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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, November 12, 2009 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com H1N1 clinic update Gary Carr, Halton Region Chair alton Region is participating in Canada's largest mass immunization program in our country's history. In the first 10 days of clinics at Halton Region, we used 73,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine, provided by the federal government. To put this into perspective, Gary Carr the number of people immunized would fill both the Air Canada Centre and the Rogers Centre combined. With the expertise of our trained professionals, we have been able to dramatically increase the number of residents processed through our vaccination clinics. As well, Halton doctors, hospitals and long-term care centres have received thousands of doses to administer. To help manage this massive undertaking, we opened our Emergency Operation Centre (EOC). The EOC is a command centre that is used in emergency situations and Halton Region is the first region in the province to take such a step. At the EOC, we bring together the regional chair, the Chief Administrative Officer of the Region, commissioners from all departments along with the chief of police and other police staff as well as the medical officer of health and other senior staff. This command centre acts as the operations and decision-making centre where we can all share information to make the best possible decisions on an as-need basis since information and situations are constantly changing. For more information and pictures of the EOC, visit the Chair's Corner at www.halton.ca/Council/chairs_corner. Record numbers of people are being immunized with the assistance and support of our health care professionals, nurses and numerous other support personnel. I would like to personally thank them all for the professionalism and dedication they have demonstrated during this busy and stressful time. I have personally spoken to hundreds and hundreds of residents at our clinics, and we have heard many very kind words from many of our residents who had a positive experience while at our clinics. We have posted some of these comments on our website and you can view them at www.halton.ca/H1N1experience. For more information on our clinics, please dial 311 or visit www.halton.ca. Check back regularly as information is changing daily. We will continue to operate our vaccination clinics, as long as we have vaccines available to us from the federal government. Again, I would like to extend a big thank you to our residents and Halton Region staff, as always, we demonstrate that Halton is truly a great place to live, work, raise a family and retire. RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America H THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER DRIVEN A FORD LATELY?: Parker Davis, 8, Tyler Davis, 5 and Erik Davis check out the cargo space in the Lincoln MKT during the Drive One 4 UR School Ford test drive at Holy Trinity. For each household that came for a test drive, Ford of Canada (Oakland and Kennedy Ford) donated $20 to help fund the Sixth Line high school's new robotics team. When not even the Jonas Brothers are all that whoop-dee-do fever and nagging cough kept my daughter from going to work at her mother's public relations company -- as part of her school's Take Our Kids To Work Day -- where she had been slated to sit in on a cool tutorial on social media, a media-training session with a corporate bigwig and a brainstorm on the possibility of approaching the Jonas Brothers for an upcoming campaign. To soften her disappointment, I philosophically reminded her that when one door closes another opens. I suggested she focus not on having missed an opportunity, and consider the rare chance she had been afforded -- to hang with me at my place of employ (home sweet home)-- to witness the inner workings of my business and to see what her dad does every day in his position as the head of a major, multifaceted communications powerhouse. Then I asked her if she wanted to watch Ellen. That's right: forget the tutorial, media-training and the whoop-dee-do JoBros, we've got Ellen. Ah, but I jest. Working at home isn't all bonbons, extended beverage breaks, naps and mindless TV (it's mostly that, but not all that). While I could not give my daughter the experience of a day in a typical work environment, I thought I'd give her the experience A of a day in an alternative (and increasingly popular) work environment: the home office. People often ask me how I work from home, what do I do all day and how do I stay disciplined to get work done? And then, typically, they say they could never work at home because they'd get nothing done (see: bonbons, extended beverage breaks, etc.). Andy Juniper Personally, I like working at home. I like getting two solid hours of work done first thing in the morning before most working stiffs have even completed their killer commute. One of the big pluses of working at home is the time you gain. One of the big minuses is that you're forever at home and always at work. While I (honestly) rarely get abducted by distractions -- when you love what you do, distractions actually seem less interesting than what you're working on -- I do get ambushed by time-eating jobs that need to be done around the house. Things like laundry (yes, I do laundry, and plenty of it). And handiwork around the house: just because I'm inherently not handy, doesn't mean I can't kill an hour trying to electrocute myself and fix a faulty light switch. House clean-up. Yeah, I do that, too. And if you'd just spent four fruitless hours surfing the web looking for a story idea for your new sports/humour website, you'd understand how cleaning a bathroom, and actually getting something accomplished, could suddenly seem appealing. Cooking. Seriously, how can you sink your teeth into a meaty paragraph when nothing's on the stove for dinner? In time, I have become a decent cook. My daughter's friend introduces my daughter as "the girl whose father makes the best minestrone soup in the world." I kid you not. There was so much my daughter could have learned by hanging with her pops. Ah, but she fell asleep about halfway through Ellen and woke up about the time I was prepping dinner. Truth be told, when you've got one of these bugs that are going around, nothing's that whoop-dee-doo. Not going to work with mom, or hanging with dad. Not even the JoBros. Andy Juniper can be visited at his website, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com.