42 Babel Fish 42

Did the Soviet rocket hit some space debris?

2012-01-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

Another one is coming down!

The Soviets launched a space ship meant to go to a Mars moon, gather some dirt, and sent it back to Earth.

It never left orbit. Our orbit. The one around the planet we know as Earth.

As a matter of fact, it will actually be leaving orbit sometime in the next 3 days. It will be crashing back down onto the planet Earth. So once again we go on the "where will it hit?" guessing game. Some reports guess the Atlantic Ocean, others are betting on the Indian Ocean. That sounds familiar. It's good we have so much water here... but the oceans are going to get as polluted with space junk as the space above our heads soon.

So what caused the failure? No one is really sure. Could it be that some of the space junk flying around in orbit hit it? Do people planning to launch space ships have to develop a cushion mechanism for their rockets to get them through the space junk field now? Have we fenced ourselves in?

Update: It hit in the Pacific Ocean, to the west of Chile.

Anyone for a round of catch the elevator?

2012-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

Typically, when you catch the elevator, it's to get in it and have it take you to another floor.

We have a new game in my condominium apartment building. We catch the elevator and lock it off, so it won't go anywhere.

This is due to the recent fire in our elevator room. See my blog entry on that!

We now have one of two elevators kinda working. It takes pressing many buttons, seemingly almost at random, to summon the elevator, and then there may be floor numbers lit up at random inside the elevator... but it will (likely) get you to the floor you want. And we only have a temporary license to operate it, so we are working on replacing the controls as soon as we can. But it beats using the stairs.

One of the functions of an elevator is to return to the ground floor, open the doors and turn itself off whenever the fire alarm goes off. Our elevator will not do this anymore. The fire department is not happy, but the temporary license lets us still use the elevator, and we have a couple of dozen warning signs telling people not to use the elevator if the alarm sounds.

But we're not relying on people to read signs if the alarm sounds, that's where the "catch the elevator" game starts. Each member of the Strata Council has a key that can be used to turn the elevator off if the alarm sounds. We're all on different floors.

So if the alarm goes off, we all try to summon the elevator to catch it and lock it off!

And then we run downstairs, and the one who caught it gets bragging rights.

Actually, the one who caught it then has to tell everyone, including the arriving firemen, where the elevator is.

It sounds like it could be a fun game, but we all still hope we don't have to play it!

Would you get rid of a Friday?

2011-12-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

Samoa has decided to place itself on the other side of the international date line. To do this they had to skip a day. They picked December 30 - a Friday - to skip!

Who would skip a Friday? Friday is a good day - it's the run up to the weekend.

A Monday - most people who work a Monday to Friday workweek would gladly lose a Monday.

Tuesday - that's a good day. Monday is over, and you have time to get stuff done on a Tuesday.

Wednesday - that's the day I would get rid of. It's "hump" day. Once you get through Wednesday you are on your way to relaxing on the weekend. Getting it over with in the blink of an eye sounds like a marvelous idea to me!

Thursday - that's another good day. You can still get lots of stuff done, and the weekend is almost on you, so you have something to look forward to.

Friday - if you have mindless stuff to get done, Friday is your perfect time to do it. I've never been able to do anything solid after noon on a Friday. Anything I write is basically a write-off on a Friday. (What time is it now... oh, maybe I shouldn't be blogging right now... oh well, it's just for fun.)

Saturday - hands off. No one skips a Saturday.

Sunday - lazy sleep-ins and indulgent breakfasts at mid-day. No one in their right mind would get rid of a Sunday, and if they did, they would find themselves alone in taking on Monday before they have to.

Fire? What do you mean there's actually a fire?

2011-12-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

I've been living in apartment buildings for a good 25 or so years now. I've lived through dozens of false alarms in these buildings. The alarms go off. Depending on your state of mind, and how high up you are, you either:

curse the noise and wonder who set it off this time
run to your kitchen to make sure you aren't the one on fire
go out onto the balcony and look to see if there are any flames
get out of the building, then find out if any of your neighbors who are outside know where the fire is

I find as we get older, the more cautious we are. We now choose to get out of the building, and then try to find out what, if anything, is on fire.

