We all have an opinion on the Medicine Hat Police Service, but what happens to our opinion of the organization and its chief, Andy McGrogan, when they get called to deal with a potentially live artillery shell that happens to be in a school? No hype intended or required, they accomplished this all on their own:

The story starts out with James Chatfield, an electrician and a former British Army soldier, doing work in CAPE School. He stumbles upon an artillery shell in a storage room above the stage of the gymnasium that is rarely used. Though it is kind of random that it was there, anyone would understand that the principal, teacher, students and parents would definitely treat this as a threat; anyone but the Police, it appears.

The Principal immediately called the Medicine Hat Police, who responded that they were “too busy” to deal with it right away. The Canadian Forces Base in Suffield was then called, but the school was out of their jurisdiction, so the Police were called a second time. At length, an officer was sent to remove the shell in a fairly unprofessional manner. As the unofficial story goes, the officer knocked on the shell and apathetically tossed it into the back of his cruiser before taking off. Does Medicine Hat have a bomb squad? I cannot see the need for one, but having an experienced individual probably would not be such a bad thing.

Obviously the shell had been sitting there for over half a century and is probably a dud, but as the former soldier, James Chatfield says: “As soon as that outer shell starts to rust and corrode, these things can be dangerous,”

The Police Chief, Andy McGrogan, then followed up with:

“We wouldn’t have made it a priority call, because as I said, we get so many of them. We don’t get calls about them every day, but it’s not uncommon for us to get calls about shells, and in most cases, we find they’re basically duds or they’ve been expended,” McGrogan says.

“It was a shell from 1940 — it’s been there for decades. I’ve got to wonder what’s the rush sometimes.”

Pretty witty, but concerned parents and teachers do not like wit, and probably like Andy McGrogan and a seemingly unconcerned Police Service even less. What is more important than a possibly explosive artillery shell sitting in a school? I bet if the Police Chief’s children went to that school, they would have been there as soon as possible.

The official story can be found on The Medicine Hat News

It sounds kind of far fetched to hear it, but without naming names, I have recently heard some stories about bullying going on at a local high school in Medicine Hat.

Most high school’s these days claim zero tolerance, dress codes to some extent and safe learning environments, but what about bullying? Personally, I cannot relate, because as far as I know, bullying never went on in my high school, or at least never to such an extent as to cause much emotional or physical harm. Still, I guess it happens every now and then these days by super tough teenagers that think they are all that.

The story I heard is that a kid in high school, after being a victim of prolonged bullying, finally had his arm broken by said bully and the school cannot (or will not?) do anything about it because it took place inside the gymnasium’s change room, where teachers apparently are not allowed to go while students are changing. In this case, the bully seems to have not even received a temporary suspension from school, but probably should have received an expulsion.

The natural instinct is for a parent to call the school and ask why their child was bullied and what is to be the repercussion for the actions of the bully, but if nothing is to be done, what then?

One alternative is to talk to the school Resource Officer, which according to the outline on the Medicine Hat Police website, will: “Identify and resolve problems involving student, school and the community.”and “Maintain open lines of communication with staff, students and parents, the community and police members.”

The second alternative is that as high school is the preparation for real life, give the bully a potent dosage of reality and call the Police.

No one wants to be a victim, so if victimized, why not stop it in its tracks?

The Medicine Hat Police: 403-529-8400
http://www.medicinehatpolice.com/

While in the mall yesterday I noticed that a new restaurant will be joining our food court. But much to my dismay, upon closer investigation I discovered that this new addition will be yet another Tim Hortons. Why does Medicine Hat need another one? Isn’t having one in nearly every corner of the city enough? Will it ever be enough?

I think what bothered me most is as I saw the “coming soon” sign I realized that when the new Tim’s location is finished one can very easily see both the mall location and the Trans Canada Way location across the parking lot at the same time. I almost feel the need to remind everyone that we are not in New York City, this is not a place where Starbucks inhabits every corner of every street. With that being said, I believe this phenomena can be known as an epidemic.

Although I don’t drink coffee, I still enjoy the great value Tim’s has to offer. I will never understand the people waiting in a six car line at 8 in the morning but other than that I think Tim Hortons is great. However, I don’t think Medicine Hat needs one in the mall, or anywhere else. A new restaurant that is legitimately new to the city would be much more welcome in my eyes.

A recent fascination I have had is businesses for sale in Medicine Hat. I started looking into this when I saw a couple search keywords come to Medicine Hat Media for this resource; however, we don’t really have anything on it. Well… that is until this post anyways.

I took a look on the web to see if I could find a resource out there for this specific need. I found quite a few bland and “spammy” directories, but then I stumbled upon the search option on my favourite realty site, Realtor.ca, previously mentioned in this post – which actually, eventually found me my first house. It actually offers a search (which goes to a sister site, named ICX.ca) for commercial properties.

Below is a specific set of links I made for a couple different searches on the ICX.ca website:

All existing businesses for sale or lease in Medicine Hat

Office spaces for sale or lease in Medicine Hat (can double as a new business location)

Retail locations for sale or lease in Medicine Hat (can double as both business and office)

Land for sale in Medicine Hat

It’s quite interesting reviewing these links from time to time to see what places are selling or even at the prospect of starting up a business or even owning an outside office.

Some information I have received this month from my various news-feeds concerning the cellphone industry:

Code of conduct: Cellphone companies must obtain the permission of a subscriber to change the terms of a contract, or allow the subscriber to get out of the contract at no additional cost. Source Link

Upstart wireless competition in next year: Four new cellphone companies will start up within a year, followed by Shaw making for competition for The Big Three – Bell, Rogers and Telus that have dominated the market and kept prices high. Source Link

Wireless Number Portability: The Big Three have been required by law (for years) to allow a subscriber to switch providers and transfer their wireless number to another provider. By not informing subscribers of their rights, The Big Three preyed on subscribers assumptions that they would lose their number known to family & friends. Source Link

Informed customers scare big business.

