Abe Vigoda
Seems we have lost another good man today. Well, wise guy anyway. Rest in peace, after 94 years, you've earned it.
RIP Abe Vigoda, 94 years young.
Hans, Bubby...
RIP Alan Rickman, February 21, 1946 - January 24 2016, who proved that being an exceptional thief, is far better then being a kidnapper. Thank you for your talent and heart.
RIP Robert Loggia
January 3, 1930 – December 4, 2015 Salvatore Loggia. Thanks for teaching us to be a tough guy with a heart of gold and a voice of gravel.
In Loving Memory...
You never far from our thoughts and always in our prayers and hearts!
We miss you.
Thank you Mr. Spock
You taught us how to live long and prosper. Leonard Nimoy showed us how an actor and a role could change not only an entire show, but how we look at our own world(s).
#LLAP
Dear Ms. Lauren Bacall
Thank you for teaching us all to whistle.
September 16 1924 - August 12 2014
RIP Robin Williams
Thank you Robin Williams for helping us to laugh soo hard for soo long. Your gift will be missed in a world that could use more like you. From Patch Adams to the Genie in Disney's Aladdin, you've given numerous generations reasons to go see movies, rent videos and watch television. You were a crazy one, something alien, something fresh, something wild and something funny, most of all, you were a friend. "O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN!!!"
July 21 1951 - August 11 2014
In Memoriam
On Tuesday May 6, 2014, at the age of 77 years young, Francesco Scali, my father passed away. My brother's and I, having lost our mother 10 years ago, will remember both of our parents as loving and caring people who gave us every opportunity they could and taught us lesson that we are still learning from today.
Our father, Frank, taught us what it meant to work an honest days work. He was very self reliant and always had a way to fix something if it broke. It may have involved cardboard and twine, but he could fix it good enough. Always willing to help out and talk to the neighbours and customers of the store, Frank had many friends. Having had the store for over forty years and been in Canada for longer than that it is hard to remember that he also served in the french military and held various labour jobs before he and Theresa even opened Frank's Variety.
I will never measure up to the people that my parents were. They allowed me to live a life far simpler and easier then theirs. For that, and my education and all the gifts they gave me and my brothers over the years. Thank you. I hope in small way, this tribute makes up for the terror I've been for the last 35 years. You will both be missed.
What is it about change?
Maybe it is an age thing. As I move along through this life I find that I am not as willing to embrace change as I once was. I meet new people everyday through my day job and find that I can tolerate their short comings less and less. I am able to tell others what they are doing wrong far more readily than I am willing to listen to someone tell me the same about myself. I am slowly watching people I know and love move in different directions and I am less and less sure how to help them achieve their dreams. Change is everywhere, it is constant, funny enough, and it is damning as the final test for the adroit mind. Am I one of the damned?
I find myself sitting down to write this at a time when I am inundated with challenges. Both professional and personal. The professional ones are interesting and complex, and the personal ones are simple and straight forward. So what's the problem you ask? The solution seems simple, ask for help with the professional challenges and deal with personal ones. Ahhh, were it soo easy. The devil, as it were, lies in the details. The professional challenges must be met alone, or else someone may relate the challenges I face to one in authority and either they or their superior may find it disheartening to see their employee having trouble with something they may see as simple. The personal challenges simply terrify me. Then again, the prospect of being alone for the forseeable future drives people to do many strange things. So I am not alone in this challenge. Now you maybe asking, where does change come into all of this? I state simply that change is at the heart of it, but let me explain a little further.
Starting with the professional challenges, since they are the ones I better understand. Change forces new policies and new procedures. It is assumed that everyone will automatically adopt the new policies and procedures and those who don't are expected to come around eventually or leave. Now obviously the technological side of the changes do not scare me. I find technology comforting since I have a good idea of how it works and where it came from. My only real fear is when someone with little to no know how is given too much power and authority thanks to technology. I know, that sounds like most middle managers, but let's be honest, it is the executive who want to track all of your actions and productivity and in so doing removes the possibility for creativity and independence since, while it does bring innovation, more often brings lost revenue and wasted time. I mean we can't all be a Jeff Besos or Charles Branson afterall. Time is money and money is how you grow and also how you keep score in the corporate rat race. Again, that kind of score card does not bother me, Iunderstand it and yes, where it comes from. What has me perplexed is the people. I sit around and watch other around me get promotions to positions that I am confident I can do better then they can. I knwo their skills and limitations and see they as catastrophic failures in their new roles. Then I find out that the same is thought of me. Touche! The real question is how do I combat something like that? How do I get the chance to prove I can do it better and with less drama? I know, the advice I am often given is "baby steps", start small and work your way up. And here comes the main problem. Wait for it. On second thought don't, the issue is that Iam tired of the waiting game and tired of being passed by. I have proven I can do the work, and manage the people. My judgement is sound as often if not more often then the existing leaders. I am skilled, knowledgable and, dare I say, adroit. Or am I?
