Merry Christmas, and warmest wishes for the holidays, from VanRamblings.

For the past while, VanRamblings has been looking for a way to return to regular publishing. Having recovered from the loss (once again) of a long lost and much missed love, and nearing the end of seven months of regular contract work with Canada Mortgage and Housing — not to mention, working on the process towards bargaining of a first contract with Cardinal Transportation — the time has come to re-commit to VanRamblings.
Regular visitors to the site may expect frequent updates from here on in.
In the coming days we’ll cover the gamut, and introduce you to some quite wonderful trip-hop music, cover the Vancouver municipal election, post on the deserved travails of Wal-Mart, write about the dastardly deeds of Nestle’s, ponder the use of acronyms in relation to text messaging, offer thoughts on the riots in Paris, bring you up-to-date on the latest computer tech news, reflect on the meaning of the blogging revolution, explore the history of anarchism, and preview the coming Christmas movie season.
Let’s face it: no one ever said that VanRamblings’ interests aren’t eclectic.

Blogger Raymond Tomlin as James Skitt Matthews, the founder of Kitsilano

Lest you think that the author of this blog looks just like the dashing personage of yore you see above, allow VanRamblings to disavow you of that notion, and state for the record that who you see in the photo may indeed be the estimable Mr. Tomlin, but said person is impersonating one James Skitt Matthews, a founder of the Kitsilano community 100 years ago, and the City of Vancouver’s first archivist. All of this foofaraw, of course, taking place as part of the Kitsilano Centenary celebration in late June.

With an interregnum of almost two months, the time has come to once again begin a regular posting to VanRamblings.
The reason for the absence of VanRamblings since October 4th? In part, the cessation of publishing occurred as a response to a car accident the administrator of VanRamblings suffered on September 26th. In part, the absence of publishing occurred because the administrator had taken on an intensive month-long project with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation throughout the month of October (even bloggers need to put food on the table, and pay the bills).
Mostly, though, VanRamblings has been absent from your life because the administrator of the site has been involved in a union organizing campaign to afford employees at the Vancouver yard of Cardinal Transportation the opportunity to be treated with respect and dignity in the workplace.
For some insight into a current core issue which prevents the counting of the vote that was held in the workplace on November 23rd, have a look at this recent ruling of the British Columbia Labour Relations Board.
As it happens, school bus drivers in other jurisdictions are standing up for their rights, so there is hope for Cardinal school bus drivers (and aides) in Vancouver (although, to be honest, the Saskatchewan government is certainly more labour friendly than is the case in British Columbia).
VanRamblings is back, although posting will likely be only sporadic for the next while as action takes the place of reflection.