I have driven on the Crownest Highway (Highway #3) many times, but this weekend was particularly bad for dangerous drivers.

As many drivers of the highway know, the road is a two lane highway with passing lanes every so often up until Taber, where the road splits into a four lane highway to Lethbridge. I was on the way to Lethbridge on September 12 and suddenly found myself in a clump of a dozen or so vehicles. Most of the would-be passers were stuck at the back of the line and in my rear-view mirror I could see them weaving this way and that trying to see if there was room enough to pass. Some drivers even went so far as to cross the solid yellow line into the oncoming traffic’s passing lanes to get ahead of the crowd.

Like most people, I dislike tailgaters. I dislike them even more when I am going over the speed limit and they still tailgate. As both an encouragement for them to pass, safety for myself, and my 14 year old Neon’s struggling ability to accelerate quickly, I usually coast down to about 10 under the limit. This usually results in people honking horns, flipping me off or yelling at me as they pass, or doing “WTF” hand gestures (which is hilarious to watch in the rear-view mirror).

THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

Car washing is buckets (of water) of fun and I am usually pretty consistent, though not to the extreme, with keeping the outside of my car clean.

It is not uncommon to see dirty vehicles driving around with the archetypal “Wash Me” rubbed out on the windows, so luckily there are a lot of car washes in town to remedy that. Often times you can also see people around town doing car wash fundraising as well, so that is an alternative.

Car washes can not only be utilized to clean your car, but also if you park outside throughout the winter season, you can use the hot water to melt off all the built up snow, ice and mud. This is particularly good if you have a lot of ice built up in the treads of your wheels. If the treads are filled up with ice, there is not much friction to stop with, just the weight of the car, brakes and gravity. Sliding through intersections is not really ideal.

The two car washes I go to most often are Crestwood Coin Carwash, located on Dunmore, by Sushi Miso, and Southridge Mohawk, located on 13th and Strachan Road. Both offer hot water, soap, wax, foam brushes and vacuums. The bays are almost always very clean and if there is a line, it generally is not too long of a wait. But of course, do not even think about going in the middle of a hot Saturday unless you want to wait for a long time.

Some other car washes in town include:

• Clean Machine Car Care – Dunmore (includes an automated wash)
• South West Carwash – 9th Ave SW (lots of heavier vehicles go through, caked with mud, and the owner seems to get mad if you are waiting for her to clean the bay out)
• Saamis Heights Car Wash – Sierra Drive SW
• Kingsway Esso – Kingsway Ave SE

The now controversial fledgling segment of Friday Failure is now gone and dead.

Originally started as a way to add some localized humour to the site, it has has ruffled a few too many feathers in a negative way for Medicine Hat Media on behalf of myself. While I did receive some nasty emails about it personally, I also got some “laugh-backs” as well, but unfortunately the people that liked the humour aspect will have to look elsewhere, more specifically, just add some locals on Twitter to get your fix. I’m definitely interested in any opinions on the matter, especially on the following aspect, please read on: THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

StoresOnline was back in Medicine Hat tonight at the Callaghan Inn. I met pretty much everyone that attended the seminar while I stood outside the Inn passing out informational write-ups on their seminar from last year.

The purpose I was handing out the write-ups, if I did not explain it concisely to everyone, was to encourage potential buyers to research business they may never have heard of before to see if they are legit and something they really want to get involved with. As I explained to a few people: This is recession time, and businesses will always want to do business with you, so there is no need to rush into signing up for something that costs a lot of money.

The age range of this years attendance was different than last years. There were a few more younger people this year, around the ages of 25-35, as opposed to last years general 40+ year old attendance. Most people; however, seemed mostly interested in the free meal and MP3 player. Most people seemed thankful that I was outside and taking an active participation in the on-goings of the city. I even had a few people come back outside before I left to thank me, which felt pretty rewarding.

This year might have been different from last, though with the consensus around the country and throughout the USA, as depicted on the website StoresOnline-Reviews.com, it was probably the same.

To check out my previous posts on Stores Online in Medicine Hat last year, check out my First Article from 2008, and my 2008 Summary to prepare Hatters for the 2009 seminar.

Any comments from any of the people who went about their seminar this year?

Buying, or even looking for a house in Medicine Hat used to be a daunting task for me, being a first time soon-to-be house owner and all. The total number of local Realty and Realtor sites mixed with directory listing sites for home buying is a mess! There’s so much visual clutter and not enough straight forward, easy to find listings for all houses in Medicine Hat. Searching through each one of hundreds of local Realtor sites is time consuming and usually not helpful at all. I wanted to find all houses for sale in Medicine Hat, no matter which seller.

That was until I found out and did a little research about MLS, which stands for Multiple Listing Service. It’s a convenient technology that allows Realtor and other listing sites to display all houses, condos, duplexes or whatever in your area with every search option imaginable from all Realty companies! Better yet, I found a website that uses this great technology in the most convenient way which even allows you to specify regions within which ever area you want using a Google-esque mapping function. This site is called REALTOR.ca.

To use REALTOR.ca the most effectively, jump directly to their advanced search page. If you want to use that great mapping functionality I was explaining, go to their find by map section (this link currently points to the middle point of Medicine Hat, you can move around or refine your search). Like I said, there’s tons of search options, some of which are pretty unique like searching for Open Houses, or the 10 different options under “Building Type”. Like I stated before, this includes all local Realty companies such as Club ‘100’ GMAC Real Estate, Royal LePage Community Realty, Maxwell Team Realty, Re/Max Medalta Real Estate, and Century 21 Brec.ca to name the biggest names. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »