Christmas comes early as Silver Star Bike Park enjoys record opening

JUNE 25/2009 - With exactly six months until Christmas, Silver Star got an early present when it broke its own record for most visits on opening day.

"It's kind of like Christmas for a lot of mountain bike riders," joked Cam Sorensen, Silver Star Bike Park director. "It's a long time to wait for the park to open and everyone is excited to get out and ride again. I know I don't sleep as well the night before we open.”

That probably has more to do with the long days of preparation getting the park ready for the season. Sorensen and his trail crew have been burning the candle at both ends getting the trails ready.

"Winter certainly takes its toll on the trails but we've got them buffed and super-smooth. We've made some changes to Double Dog, Rock Star, and Pipe Dream that I think riders are really going to love," said Sorensen.

All the hard work paid off Thursday as the 1,600 vertical feet of trails welcomed riders from throughout the Okanagan, the Mainland, Alberta, and Washington. Lifts run daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Silver Star Bike Park will continue its popular Extended Play every Wednesday, keeping the lifts open until 7:30 p.m. The park will once again close after the September Long Weekend. However, new this year an additional weekend has been added Sept. 12 and 13.

"We're hoping the additional weekend will be a big draw with our season pass holders, as well as with traffic from Vancouver and Calgary," said Michael Sherwood, general manager of Silver Star. "The hope is that we get a great response and then we will eventually be able to add more weekends in the future."

Sherwood said because the economy is dictating more "closer-to-home" vacation options for families, the resort is being more aggressive in the market. Every Monday in July is Ladies Day. For every woman's full-day regular priced ticket purchased, Silver Star will offer another free lift ticket for a female rider. In addition, every Monday through Thursday in July until the 23rd, Silver Star is offering one free kids' lift ticket when an adult purchases a regular-priced day pass. Both of these programs require visitors to download a coupon from Silver Star's website.

"Our Bike Park continues to grow in reputation, so we hope we can attract new riders," said Sherwood.

For more information contact:

Robin Baycroft,
manager of resort services,
Silver Star Mountain Resort
rbaycroft@skisilverstar.com
250-558-6025

From time to time we do get those people at the door selling religion or how to save us money on our gas bill. This time it was different. A young man came to the door and when I answered he immediately told me he was with GE and made sure I saw the logo on his shirt. He had some books in his hand was happy that we had an alarm system and he wondered if he could put one of his signs in our yard because he said our neighbors agreed to it. I still didn’t know what he was talking about.

I believe he was trying to sell alarm systems although I am not positive of that. I answered with, "I don’t want any signs in our yard." Yes, he went away still pointing at the GE logo on his shirt sleeve...

Oh my goodness this is getting serious. Ads running in the classifieds with the promise of cash and free gifts from Harris/Decima (Decima Research) in exchange for performing mystery shopping or quality assurance studies. These classified ads are scams.

Harris/Decima one of our most respected research houses and never conducts mystery shopping or quality assurance studies that require you to cash cheques or wire the company money.

If this has happened to you or is about to happen to you get in touch with me and I will give you further information...

“Keep Your Heads Up Kids: The Don Cherry Story” a miniseries being filmed in Manitoba with a young Winnipeg actor, Jared Keeso, in the title role. This series starts in Don’s boyhood in Kingston and ends with him meeting Ron MacLean in mid 80s...

CIBC will have a new home in West Kelowna when the bank opens their new location on August 10. It is part of the Hub II complex. Staburn Properties is the owner of the site and Steve Henderson, the man in charge, tells us there is one more building to go and that a lot of restaurant chains are interested in the location...

I guess Tim Hortons gets credit for it because who else feeds us donuts everyday of the week, twenty-four hours a day? Canadians consume more donuts per capita than any other country in the world. All this began with one store owned by the ex-Toronto Maple Leafs in 1964. In Canada at retail seven out of every ten cups of coffee that are sold are sold at Tim Hortons. Who counts all this stuff anyway?...