Of course, I use a wheelchair when I'm not in my home now. Getting out of the building takes on a whole new dimension now.

Luckily, my spouse is a runner of marathons and trail races. When we hear the fire alarm he runs downstairs and outside on an advanced scouting mission to see if there really is a fire, and reports back to me.

This morning he reported back yelling "Get up! There really is a fire!"

So much for the nice sleep-in I was having.

I can still walk short distances, slowly. Somehow my spouse had found 2 guys I may know in the building, they looked familiar - probably some maintenance guys doing work in the building. They did offer to carry me down, but that's just not appealing, and I can walk short distances, slowly. So I grabbed some clothes and threw them on, and they grabbed my manual wheelchair and one of them took it downstairs for me. OK, so when I make it downstairs, I'm good. Now it's just a matter of me making it downstairs.

So slowly, grabbing the railings, with one guy in front, and my husband behind me, I made it down a flight, then stepped aside to rest and let others get past on their way down. Then I started on another flight, and when I was almost down, half a dozen axe-carrying fire fighters came up, so I grabbed one railing with both arms and said "OK, go around me!" The fire was on the roof.

My goodness, firemen are large examples of the human form aren't they? One of the firemen offered to call in other firemen to carry me downstairs. I was doing OK, so I declined.

Thankfully, we are only on the fourth floor - or actually just three floors above the lobby, which has a ramp down to ground level. I made it down, and was very happy to see my wheelchair. Then outside we went.

Luckily it wasn't raining, but it was cold, and I didn't have shoes on - only socks - because I walk better when I can feel the ground with my feet. One of our neighbors manages the apartment building next to ours, so he let anyone who wanted to stay warm sit inside the lobby of that building.

Once the fire was out, we were told we could go back home. What started the fire? The elevators. The terms being used were "melted" and "you can't see much because of the smoke damage" in the room on the roof with the elevator controls. So none of the apartments were burned, which is good. But now we have no elevators. Probably won't have elevators for at least a week - and that's a hopeful evaluation. So we can all go home now... back up the stairs.

Oy Vey.

I just looked up the term Oy Vey in Wikipedia. I'm using it in a very appropriate way. It means "oh pain".

Long story short, I made it back up to my home, but my arms are very tired, and the muscles of my best leg have complaints and grievances to discuss with me and the other leg.

So yes, we actually had a fire. And I have to report, after 25 years of false alarms, all the thinking "what will we do next time if it isn't a false alarm..." does make it easier to deal with when it really is a fire. So maybe the false alarms aren't just annoying.

And man, are firemen huge, or what!

PS - my horoscope for today said: "If someone says you should not be concerned about what is going on in your immediate environment that means you should be very concerned indeed. Go out of your way to find out what it is – then act."

Did I really just alphabetize my roses?

2011-11-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Some people alphabetize their books on their bookshelves.

Some people wonder if it was the book titles or the authors that were alphabetized... because they're wondering which way to do it themselves. Others know that it's by author first and then book title. Yet others feel that it should be by author and then date of publication...

... and that is one true sign of insanity.

But I just alphabetized the roses on my Flickr set. Does this put me a step closer to insanity than anyone with an organized bookshelf?

It's not as bad as it sounds, really. I was "pruning" my roses. My photographs have gotten better over the years, so I do occasionally remove some of the older, less appealing photos. Then I noticed an option to "alphabetize" the set of photos in one of the menus, so I chose it. Simple, really. Not that insane.

Of course, then I went and changed the titles on some of the roses so that they would sort properly. And "alphabetized" them again. That may have been the step over the line to insanity.

Then I had to fix the blog entry that was muddled from the reorganizing in Flickr.

No, I'm not trying to avoid doing other things that really need doing. Honest.

Am I addicted to photographing roses?

2011-11-04T10:22:00.001-07:00

Roses, a set on Flickr.

