Two weeks ago, my brother Philip married his fiancée Sarah at the Old Mill in Toronto. It was a beautiful ceremony and they make a wonderful couple. I couldn’t ask for better for my brother and know that they will be happy together. Welcome to the family Sarah, not that you haven’t already been a part of it for some time.

I have uploaded the photos that I took from the wedding to an album in the gallery. Hopefully I will find some time to caption them soon, but there are many great shots of the wedding and the family, so check them out.

Juliette and I are sitting on the patio of a lovely log cabin overlooking a lake and the high cliffs of Table Rock Mountain in South Carolina. We came down here with Mari, Dave, Tecla, Jennie, Matt and Derek for a week of spring road bike training on the amazing, twisty, mountain roads in the area.

So far, the weather down here has been amazing, sunny and in the high teens, low twenties. Our winter white pasty look is darkening with the biker tans and our legs are feeling the thousands of feet we are climbing each day. We need to head off for dinner in a few minutes, so I’ll keep this update short, but make sure you check back for more soon. I’ve been taking hundreds of pictures. I’ll post them when I get back.

The Washington Post wrote an interesting article entitled You Can Cap The Pay, But The Greed Will Go On a couple of days ago that confirmed my suspicions about corporate greed and executive compensations. With the current state of the economy, many of us are beginning to question the stability of an unfettered capitalist system. The experiments with communism in the Soviet Union and China have shown that system to be unworkable, but unfortunately, that has been used as an excuse to promote unregulated capitalist markets as the alternative.

I am a strong believer that it is not an either/or argument between capitalism and communism. I believe that economic prosperity can be found somewhere between capitalism and communism. Markets need some regulation to prevent unfair competition and exploitation of workers & resources. Society needs the safety nets of unemployment insurance and health care.

Corporations could act responsibly and for the long term good of both their shareholders and society as a whole if the investors in those companies took a personal interest beyond the short term returns of their investments. We are all guilty of this. Most of us don’t even know what companies we are invested in since most of our savings are in mutual funds and RRSPs.

It is partly this disinterest on the part of investors and the focus on short term profits that got us into the mess that we are currently in. Investors and senior executives seem to only be interested in draining as much profit out of companies as possible.

In 1980, executives at large companies made about 40 times what the average worker made. Last year, CEOs made about 360 times more than the average worker.

I believe that we need to figure out how to make corporations accountable to the people and society as a whole. An excellent example is the Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is owned by the people who shop there, is very successful and socially responsible. I don’t know how we can make more corporations responsible, but I think it is an important area to explore.

If you have ideas, please comment.

I thought that I lost Daisy tonight. She has been crazy full of energy lately because she hasn’t been getting enough exercise. She hates the cold and usually refuses to go for walks, or if she does go, she digs in after a few minutes. Some days, it is even a struggle to get her outside to pee.

Today is a bit warmer, -4°C, so she is less reluctant to go out and has been racing around the lanes I’ve dug for her around the back yard. A few minutes ago, I let her out and she took off. No problem, she was probably tearing around the yard like before, but by the time I got out there she was gone and I heard barking in the front yard.

I ran down the driveway to catch her, but it was too late. She was running across the road to see the neighbour and a minivan was tearing down the road. He slammed on the brakes, but the roads are slushy and slippery and he kept sliding into her. I was right there as I heard a sickening thud and she went under the van which continued to slide for another six feet.

Finally it came to a stop and I didn’t hear a thing. I raced around the van searching for her and finally found her staring out at me from under the engine. I carefully pulled her out without a whimper. I apologized to the driver as he apologized to me, but she seemed okay, so I quickly brought her inside.

She was a very lucky dog tonight. She has a number of cuts, a bit of a burn on her tail and seems a bit stiff, but she is already ripping around the house again and playing on my guilt for treats. I wish I could say some good will come of this and she will gain a healthy respect for cars, but knowing her, I doubt it.

Click on the picture to see a larger version…

Our experiment as a one car family is surviving the bitter cold that winter has thrown our way over the past couple of weeks. Juliette and I have been taking turns riding into work and we have only been taking the car when we have to be out late or have stuff to pick up. Picking up groceries on our bikes in the summer is fun, but it is a serious pain in the winter.

My coworkers keep asking me if I am cold riding into work, but other than the day that the temperature dipped below -20°C, the main problem is actually overheating. I think it is a bit worse for Juliette though since she spends nearly an hour on her bike each way.

In other news, we have been enjoying our weekends at the chalet. There is a crazy amount of snow, perfect for snowshoeing, snowboarding and drinking wine in front of the fire. I have finally pulled the pictures off of our camera and put up albums for everything we have been doing lately. There is an album with mixed pictures from this Winter, another album with the Christmas photos and two more for surprise birthday parties we had for Mari and Tim back in November. Please check them out.