Here and there

There is one column on Saturdays I never miss and that is the Eat Drink guide with Anthony Gismondi. This past week he wrote about restaurants and their need to make some changes with their food and wine prices. It is worth reading for anyone in the food business. But I like this quote, “When a winery gets less than $10 to grow, make and ship a bottle of wine, why should we pay $50 more to enjoy it?”

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The Employee Benefits, Group Retirement Savings and HR Consulting division of Russell & Associates is changing names.

After over 26 years of providing Employee Benefits services to clients across Canada, the Company proudly introduces encompass Benefits & HR Solutions Inc. as its new name and branding initiative. Please see the attached Press Release for further details. Please kindly update your contact information accordingly and forward this email to anyone you believe would appreciate this information.

Partners Bret Loge, Randy Schueler, and Bob Richardson and their team bring over 125 years of combined insurance experience and look forward to continuing to provide our clients with outstanding service, support and results. Our core focus remains Employee Benefit Plans, Group Retirement Savings Plans, Human Resources Consulting, and Health & Wellness Initiatives.

encompass Benefits & HR Solutions Inc. will continue to operate out of the same office location at #100-215 Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna. The phone number is (250)763-6464.

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Predator Ridge has a special treat as part of this year’s Vernon Winter Carnival. For the third year in a row, the resort will be hosting the Winter Carnival Wine Gala on February 8th, 2011 beginning at 5:00 PM and running until 8:00 PM.

The wine showcase is priced at $50 per person inclusive of taxes. Tastings will be held throughout the event, and shuttles will be provided to and from the Wesbild Centre in Vernon for a small fee. As a special treat, Poplar Grove, a boutique winery from the Okanagan area, will be decanting three wines that have never been tasted by the public.

In 2009, the Wine Gala was named the Best Adult Event for the Winter Carnival, and organizers hope to repeat that success this year as 32 different wineries will be represented at the event.

The winter carnival is a Vernon tradition and has been held every year since 1961. The event runs February 4th to 13th and offers fun winter activities and events for the whole family. This year’s theme is “Cooking with Carnival” and highlights include cook-offs, a parade and the coronation of the carnival’s Queen Silver Star.

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For years Terry Humm was the financial man at the Capri Hotel and for the last nine years has live in Mexico. He sent me this email the other day.

Many of our friends in the USA, Canada and England ask us how safe we feel living in Mexico. The short answer is: just as safe as in the USA.

Thanks largely to its coverage in the media, Mexico does indeed have a not entirely undeserved reputation for violence. However, it is interesting to look at the facts. Take the murder rate for example. According to recent statistics, South Africa's murder rate is nearly four times higher than Mexico's. In fact, Mexico's murder rate ranks sixth behind Colombia, Jamaica, Venezuela, South Africa and Russia. Check this website: Murders per capita statistics

As the BBC never tires of reporting, more than 30,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence over the last four years. But again it is interesting to look at the facts. Yesterday, President Calderón reported that 34,612 people had died in drug-related killings in those four years. Clearly some of these deaths did unfortunately involve innocent people, but of the total, 30,913 were execution-style killings by gangs, 3,153 deaths occurred in shootouts between gangs, and 546 deaths involved attacks on authorities (the police and the army). Again, about half the killings took place only in the three northern states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas. Other states, Calderón explained, had been virtually untouched by the violence, with Yucatan and Tlaxcala registering fewer than 10 crime-related murders in 2010. As he pointed out, many of the killings in 2010 were generated by the turf war between the Zetas drug gang and their former allies in the Gulf cartel.

So in fact if you are not living in or around narco gang activity you could say that Mexico’s problems with violence are about the same as England’s and less than the USA’s.

There is no escaping the fact that there are certainly instances of serious crime throughout Mexico, and living here is not like living in Canada. But the overall level of violence is still low throughout those parts of the country that are away from the US border, certainly low enough to have relatively little impact on the day-to-day lives of the 113 million Mexicans and the many foreigners who enjoy living here or coming as visitors.

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You could tell by the number of major concerts or entertainment events that played the valley last year that business in 2010 wasn’t what it should be. The prices were too high for the public and they said no thanks.

There were some good tours like Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga and Canada’s Justin Bieber who did $48 million on his tour. Many shows had to scale back or cancel. We’ll never know how badly Sarah McLachlan Lilth Fair tour was. There were many cancelled dates or juggled acts that weren’t drawing crowds. It wasn’t a good one for the Vancouver artist.

I think we’ll see more tours with less expensive seats and service fees etc. The business needs a shot in the arm.

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Have you noticed that the pharmacies are having difficulty in supplying certain medications because the pharmaceutical companies are producing the product? This is not going away and in some instances will get worse. I have a pill prescribed for me by the specialist that isn’t available in the dosage that has been prescribed for me. So the drug store has to send me a larger pill, which I then cut into four. It is not the druggist’s fault at all - this shortage just makes a bigger workload for the pharmacies.

There is a real shortage of the raw ingredients and where they come from is in question some times. In many cases some of those ingredients are used in the less expensive drugs and are not as profitable for the manufacturers.

The problem isn't just for Canadians, it’s all over the world.