Roses, a set on Flickr.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... Shakespeare

But most of them don't actually have much scent any more. The hybrid tea roses in particular are less than forward in the scent arena these days.

So why do I have 81 photos of them on my Flickr site? Why do I have at least 2 more batches of them to process and add to my Flickr site (probably 4 or 5 new photos to add from that)?

I'm not actually that attracted to roses... but I feel a compulsion to take photos of them!

When I'm in Stanley Park's Rose Garden the flowers just sit there looking picture perfect and daring me to go by without taking a shot. I can't resist.

The only way I can resist taking photos of more roses is when they don't have name posts letting me know who they are. "Lovely flower, but I don't know the name, so I won't bother taking a shot." is the only thing that saves me!

Sounds like an addiction to me.

When did I get so picky about grammar?

2011-10-19T21:36:00.001-07:00

Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Rose, a photo by Clara Johnson on Flickr.

This bloom is on a bush called Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Rose in the Stanley Park Rose Garden. It has a label on a post in the ground underneath it that says so, but it has a grammar problem. The label says Brother's Grimm Fairy Tale Rose.

This is wrong because there is an apostrophe in it. The way it reads on the sign is that a Brother owns a Grimm Fairy Tale Rose... or even funnier, Brother is a Grimm Fairy Tale Rose!

There were two brothers with the last name of Grimm. They wrote stories. The stories are by the Brothers Grimm. The people who bred this rose named it after their stories.

After being irked by the sign (I take photos of the signs to make sure I get the names of the flowers correct in Flickr) I googled the details and found I was correct about the inappropriateness of the apostrophe.

So how did I get from being a child who thought spelling a word only one way was a sign of a lack of creativity to an adult who is bothered by apostrophes?

Why do I unintentionally relax when I find the first typo in every book I read? I know they are there, and I seem to be so happy when I find this is yet another book proving my theory that there is no such thing as a book without a spelling or grammar error.

When did the speed bumps on the road to reading enjoyment start bothering me so much?

Maybe I've read too much? No such thing.

Maybe I've read too much drivel? That's a possibility. So many things to read, and not that many years left to do it in. I don't have any patience for drivel left. Thank goodness I don't have any of my writing from my youth around anymore!

Do we need to duck this time?

2011-10-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

So was everyone expecting the world to end at the turn of the millennium?

Another satellite that was sent into orbit in the 1990s is about to land back on our planet. "Land" being a rather bland way of saying "hit very quickly while burning up and shattering into many pieces." And no one knows where it will land.

Did no one in the 1990s think of what happens to objects in orbit after they've been up there for a while? They come back down. It's this gravity thing, you see... not really a new phenomenon, if people got the satellite up into orbit, they had a good understanding of the concept then, so they knew it would come back down eventually. Did they not care about the eventual crashing back on the planet?

Of course, this one is only the size of a car... the last one from the U.S. was the size of a bus. So much better. Really?

This latest satellite comes from Germany. The European Space Agency has a Space Debris Office. (That's a trashy job, ha, ha.) They say there is a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting one of us monkeys with this satellite - the last satellite only had a 1 in 3,200 chance of hitting a monkey.

A smaller, but better targeted piece of space debris.

This satellite has the added bonus of a mirror which the Space Debris Office says may not burn up before hitting the planet, meaning some serious shards may come flying off the debris when it hits.

Of course, the planet is mostly covered by water, so the satellite has a better chance of hitting fish than us monkeys.

Any space aliens out there watching us must be wondering if we're just on a fishing trip with some really weird ways of catching fish.

Update: It landed in the Indian Ocean (probably) (hopefully). So it hit the body of water next to the largest population of humans possible. This could be the work of a super villain!

Is it Summer again?

2011-10-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

The calendar says October 7. This weekend is Thanksgiving - the harvest festival time in Canada. So why is the Cox Bay Beach in Tofino covered in surfers? (There are more in the water.)

This is a screen shot from Tofino today. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.) (See the Long Beach Lodge Resort website for the live webcam.)

