There are still negotiations going on with Air Canada about changing their minds about those direct flights from Toronto. Locals are giving it a good try and it is never easy with Air Canada, never...

You have seen the ads and heard the new music formats. Low and behold we have two new radio stations in Kelowna. We now have seven, plus a brand new format on one of the original ones. When we came here thirty years ago there were three broadcast outlets. One of the newest is the Vista Radio chain with The Juice. There is an interesting background to this radio group because they were just a dream of founder of the group, Paul Mann when he left Kelowna in 2003 as a top executive in the Sun-FM operation. He said he was going to retire to his oceanfront property in PEI. But sitting on the beach just gave him the idea for a group of radio stations that serviced small towns and cities out here in B.C.. He wrote the plan, came back to visit his son Jason with the idea because with his son he had purchased the Duncan radio station where Jason had moved. One of his first investors was Bruce Hamilton the media mogul who owns the Kelowna Rockets Hockey team. Bruce was ready to go. He had already been through a successful media buy when he was part of a group that bought the Capital News, later to sell it. He next sold the idea to Calgary lawyer Margot Micallef who is now the CEO. (Margot is one of the stars of the CBC’s Dragon’s Den.) Their final partner came in with a load of money, Ron Joyce, the co-founder of Tim Hortons. By January the company will own twenty-five radio stations. Two new stations have been applied for. To say the least, this group has been busy and one of the main accomplishments for them was to be able to come back into the Kelowna market with their format. Now we will watch and listen to the battle of the airwaves...

Mitch Fritz is from Osoyoos. His parents still live there but now the twenty-seven-year-old hockey enforcer is in the NHL with the N.Y. Islanders at the age of twenty-seven. He played junior hockey with the Kelowna Rockets for two seasons and since then has traveled the AHL and ECHL before this call up to the bigs...

East Kelowna has a new business, Canyon Soapstone. They are the exclusive importers, distributors and installers of Dorado Soapstone from Brazil. James Judd the marketing man said they are ready to measure cut and install kitchen and bathroom countertops, backsplashes, floors and tile. He said if it's stone you’re looking for then you have to see this product from Brazil. John and Melissa Wilson own the business. Their contact number is 250-864-4832...

It seems like I just wrote the about the 25th anniversary of the sunflower and pumpkin seed company Spitz. Now in their 26th year the owners have sold the company to PepsiCo. The Canadian company now makes six flavours of sunflower seeds. Some of the crop comes from farmers in B.C.. When I grew up it was Sid’s Sunflower Seeds, which Spitz purchased a few years ago. The producer has 73% of the Canadian market and prior to the sale to PepisCo was being distributed in 41 states...

Winnipeg will be featured in the November 13th episode of The Office when boss Michael Scott and a few of the staff visit on a business trip. The writers chose Winnipeg because it struck the right balance between “exotic and obscure.” The Winnipeg scenes at the airport, a hotel and a bar were all actually filmed in Los Angeles with major props...

Is it finally over? I am out of The Situation Room, has the wolfman left the room? It has been two years listening and watching CNN and its cast of characters, their pundits who made up each and every day of the two year period. I must be a nut to put myself through that because I was worn to a frazzle by 5pm when Big Lou closed the books on the day. Columnist Sarah Hampson in the Globe & Mail said it best about the Dobber, “no one annoys me so perfectly.” He dislikes Canada so much as well as NAFTA. Then there is the old man of the clan Larry, once the highest paid talking head at CNN. He tried for two years to look angry as part of his new shtick. See you in two years boys and girls.