Last week I wrote about the telemarketing calls you are getting on a regular basis from a company trying to sell you a car warranty because yours is about to expire. Well that group is now in court in the U.S. although the credit card scam along the same lines continues to make calls. I thought they were both together and still could be. The companies, according to the court documents, are charging between $2,000 and $3,000 for this fake warranty and supposedly since 2007 the crooks have made $1 billion.

It is called vishing and that comes from combining the voice with phishing an on line scam to get people to give their personal information.

Be suspicious of all unknown callers. Over and over again we write about this stuff and there are still those people out there who get caught in these crime schemes. The easiest thing to do is hang up or if the call is from an unidentified caller don’t pick up the phone, it will go away in four rings. Please don’t get mixed up in this one...

Some 3.7 million Canadian boomers are between 56 and 64 years old, prime retirement age according to Stats Canada. What change will we see in those numbers if people stay on the job or decide to go back to work for whatever reason? But in less than ten years that age group will hit the roof at one in five Canadians.

Twenty eight per cent of the people polled in the Royal LePage survey said they intend to sell their home as part of the retirement plan and move to a warmer clime. Some have been planning this for a long time and may be prepared to take a small hit on the house they’re living in now. Granted the downturn has affected some plans I’m sure but not all and some already own property in the Okanagan.

Whether it’s a condo, bungalow or a spot in one of those adult communities that spring up in the valley and are gaining in popularity. No question these buyers are going to demand certain amenities to complement their active lives and that’s how builders have to plan these days...

In a 1991 Pepsi commercial, supermodel Cindy Crawford steps out of a red Lamborghini at a remote roadside rest stop. Wearing a white tank top and denim cut-off shorts, she flicks her hair and saunters over to a vending machine, where she buys -- and drinks -- a can of ice-cold Pepsi. She's oblivious to the two young boys who are watching, spellbound.

The Pepsi commercial, which was created by Omnicom agency BBDO and last aired during the Super Bowl 17 years ago, was rated as the sexiest TV commercial among 35 viewed by eight judges from the advertising industry.

The ad vets rated it and several other sexy-yet-understated spots higher than more explicit commercials, including a Carl's Jr. commercial featuring Paris Hilton washing a car and a perfume spot with Britney Spears hooking up with a fellow guest in a hotel. The judges said they liked racy ads that left something to the imagination. They thought that even sexy ads should relate to a product's supposed benefits.

The Vancouver Sun did a two-part series on the fish we eat when we go to our favorite fish and chip store. The well-written study and the research done by Guelph University was an eye opener.

The food and drug act prohibits misleading practices in the sale of food, including seafood. There are big fines and jail time. I’m not sure whether we ever have an inspector in our part of the world testing to see if we are really eating cod or halibut when we buy our fresh made fish and chips. I have been going to same fish and chip takeout for thirty years and I believe what the owners tell me.

Android, Google Inc.'s free mobile-phone operating system, will begin running computers this quarter, entering a market dominated by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and deepening the rivalry between the two companies.

Acer Inc., the world's No. 2 laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook featuring Android in the third quarter, said Jim Wong, head of information-technology products at the Taipei-based company. Asustek Computer Inc., pioneer of the sub-$500 US laptops known as netbooks, has also developed a model that runs on Google's software. I have an Acer product and they are good.

The development of Android netbooks indicates the software is powerful enough to replace Windows, which runs about 90 per cent of the world's personal computers...

The Grey Cup game will be played in Calgary this year. If you’re planning on going, Calgary officials are saying they are going to have a record sellout. Tickets are really moving well and 85 per cent of the 34,700 seats are already gone of the 45,700 that are available...

It was Donald Duck’s birthday last week and Walt Disney’s unflappable duck turned 75. Now I can say I’m the same age as Donald Duck. Good grief!..