I'm not there myself, and I can't surf (but would love to), but it's 15 degrees Celsius on the beach! For Tofino, that's balmy! It's cold in that water... but it's cold all year round. Dry suits are the clothing of choice at all times of the year when surfing Tofino.

I've just spent a warm sunny afternoon cleaning up the plants on my balcony, and I had to come back inside because it was too hot!

We missed having a lot of hot sunny days this summer, so are we having it now? This weather does not make sense.

Am I living in a cartoon?

2011-09-30T11:28:00.001-07:00

How NOT to Break Into a Safe, a photo by Clara Johnson on Flickr.

The Flintstones is a TV cartoon show from my youth. Fred Flintstone worked at a quarry mining stones while sitting on top of a brontosaurus that picked up the stones in its mouth.

Now I find myself watching the action again... from my balcony.

There is a crew of demolition workers leveling the old stores and restaurants from the property beside my condo building. They are almost done, but there is one bit of the old buildings that is not going anywhere soon - an old safe.

So on Thursday, while finishing up breakfast, we heard and felt loud thuds. We knew the demolition workers were about to get rid of some large stones from the site, so we figured they were being put into the dumpster that had been driven on to the site that morning.

Well, they were moving the stones, but it wasn't putting them into the truck. They were lifting one of the stones with their machine with a shovel, and dropping it on top of the safe!

It didn't work. The safe seems to be as solid as ever. In an earthquake, the safe would be fine. In a cartoon show, the safe still seems to be fine.

Am I living in a cartoon show now? Is reality slipping from me? Or did the guy with the machine with the shovel watch too many Flintstone episodes when he was a child?

Where did that satellite land?

2011-09-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

The satellite known as UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) is now back on the planet Earth. Somewhere.

It landed sometime last night. Probably.

It was calculated to hit somewhere between 57 degrees South and 57 degrees North. So pretty much anywhere on the planet Earth that isn't a magnetic pole. But that was just a guess. Well, the planet Earth part was pretty certain, the rest, not so much. And, oh yeah, most of the planet is covered in water, so it's probably in an ocean somewhere.

So don't we have thousands of these satellites circling the planet Earth now, giving great GPS tracking information down to the centimeter in accuracy? Aren't there many tracking systems for planes, tracking everything flying in the sky? Isn't Google Earth using satellites to take pictures of most of the planet most of the time? Surely someone must know where the satellite landed!

Or does someone want to fuel conspiracy theories?

If we never know... we can always imagine a good conspiracy to theorize about.

Maybe NASA did have control over the satellite and wanted to hit somewhere specific. Nah, too much effort. Maybe aliens grabbed it, and it didn't actually make it to the planet. Nah, we have lots of space junk up there, they don't need to grab something that was burning up already (there were photos of that). Or maybe fiction writers just needed a fresh idea to build on... yeah, that's why it has to remain a mystery, to cure writer's block.

Is it ironic to watch a movie about movie rentals on Netflix?

2011-09-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

We've finally decided to sign up for Netflix, since all our local movie rental places shut down.

Our first viewing was a documentary about cracking the Maya glyphs writing system - so this Flixster thing does have the potential to be educational and not just a bunch of brain-numbing movies.

Next we moved onto movies - and the independent movies were the most intriguing. We watched a movie called The Sasquatch Gang - which was very well done and quite funny - a bit of teenaged adventure angst wrapped in a Pulp Fiction-like time editing package. The main characters had a lot of connections to movie rental places - during the time of the old VHS tapes. One worked at a movie rental shop, another rented his own tapes out to friends - a main story conflict was focussed around getting one of his tapes back.

So is it ironic that the first movie we watched on Netflix was a movie centered around renting movies? The stores that are no more because Netflix is here?

We weren't shooting for ironic... it just sat there and stuck out it's tongue at us.

Why am I always in a bathroom during an earthquake?

2011-09-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Since we moved to Vancouver, just over a decade ago, we've experienced 2 earthquakes.

