answer the phone, Souner or later,

They are SUPPOSED to
respond to John Q, Public, not
leaving him dangling in an clec-
tronic void.

And answering machines!
Everyone has One NOW: tdays.
Which means there's no one left to
pin the blame on fora communica-

tions failure. ; ;

t know (mi not the oniy one
who refuses to compress his mes-
sage tate a one-minute pitch for the
benefit of some strip of magnetic
tape. Increasingly, people | lalk 10
report that they themselves have
stopped leaving messages on
answering machines.

All this communications tech-
nology out there, with fewer and
fewer messages to tape because
people are sick and ured of taping
their messages.

My son wondered aloud the
other day whether we should get on
the Internet. The Internet! Help!

Why on earth would we want to

~, jump into the middle of yet-another

communications revolution? I’m
O.D.’d on the old stuff.

There's no way | want to stick
my head into a New Age Big Bang
of global information- exchanging.

Ah well, it’s probably just a
phase, ch?

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