Archive : July 2014

Tips for sharpening hand tools

Part 2 of 2 Chefs require a keen edge for chopping and dicing vegetables and meats. I watched a chef in a Winnipeg restaurant grind a dull knife on a 1000x water stone, followed by a honing on a 6000x water stone.  His experience was...

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Happenings on the August calendar

It seems that every year we reach the back half of the summer too quickly.  Now, suddenly, it’s August. People are still griping about the lousy weather earlier in the summer, students and teachers are bemoaning the fact that school ...

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Slang from the First World War

At precisely one minute past midnight on August 4, 1914, England declared war on Germany. This declaration meant all members of the British Empire, including Canada, were also at war. The “War to End all Wars” wasn‘t exp...

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Financial writer praises city’s business climate

Winnipeg hosted its third biennial Winnipeg Real Estate Forum this spring with another impressive gathering of the “who’s who” in commercial real estate. As was the case with the two previous installments of this successful ev...

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Granddaddy of all festivals

In the hot summer time, festivals rule in Manitoba, and the province happens to host some of the best in North America and the world for that matter. Three of the better known and most attended multicultural festivals get underway this weekend....

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Tips on sharpening hand tools

Part 1 My introduction to sharpening hand tools was rudimentary because the shop in which I worked was equipped mostly with power tools with carbide-tipped blades. When they became dull, one of us would take them to Luke’s Machinery...

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A few chuckles from the business world

The workplace is a vast sea of humour and much of it is ironic and unintentional. It floats in and out of meetings, memos and committees. It sometimes washes into the “suggestion box.” Yes, the business environment is a laugh-a-minu...

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Arguments for and against the Oxford Comma

In Sleeping Dogs Don’t Lay, authors/grammarians, Richard Davis and Richard Lederer, write, “There’s a belief in art circles that Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ was trying to remember where he left his pants. We have i...

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