Now it is Scareware, and it is the new trouble spot for the Internet. These new tactics are there in front of you in a fake warning on a pop-up. These deceptive promotions are designed to get you to spend $80 on a worthless anti virus protection product. Scareware scammers are embedding triggers in places you wouldn’t expect. Criminals are using every tactic they can think of to sell these useless programs. The IT people tell me that if you click on one of those triggers you’ll get caught in an unnerving loop that is impossible to get out of. Call my IT guy if you get into trouble, him you can trust - Gary Scott at Scottek Computer Service. 250-212-1695. He’ll get you out of trouble...

Website greatcanadianhotels.com is offering discount rates and free nights at 25 hotels and resorts across Canada.

The "Wake up to Canada" program has a couple of money-saving options. You can stay for one night and receive $50 off your next stay or stay two nights or longer and receive a free night on your next stay. Vouchers are transferable, making it easy to give to family or friends if you won't be revisiting a particular city.

Nightly hotel rates start from $89 and destination cities include Victoria from $119, Edmonton from $109, Ottawa from $119 and Quebec City from $105.

Besides a place to sleep, the packages can also include activities such as whale watching, festivals, themes parks and white-water rafting.

More information at www.greatcanadianhotels.com or call 1-888-422-6232.

For fifteen years Starbucks has bought their muffins from Murdoch's Muffins in Richmond to service their 282 stores in B.C. and across the country. A couple of dozen a day per store or 1.3 million a year. Now the company has given the contract to a Toronto baker.

When we asked about the change, the company issued a statement that they were trying to consolidate their bakery business. Now the cakes will be shipped across the land in refrigerated trucks. Somebody made a new deal wouldn’t you say?

We will soon have our twenty-fifth Starbucks in the Interior with a new one across the street from Kelowna International Airport in the new Business Centre. Of course it will be a drive thru.

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In Oliver there is a most unique manufacturing operation, Okanagan Barrel
Works, Canada’s only commercial cooperage. The company has been selling barrels since 1998 and been coopering them since 2004.

Currently the company has been working on an order of 600 oak wine barrels for a California client. The oak for the barrels was sourced from the Appalachians in Pennsylvania. This was a right turn in the wine industry for the company because for so many years the wine barrels being used in the industry were made by California cooperages selling the barrels they produced into Canada.

Eric Fourthon is the master cooper in the plant. He came from Bordeaux and has a staff of five.

I didn’t realize how large the oak tanks were which the company could also produce: up to 20,000 litres.

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The bar code system is thirty-five years old, and yet it seems like we have had the bar code on the goods we buy forever. This month marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Universal Product Code, or UPC as we all call it today. That little bar code carries so much information and is recognized as being one of the great breakthroughs in technologies. It was a major cost saving for the grocery business and now even foods like fresh fruit carry a bar code to the cash register.

What’s next? How about radio frequency tags, which don’t require direct scanning - what would that do to our time in the grocery store? It would mean no more checkout lines. You push the cart to the sensor station which immediately takes inventory of your purchases, you enter your credit card, pay the bills, pack your groceries and go to the car.

Now, as they will, grocers will find other things for this system to do and it will gather information once again for the store. In other words, they will still know you eat KD and like finding the bargains when you shop. But the store computers can also use it to upsell you by suggesting items you should buy with this particular grocery order or give you a new recipe to try.

With all the information the store points cards have already captured (your buying habits, who you are and where you live, etc.) this new system will collect further data on you for their future planning.

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The cities in B.C. with facilities that can be used for training for the 2010 Winter Olympics have already made arrangements: cross-country and biathlon teams from France, Sweden, China, Croatia and New Zealand are already booked into Mount Washington Silver Star will be welcoming cross-country teams from Russia, Norway and Finland the men’s and women’s alpine ski teams from Austria will be at Sun Peaks in Kamloops China’s short-track speed skaters have already trained in Kamloops, and Russian skaters in all categories are going to train in Abbottsford.

