There you are at the airport ready to check in and there are two scales, one for your bags and the other for yourself. Both weights will determine the cost of your ticket. Not yet, but we are slowly working our way there as the charges change almost weekly as to how the airline is going to raise more money to cover the new costs of flying those aircraft. With the threat of higher and higher fuel costs we probably are not that far away from getting he two-scale treatment. Fuel costs have tripled since 2000 and they account for forty per cent of the of the airlines' operating expenses. Just think of how revenue is being raised these days to cover the costs. No snacks, $25 for telephone reservations, soon no cold drinks (they don’t want to carry the extra weight of liquids) and charges for baggage. The airlines are in a tight spot and it isn’t going to get any better...

We first heard of them when they came to town and bought the well-respected chartered accounting firm of Snowsell, Jennens & Carter. Calgary based Meyers Norris Penny LLP has become the largest accounting firm in Western Canada and now they have made the move to go national by merging with the 11th largest firm in Toronto Horwath Orenstein. The Toronto office has 100 on staff while the Western Canadian firm has 2,000 staff located in offices in Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. MNP was started in 1945 in Brandon, Manitoba and moved its head office to Calgary in 2001...

It really didn’t come as surprise when Excell Services in Penticton sent out word that they would be closing their Penticton office in October. It was a good operation when it came to the Peach City seven years ago. Unemployment at that time was close to 10 per cent. The dollar was low and attractive to the American operators. That is not the answer anymore and it has put the call centre business in jeopardy in the entire country...

This was good news for those who can eat chocolate. The headline to the story said, "Chocolate really does help people feel better." According to the report chocolate can help prevent people from being grumpy and behaving badly. That chocoholic that we all know has always known that chocolate was a “feel good” ingredient...

Yes real men drink rose wine. The popular wines are not all pink, they're salmon-coloured, cranberry, onion skin - just a rainbow of shades. The lighter the shades can signal a milder wine according to the experts that know these things. Way back in the sixties as our family grew up and we went out to dinner more, we didn’t know a lot about wines and we would drink what we thought was right and because we liked the taste. Rose was in the world famous bottle by Mateus. The Portuguese wine was a hit in those days with the younger couples that didn’t know a lot about wine. This was our first venture into the world of wine and what the hell, we had to start somewhere. Don’t forget Baby Duck was popular then, but get someone to admit they drank that brew today, wouldn’t be easy. We weren’t sophisticated but we were trying the new ways of the world and you could see others in the restaurants doing the same thing. Back to the world of rose and the sales numbers that the different brands are accounting for in the government liquor stores across the country. There are a lot of roses available from Australia, Spain and France as well as Canada and the U.S.. The Okanagan produces some of the best and many of them are only found when you visit the wineries...

Purdy’s Chocolates, a Western Canadian institution is moving into the east with six stores and are looking at a total of twenty on the drawing board. Founded in 1907 it remains a family organization. A total of fifty-six stores are now in the chain. Their best sellers include the legendary Hedgehogs. A Belgian symbol of good luck, truffles and dark chocolates...

I found a new place for a good breakfast with steak, eggs and home fries. The Hungry Hound. I had heard about the place north on Ellis to Recreation Ave. It is not a big place but it was full of people this late Friday morning. People lined up picking up their lunch. The food was excellent, cooked perfectly and I am fussy about breakfast. Open 6:30am to 3pm Monday through Friday. There is a special everyday. Matthew Reimer has owned the spot for the last six years...

Eighteen million votes: $212 million. Some 1,926 delegates. That’s $109,823 a pop. Blowing the biggest head start in presidential history: priceless. From anointed to also-ran, Hillary Clinton spent more money to lose a primary election than any candidate in Democratic Party history...

Don’t you dare call it “the Hockey Night in Canada theme". The real name is the “The Hockey Theme" and it belongs to CTV. When it hit the fan the CBC was in crisis mode because they were caught flat-footed and they lost the war. CTV president Rick Brace explains that the CBC was trying to cover their tracks and had offered the owner of the music $1 million to copyright and buy the song outright. The company that is the agent for the music Copyright Music & Visuals and the writer said the CBC was paying them $65,000 a season. The agent wanted $2.5 million to buy out the music. No one knows what the CTV offer was but they certainly captured the news of the day. The CTV network was having fun with their move. I was thinking back to Dianna Krall when she was making her last appearance in Kelowna and she opened her show with the quartet playing “The Hockey Song.” It sounded really good with that jazz beat...