Notes From The Corner

Ian.R.Sandy

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  • Recent Books


    The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams
    Third time and still way too funny, as well as being almost too true       

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    Possibly a bit over imaginative, but a good read       

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    A great airport book - huge concepts boiled down into two minutesnapshots - a good read       

    Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond

    One of the better books I've read recently that tries to explain why it is some areas of the world became dominant and others didn't. As good a set of explanations as any.

    Lords of the Horizons, by Jason Goodwin

    A history of the Ottoman Empire - a good read !

    One Billion Customers: Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China, by James  L. McGregor

    For anyone interested in modern China, and more specifically doing business in China, this is an interesting introduction which will leave you with as many questions as it answers !

    Riding the Waves of Culture, by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner

    Excellent !

    The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

    Translated by Samuel Griffith - a good read.

    The Secrets of Consulting, by Gerald Weinberg

    Still a useful reference

    The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil

    This may be a bit far fetched in some areas, but otherwise is an amazing book and well recommended to anyone with even a half ounce of curiousity !

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    A fantastic book with a whole chapter on the origins of the American expression "yo'all" - must be read to be believed !

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    An excellent read - highly recommended !

    Who Says Elephants Can't Dance, by Loius Gerstner

    A great read !!

Archive for June 25th, 2008

Grade One Revisited

Posted by Ian R. Sandy on June 25, 2008

Crosby Heights Public School in Richmond Hill opened in 1958, and I was in one of its Grade One class rooms under the tutelage of (I think) a Miss. Spence. Many of us went on to high school together at Bayview Secondary High School, and then went our many separate ways in life, but my formal schooling started at Crosby Heights and after 50 years there are a few folks from those days I’m actually still in contact with after all this time. I’m fourth from the right in the back row in the photo to the left.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I attended our older son’s graduation from Trent University, and as may be imagined there were several hundred parents, all in open seating watching the event. The guy sitting in front of me seemed familiar and just to prove yet again how small our world is, incredibly it turned out he was one of those folks from 50 years ago – in the class photo of Miss Nighswander’s class to the right, he is the young lad on the right in the second row !

Terry and I have been doing a ‘roll call’ of sorts, and think we can name: Bob King, Rick Haas, Ed Kay, Diane Jamison, Paula Triance, Ann Whitworth, Gail Hitchenson, Steve Marshall, John Smith, Paul Fountain, Bob Bradley, Bob Imeson and perhaps a few others. As it turns out, Crosby Heights is planning a 50th anniversary this year, so It would be interesting to see how many folks can be located.

I had lost touch with Terry after high school, but when we were 17 or 18 we actually both had the same model of first motorbike (Yamaha YA6’s) and we used to compare notes and information on how to fix them when they weren’t working – which seemed to happen frequently ! He and his wife were vacationing in Western Canada this past week, so last night we met up to swap old motorcycle stories here in Calgary before he and his wife returned to Toronto.

Lots of only slightly embellished stories (!), and quite a pleasant evening.

Posted in Personal | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »