cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

cktimes about to reach milestone, Scott Aarssen comes on board and fins and feathers

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

So, off we go for another week, and another great week it's been. I know I keep telling you how well things are going and I'm really not exagerating. I have been absolutely blown away by the readership and the support the paper has been getting. I mean, over the next couple of weeks, we'll reach the 500,000 hit mark at cktimes and that's been accomplished in less than 10 months with a minimum of external marketing support for the paper. I do my radio show on CFCO, and there have been some posters go up, but by and large we're doing this by word of mouth. I've passed out about 2,500 cktimes business cards over the last eight months and I've had a couple of other folks who have helped spread the word. But it's mainly been a grassroots thing and a matter of networking the product out. Thanks so much for your support and watch for some changes coming down the pipe at cktimes. Some of those changes are already happening and there are more to come as we continue to work to build cktimes into a premier community-based product. And you know what? I feel good about this product because I believe we're doing good work here – I think we're proving that people want more than the mainly negative, sensational stuff that fills the mainstream media. There I said it and I'm glad. Again, thanks so much.

The changes coming at cktimes include the addition of one Scott Aarssen as Sales Manager. Scott is a Wallaceburger who I've had the pleasure of knowing for the last few years – bright, enthusiastic and anxious to get involved in cktimes, I think he's exactly what the doctor ordered for this infant publication. Already, he's been scouring the site for ways to improve things and I'm letting him go to it – he'll also be out and about and starting to meet business clients in the time ahead and I know you business folks will really enjoy dealing with him. We'll have more on Scott next week – right now, he's just getting settled in. I'm also encouraging him to start a Business Briefs column in cktimes to pass along the latest business news from the community. Most glad to have Scott aboard. Make him welcome when you meet him.

Now, I know this is going to sound a little strange, but I think I've evolved into a communist. Strange, but true. I've come to the realization at my grand, old age that we really don't have too much control over where we end up in life. It's not like we really choose to be who we are. It's all luck of the draw stuff, folks. I mean, who's to say what skills and abilities you might have been born with, or where you might have been born, or who your parents might have been, or what type of upbringing you might have had? You didn't choose any of this stuff. At least I didn't. Yet this very stuff determines who you are in life and where you'll end up. Like there's not a very good chance you're going to end up a neurosurgeon if you're born in the Congo in a mud hut – I don't care how smart you are, if you die of malnutrition by age 3, no amount of smarts are going to help you. I think people are even born with the ability to make money or to not make money – I kid you not. Some people just have the golden touch and some people don't. So, why are some people condemned to poverty and perhaps death just through the luck of the draw? I can't buy into that. I think everyone who makes an honest effort to make a positive contribution to the planet should get the same reward – that's pretty communistic thinking from my perspective, but it seems the only fair way. If we actually earned our positions in life, then maybe we would actually deserve to have oodles of cash and tons of power. We think we make all these choices in life and we're pretty proud about it. I've talked to plenty of successful business people who feel that poor people are poor because they somehow deserve to be – that they somehow don't try hard enough. That's crap, folks. Nobody would choose to be poor and no one would choose to be born in Africa. But plenty of unassuming people end up in both those situations.

Think about this: Most of the world is so very shallow that the challenge is to find the deep spots.

Wonderful Chatham Chamber Business After Hours last week over at RM Classic Cars. And what an excellent facility they've got out between Chatham and Blenheim. Some real automotive beauties out on the floor to be sure. A huge crowd attended and there was a great chance to network and meet people from all over the community. Thanks so much to the Chatham Chamber, RM Classic Cars and all the rest who were involved in the event. We need more of this sort of thing.

Welcome aboard our new outdoors columnist Jim Williams this week if everything goes according to Hoyle. Jim will be writing the "Fin & Feather Report" for cktimes and I'm really looking forward to his contribution. He's an avid hunter and fisherman and manages the Parkside Restaurant at Mitchell's Bay in his spare time. He says he's going to get into some meaty issues in the column. Welcome aboard, Jim.

Man, I'm really being longwinded this week. Sorry about that. Thanks again for your support of cktimes. We're really trying to help build the community of Chatham-Kent.

Take care, and remember....."Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may."




John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.