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Other companies try to fake Worcestershire sauce but when you have the real stuff from Lea & Perrins you know it. I am one of those cooks who likes to use the sauce in just about everything when I am cooking. It dates back to the 1850s, and we probably don’t want to know what went into that first batch. It was, as it is today, packed in glass bottles and because of the rough sea voyages some of the bottles broke. That is when the company invented the paper wrap to protect the bottles. The wrap is not really needed anymore.

Lea and Perrin’s is about to introduce a new product to the marketplace, a thick new sauce with bold new flavour. It is Classic Worcestershire sauce and I can’t wait to try it.

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Don’t those four new salads from McDonald’s look good? The dressing with the salads is Renee’s Gourmet, and there are seven dressings you can choose from. It is the same salad dressing you find in your supermarket produce section or in specialty stores.

There's encouraging news if you’re one of those people looking for a home in the Okanagan.

The number of sales of single-family homes and condos in the Central Okanagan are beginning to close in on last year’s figures. MLS® sales activity of single family homes in the area was 189 for May 2009, a mere 4.55% down from 198 sales in May 2008.

The number of condo sales was down only 4% from last year, 72 to 75 respectively.

Townhome sales show a solid increase of 60 properties sold in May 2009 over 41 sales in the same month last year — an increase of over 46%, the largest increase in the market.

The average price for a single detached residential property sits at $449,870 last month compared to May 2008’s figure of $531,150 with median prices comparing at $425,000 to last year’s figure of $497,500. Both of these statistics can help determine market trends, and current MLS® data is having a stabilizing effect on home prices and showing a trend towards a more balanced market.

Potential buyers were asked to rank their top incentives for purchasing a first property. While home prices and interest rates took the number one and two rankings, respectively, the third most popular incentive was the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit. The recently introduced Home Renovation Tax Credit for 2009 was cited by 42 per cent of potential first-time buyers as either ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to impact their purchasing decision.

In provinces such as British Columbia where high housing prices have kept some buyers out of the market in recent years, 92 per cent of potential first-time buyers are now motivated by low interest rates and 96 per cent say lower home prices are likely to prompt them to buy.

For a complete report contact Rob Marak at: robmarak@royallepage.ca

Average House Price in May 2009 $ 449,867

Median House Price in May 2009 $ 425,000

Number of houses listed last month: 454

Number of lakeshore homes sold last month: 5

Average Mobile Home Price: $ 102,533

Dollar value of sales in May 2009 $157,644,240

Dollar value of sales in May 2008 $185,540,096

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It isn’t time to stop, it’s time to move ahead. With a project for downtown Kelowna, the Aquilini Investment Group are doing just that through a development called “24” in the 400 block of Bernard between Lululemon and the Scotia Bank.

It is exciting because it is what has been needed for so many years: a place where there are people living and doing business in the core of the city. What a change that will be for downtown Kelowna, with eyes on the street and people walking about doing their shopping, going out for a coffee, reading the paper, and most of all talking to others in the community.

The Aquilini family is well known to all of us, of course, as the owners of the Vancouver Canucks and GM place. For years they have been builders and developers of communities in the province, and they are the developers of this project.

The building has been designed by Penticton based architects Bevanda Architecture Inc., a studio for Architecture and Planning led by Nick Bevanda and supported by a talented and dedicated staff which includes three Associates: Justin Marchiel, Mark Nielsen and Andrew MacPhail.

The builder is Edgecomb Builders of Kelowna. Kevin Edgecomb has built quite a solid reputation for his company with the quality of work they produce. This will be the company’s largest project to date and they’re excited about it, as they should be. The growth of the company is quite spectacular when you realize they started in the high-end home building business in 1992.

I believe there are a lot of people who would like to live downtown, just as there are businesses that would like to locate there. What you have to do is go down to the presentation centre at 450 Bernard and see what they have to offer. From the specs it looks like there is a price for everyone.

I think it's great and about time.