Let's move on to the personal for a moment. As a young man Iwas encouraged to not judge but use my judgement to stay out of trouble. As an adult, I choose which trouble I wanted to get in to and which was not worth the effort. As a soon to be senile old fart, okay, not too soon but I guess middle aged would best describe me, I find myself throwing caution to wind and getting into trouble now by choice. Partially because I can deal with it and prtially because I am not sure and just a little afraid that I can't. Let me tell you, you quickly come to terms with how much of the scared little boy is still living in your head when trouble rears up in front of you and your mentl calculation looks something like this. "Trouble 1, Me -5, should have done more sit ups." Now I am sure alot of you have noticed that I am being vague when it comes to the personal issues I referred to earlier, the reason for this is I trying to reconcile the philosophy the matter before I move on to the chanllenge itself. While I am confident that there is a decent answer, I am not confident on how to get to that answer, hence this post. So what I am asking again is am I adroit? Or was I ever?
Does one define an adroit mind as one open to change? Or is one that is very comfortable in it's own sandbox as it were? Am I fretting over something that should not concern me? The use of the term challenge has permeated this post. The reason for that is because I conciously choose not to accept anything I wrote here as insurmountable or unattainable. You'll notice that I even postulated that the personal challenges had a "decent" answer. I find that those who become "swamped" or "over worked" have already lost because they are not able to see success or accomplishment in their chosen path. So yes "Trouble 1, Me -5" but I can still see me winning somehow, or at least coming out to a convincing draw. Now I am not pushing anything soo poetic as personal visualization, but belief has to be present.
Here are a few thoughts. Baby steps need not be taken by or planned out by baby's. I can move forward at an adult pace and in adult steps, but one step at time maybe prudent, with the odd jump forward for excitment. Professional challenges are less about being professional and more about making the challenge disappear through management, of a manager for example, or by making the challenge fall on the right desk. I have been know to pick the wrong the fight, and one of my new year's resolutions was to better choose the battles I fight this year. So far, I am batting about 3/4 in favour of that resolution. Better than last year. And finally, Personal challenges, they are difficult because like a doctor diagnosing himself, you never really see the person looking in the mirror. I have a lot to learn and a lot to think about. Maybe you do too, I'd hate to think I m in this alone. One thing I do know, this post has helped me change my mimd a little, and that's a start anyway.
Holla!
RIP Dick Clark
To the man who brought us music, laughter and the times of our lives year after year. Thank you, you will not be forgotten.
November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012
There was a time when PC's were indispensable.
I've had an interesting experience the last few weeks. For the first time in my adult life, I have been without a PC. Now I have had access to a desktop, Mac, and an MBA, Mac, and my android cell phone. The experience has been...
interesting.
I find myself answering email on the fly using the fantastic text to speech capability. Texting when I would normally have emailed. Calling when I may have spent several minutes drafting a long text, counter intuitive to the Short Message Service, or a lengthy email. It is not that I can't afford a PC, or don't want one. I mean my shelf of disused PC games are testament to that. I have just been too busy arrange for a new PC in my life. Now I do miss my old computers, like old friends I hope they are being treated well by their new owners. I know they will serve them well. Now, however, the search begins. I know I can survive awhile without a PC, not indefinitely, but for a short period of time.
Now I find myself sorely lacking in PC knowledge. I mean somewhere along the line Pentiums were replaced with i's and motherboards with bridges. GHZ and RAM are almost anachronistic. It's not the speed of your cache anymore but the state of your HDD! Has the computer world gone mad while I was playing WOW?
Maybe I've been asleep too long. All I know is that I have a wonderful journey of knowledge and information ahead of me. I will relearn things I may already know, and unlearn things that are no longer of use. On the journey I hope to meet and make new friends and reconnect with old ones. I don't intend to shy away from this task. I will take my time and enjoy the journey. Some of you who know me well know that I have started a few other journeys as well. I invite everyone to come along, I will stop and wait for you to catch up and help show the mistakes I've made. Many, many mistakes. But I think we will all be better for it.
Life is one of those experiences that lets you choose how you will consume it. I've tried buffet, now I think I want to try the race!
See you all along the way.
Is the desktop dead?
Life is Change
"The end of an era" is an expression that has come to be very over used in recent years. Students graduating from school use it to describe their passing from academia to the working world. Sports fans use it to describe a star player being traded to a different team. Political leaders use the phrase to address a change in governing parties after an election. The funny part is that the phrase has been both misused and appropriately used in the past week.
On September 30 2011, Frank's Variety, my family's business for the last forty plus years, closed it's doors for the final time. Many of our customers were sad to see us close but most of them realized that while my father should have retired many years ago, and the store itself represented many hours of work to maintain, sometimes the simplest tasks are the most difficult. While the future is a little uncertain with my father moving to retirement and my time finally becoming something I can control for the most part. I find myself both excited and lamenting the world. I am excited at the prospects that the future may hold and what changes and challenges I will see in the next few years. I am lamenting the changes that have occurred that were painful or even costly due to my own short sightedness or stupidity. But I digress from the reason for this post.
One of the things that people said repeatedly over the last week that the store was open was "It's the end of era". I find the statement a very poor turn of phrase. Being an historian in some small fashion I find that the statement commenting on the nature or beginning or end of an era is something that should be done in total view of the entire period. As an example, no one would say that the release of the iphone 4S represents the end of an era. In hind sight though, and due to the release coming so close in timing to the passing of Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs, one might conclude in the coming years that the iphone 4S' release heralded the end of era. The problem is we cannot draw that conclusion now since the era being addressed is too close to us. Forest for the trees would be the expression of choice to describe this phenomenon. However, concluding that Steve Jobs was a man of no small significance to the modern world and therefore his passing would be of no small significance, is, I think, very appropriate and certainly worthy of the idea that something great has ended.
So there you have it, the same phrase, used to describe two different events within the space of a single week, one use a lazy attempt to self agrandize an individual as having been apart of something far greater than themselves. The second, paying tribute to the man who quite possibly could be the last great salesman and is mosy certainly an individual. Quite possibly the end of era.
In Memoriam
RIP Steve Jobs 1955-2011.
Businessman, innovator, creator, critic, visionary and philosopher.
You will be missed by all.
Pace.
Really... Really...
Now just to be clear, I like cars. I like custom cars. I even like outlandishly custom cars. This one however had me shaking my head.
Change is a good thing.
So I've decided to make a few changes to the site. First, any new posts will be on the blog page and not on this journal page. I will use this page for errata and site updates. Second, I am going to playing with the format for the photo galleries and posting some more pics over the next few weeks. I prefer a more album like look for the photos page. Let me know what you think once it's up. And finally I am going to try and get the member area going. Not sure what I want to do with it exactly but I am liking the idea of chat forum.
Anyway, that's it for now. Keep checking back for more updates. Thanks for reading.
About time...
So the site is finally up and running. In my last post I gave some examples of changes and additions I wanted to make to the site and I am working on those. Sorry to those of you who were counting on a June 1 launch but as with most things, life got in the way. As it stands I am back from Maui and raring to go. So let's get things started with a few comments.
I know the image is of the endeavour but congratulations to the astronauts and NASA for the final shuttle launch. A 30 year program is no small feat. For those of you in my age range, look at this way, for as long as we've been alive, there has always been a space shuttle. I hope I get to see the universe in my lifetime and whether it be Richard Branson or NASA makes little difference. Some day we will have to leave this world, and if we don't continue taking those critical baby steps now, what will happen when there is no more time to fool around?
The Second thing I did want to comment on was the Canada Post strike. I know the union was making a point and the workers were using their power of strike to negotiate wage and benefit deals with their employer. One thing does occur to me though. In this day and age of social media, and instant movies and email and facebook, a postal strike can still wreak havoc on the lives of normal everyday people who are just trying to live their lives. I find the strike itself tolerable, what I find truly reprehensible was the length of the strike and the actions of the opposition in our government who thought it was a good idea to filibuster over back to work legislation. When did your mandate as elected officials become to increase the inconvenience experienced by your constituents? Are you not the leaders of our society? Looks more like your acting as petulent children to be honest.
Enough social commentary for one post. just wanted to say that we are good to go on the site and some new photo galleries are up for your enjoyment. Remember you can always contact me with any questions or ideas. Thanks alot.
Sincerely
FS
Welcome to Scali's World
Welcome to Scali’s World. I hope you find the site as enjoyable to use as I have found to make it. Website development has really come a long from the early days of having to code each element to the modern drag and drop universe of Squarespace. That being said, there are a few things I want to relate to you here.
First, this site is meant to be as functional as it is fun. So it is my hope to have several elements added to the site. I want to setup a forum where people can come and leave a comment to discuss any issues that they like. Now I am not looking to start a fight with folks, I just thought that a place where people could honestly chat and stream ideas with one another would be kind of cool. That being said, and even though there will be a login required for the forums, there will be no moderators at first, so it will be a little like the wild west in there. If you have any serious issues email me and I will try to address them in a timely manner. So try not to pick any fights you are not willing to entertain.
Second, this site is my little piece of the net, so I will have some photos and other things added in as well and from time to time things may not work. Email me about them and I try to post an update to inform everyone when that section is back up.
Third, and finally, I am not a professional web designer. So any suggestions or help will be greatly welcomed and I look forward to making a better website as time passes.
That being said we are still, obviously under construction. It is my hope to have something useable up by June 1 2011. So, welcome to the site and I look forward to seeing you around the net.
Sincerely
Frank Scali