To avoid the reality of working on Monday, let me recount weekend pleasures. Friday I stayed home home and read through all 299 pages of the Scoble Report. I admit I scanned some parts; who wants to read the full cry of the cement manufacturer?
The report in its magnificent entiriety reinforces just how radical and seminal a document this is. Its perspectives and conclusions kept flickering through my head all weekend long.
Contemplating how complacent we are and how this report has blasted the status quo sky high, I caused a “hit & run” accident. It happened like this: I was cycling down the cyclists’ and skate-boarders’ only path–there is an adjacent, parallel path for pedestrians. Ahead in my lane was a gaggle of well-dressed, rich women. They had money, for their strut had that confidence born of privilege. Their beige-colored clothes screamed expense.
I patiently slowed down and observed them–their tribal behaviour was intriguing. Then of a sudden I was aware they had moved over to the right and there was an opening for my bike on the left. I hit the peddles and sped past. There was a ghastly screaming from the women as I passed. Being oblivious to the rains and waters of Vancouver, I had splashed through a deep puddle sending a shower of muddy water over the gaggling ladies. I did what any sensible male alone would do: I sped off leaving them wet and bedraggled. Don’t blame me; blame Kemess for obsessing my mind.
On Sunday, we rode 15 km up Seymour Canyon. There is a stretch where the immensly tall, straight trees tower skyward and the sun turns the asphalt gold. My heart pounded with empathy and religious fevour and I was one with nature and those people who worship the lake that Scoble saved from a filling of tailings. It was probably just the medical result of the exertion of an uphill climb. But it got me into a vocal argument on the source of religious inspiration: can nature and a polluted lake really inspire the same emotion as Cologne Cathedral on a sunny day?
Religion aside, I came across the first casualty of the soaring Canadian dollar this weekend: Once a month or thereabouts, four of us go and bottle our wine and port. One of the four was laid off last week. His company’s services are just too expensive for the United States and all their contracts in California have been cancelled as the dollars approached each other. I tried to make him feel better by telling him of the 500 also bound for Alberta as a result of the Scoble report. He grimaced, spoke of home and family and village, and swore he would not leave his natal place. Then he swore at the report, although he has not read it.
Sunday evening, we hailed to Capilllano College to hear Helder Moutinho sing the fado songs of the Portuguese displaced the world-over by national poverty. And we wept for we were full of newly bottled and just-as-soon uncorked wine. Now I know how those folk feel when they contemplate a high lake deep in the interior.
Amidst all this wickedness, I formulated these investment rules on the basis of a detailed read of Scobles Kemess Report and my wonderings:
Investment Rule No 6: Do not buy shares in an ore deposit so low in gold/copper/etc. that there is only one possible economic mining approach.
Investment Rule No 7: Be wary of open pit mines in areas of excess rainfall and acid generating rocks. Rather invest in a property in Nevada.
Investment Rule No 8: If the scenery inspires religious thoughts, better find a mine in an ugly desert instead.