The preceding article represents the best of what has recently come across John's desk. Highlighted items may include extensively unattributed passages provide by the subject of the article and readers should treat such feature and benefit claims accordingly.

The Kelowna Jaycees are proud to announce that the 3rd Annual Smoke on the Water BBQ Festival will be bigger and better than ever before. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Father's Day, June 21st in Waterfront Park. The festival is free for the public to attend and will feature an array of events to keep everyone entertained.

The centerpiece of the festival is the Pro BBQ Competition, which draws teams from across Western Canada and the North-Western United States. Competitors start cooking Saturday night, to submit dishes in five categories on Sunday afternoon. The teams are competing for bragging rights and $2750.00 in prize money.

Smoke on the Water will also feature the 1st annual BCRFA “Best Burger In Town” Competition, which will award the title and a $650.00 advertising package from Castanet to the restaurant judged to have Kelowna’s best burger. This contest will be decided by local celebrities including Castanet Creative Director, Robin Jones Wine Columnist/Consultant, Jim Martin AM 1150 Radio Host, Phil Johnson and Wine/Food Columnist, Juliana Hayes from the Daily Courier.

The Smoke on the Water Festival is a family event that has attractions for just about everyone.

The hungry members of the family can treat themselves to a plate of authentic Southern BBQ or more standard local fare like Kelly O’s Pachos or a Smokie. If the sun gets too hot festival goers can cool down with a cold drink in the beverage garden right on tugboat beach, or grab an ice cream cone from Marble Slab Creamery.

Where do you think Kelowna Dads are going to want to spend Father's Day?...

What do you think of the warranty programs we are being offered by just about anyone who can in retail these days? I was told about a situation where the company cancelled the warranty and gave back some of the money. I was buying a battery the other day and when I was offered a warranty for the battery the manager of the store said it was a wise move to take the warranty.

Let's see, that battery was a little over five bucks and the warranty was $1.49 and I get free batteries. First of all what is the first battery really worth? The warranty games have become a big profit source for these businesses, a cash cow as they say. There is a lot of money being made.

One should check on the extended warranties they already have with their credit cards. If something breaks down call your credit card company. I understand they are not difficult to deal with. Here is your chance to finally read that agreement that comes with the credit card when they are issued. Where did I put that?...

It must have been two or three years ago when I first got the story on some changes being made in France as the wine industry looked to screw caps because too much of their fine wines were being “corked.” Some were undrinkable because of the damaged, aged or just plain bad corks. Isn’t that why the waiter pours a small sample of wine to be assessed by the customer?

Back then I called a friend when I was putting the story together and his disgust in even discussing such a thing was immediate. “They will ruin the wine experience if that is true. It is an emotional experience. It’s tradition.”

Wine makers all over the world are switching to screw caps because as they say the screw cap closure was selected by the wineries to ensure freshness and that means the wines tastes the way the winemaker intended it to taste.

For years the wine corks have been made in places like Spain from cork trees grown especially for that purpose. We have a cork tree in our backyard. It is probably twenty years old and just when I was getting ready for cork production. So I waited too long again.

I know it won’t stop there at the screw cap because I saw a wine show on TV the other day where one winery has introduced glass stoppers. One had a glass as part of the package over top of the wine bottle...

What are we doing differently in the supermarket as we shop these days? First of all we have a list and prior to going grocery shopping we have checked the fliers. I now carry mine with me. The store house brands have become popular and sales are up thirty percent. We trust them and the quality is good. It certainly does disturb me some days when I check where some products sourced from and find out things like a jar of pickles has come from halfway around the world.

Grocery industry studies have shown that between 50 percent and 60 percent of all supermarket purchases are made on impulse, and that figure can jump to nearly 70 percent when shoppers go down every aisle.

Supermarkets do what they can to take advantage of that fact - stores are full of displays designed to tempt you to spend a little more, including advertising messages on the shelves, the floors and broadcast over the sound system.

Supermarkets want you to buy their own brands, because they make more money on them. They put their products next to the brand name versions on the shelf, and use compare and save signs to show the price differential between the two.

In this case you should go along, because you'll generally save money without sacrificing quality. New research by a trade group for the makers of such products suggests that consumers can cut their weekly grocery bill by 30 percent if they buy store brands instead of the better-advertised national brands.

Brenda and Myles Scott would like to buy a new house this year if they can put a deal together.

Knowing how important credit history is when applying for a mortgage, Brenda went online to check their credit reports and credit scores to see where they stood. They knew there would be some blemishes, she said. "But it wasn't new stuff. We thought we would be in pretty good shape."

Believing they were ready to get the home buying process started, they made an appointment with their bank. The first thing the person at the bank did was to check their credit scores. They weren’t anywhere near the numbers they had received.

It happens all the time. People having checked their scores online then with their banker, only to find out the scores available to consumers on websites are far different from the ones the financial institution uses. A 50- to 60-point difference is not uncommon, and almost every time, the score the person gets is the lower one.

The recession has increased awareness about credit scores as people try to keep a closer watch on their finances. But while many are learning the
importance of the various factors that go into determining a credit score - on-time payments, the ratio of debt to available credit, the length of credit history and so forth - there's still a good deal of mystery surrounding the numbers.

For instance, websites that sell credit scores don't explain clearly that there are literally hundreds of ways for a score to be computed, and different lenders use different formulas.

When you apply for a loan for a home, a car or other major purchase, the lender will approve your loan based upon several factors including your credit score. There are many types of credit scores, however the credit score used most by Canadian lenders is the FICO score. The FICO score, developed by Fair, Isaac and Company, Inc. is a number between 300 and 850 that lenders in Canada use to determine your credit rating. The higher your credit score the more likely you are to be approved for loans and receive favourable rates because you are viewed as a better credit risk.

Get your credit score information from both leading Canadian credit bureaus: Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. Each has their own reporting systems so buying your credit history online from both bureaus is a small investment to discover how these Canadian credit agencies are reporting your credit history to the banks, credit unions and credit card companies. It also gives you the opportunity to correct any errors before applying for a loan, mortgage or credit card.

Your Canadian credit score is an important indicator of your creditworthiness. In general, the higher your credit number, the lower the probability that you will become delinquent on credit extended to you. And while many lenders in Canada use bureau scores to help them make lending decisions, each lender will base its decision on more than just the score. Canadian lenders use your credit score to determine if you are a good candidate for credit and likely to pay your bills. In the event of bankruptcy, it will also help them determine what type of repayment plan is best for you.

Because your Canadian credit report is updated every day, your FICO bureau score is recalculated continuously. So your credit score from a month ago is probably not the same score today. It is probably worth checking with both Canadian credit agencies at least once a year, or certainly before you make any major loan application ... so that you know exactly what the banks know and think about your credit. It can help you negotiate a much better interest rate, saving you thousands of dollars.

The Canadian Credit Centre recommends these 2 Canadian Credit Score Products:

Equifax Consumer Services Canada Score PowerTM Credit Score. See the credit score used by most lenders, plus a copy of your Canadian credit report for $21.95.

TransUnion Consumer Services Canada Credit Score. See the credit score used by Canadian lenders, plus a copy of your Canadian credit report – online. A complete credit profile, including Credit Score instantly online for just $22.90.

Discover how bankers view your credit history and correct any mistakes.

Yet even though the scores consumers can get online may be different from the ones the banks use, they are still useful.

In today’s financial world it is important to keep your credit report updated and checking it at least once a year is important because you never know when you are going to need that information to be positive.

Will the couple get their home this year? That still is a good possibility once they clean things up and work with the lender.

The preceding article represents the best of what has recently come across John's desk. Highlighted items may include extensively unattributed passages provide by the subject of the article and readers should treat such feature and benefit claims accordingly.