The first time, back around 2004 or so, I was in the shower. I wondered why the water was splashing oddly on the bottom of the shower, and I felt a bit dizzy... I thought it was me. I heard that one of our hanging lights was swinging back and forth, but I didn't see it myself.

A few hours ago, I was on the loo. And we had an earthquake just off Vancouver Island, which could be felt in Vancouver. Again, I felt a bit dizzy, but I thought it was just movement from the building next door to us which was being demolished today.

So an experience that not everyone gets to have - the planet shifting underfoot - and I'm in the bathroom.

I'd like to see what happens outside during an earthquake - do the trees sway? I bet they did. Of course, with the building next door being demolished today, would I really have noticed anything that unusual that I wouldn't have attributed to the demolition? Probably not.

Not that I'm hoping for another earthquake... I just wish I wasn't always in the bathroom for them!

Are street cleaners a form of crowd control?

2011-08-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

The fireworks were on last night. We live about 3 blocks from the place where they have them, and depending on where they anchor the barge in English Bay each year, we get to see bits of them from our balcony.

Of course, the fireworks only last for about 1/2 an hour. There will be 3 nights of them this year.

But for many hours before the event crowds of people migrate to the beach to get a spot to see the fireworks. The first wave is typically young families with whining or screaming children and parents. Organizing a trip to the beach is quite the exercise in major troop movements for them. The second wave is typically the hooting and hollering teenagers. They've shed their parental monitors, and now they're drunk and just out for a good time. The third wave is typically the mid-twenties adults in ridiculously high heels clattering along, having arguments with their dates, all running to the beach because the fireworks have already started.

Then thousands of dollars of fireworks go up in pretty explosions.

And now comes the exodus. It took hours to accumulate all these people. Now there are loud speakers telling them to get out quickly; police to move them along efficiently; thousands of dollars of fences around the gardens in the neighborhood to keep them off the flowers; security guards at most of the buildings to monitor our homes for vandalism... and street cleaners.

Machines to clean streets. They have brushes in front that turn to sweep big debris. They have water that sputters onto the ground to clean dirt. And really big, loud, insistent engines to drive them. Possibly making them the most efficient crowd control device we have.

The machines that comb the beach the morning after to get all the debris left by the thousands of people who don't live here, and think dumping their garbage here is OK, are also seriously big machines. No one ever sees them unless they get up really early, but they do a lot of work. And if you are on the beach at that time... you will go off for breakfast somewhere else quite quickly.

Cleaning as a form of crowd control. That's what we've come down to.

Do flies copulate in mid-air?

2011-07-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

If we leave our balcony door open in the mornings by noon we have half a dozen flies flying about in our living room.

If we leave the balcony door open into the evening... the flies go away. This is a bit disturbing... I hope they are flying out.

It's like they commute into the office in the morning and then leave again in the afternoon. Or I'm just going a bit insane.

So when they are here, they spend the entire day flying around in circles. Just over there. In reality, just in the one spot. Again, I'm thinking desks in an office... insanity creeps up on you, you know.

Sometimes they meet in mid-air and briefly fly around each other. So are they having sex? In mid-air? Is this office romance? Are the co-workers finding they have a lot in common, and getting to know each other really well?

Or is this just a plot to drive me insane? I don't like driving, so I guess it's nice to have a chauffeur, but I do get dizzy watching them fly around in circles.

Will I ever paint again?

2011-07-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

No, not a whine about losing abilities... just a long think about painting that makes me wonder if I ever will paint again.

Wall painting, not artistic painting. Just to be clear.

My spouse and I have just spent yet another long weekend painting. We painted the kitchen and a hallway that hadn't been painted yet. And now we are done. We moved in about 12-13 months ago, and had managed to get almost everything except a washroom, the kitchen, and the hallway painted before we moved in. And we are now declaring ourselves finished.

You know... you can pay people to paint walls for you.

Yes, that is true. This is what we told ourselves last time we finished painting a new home. We vowed "we will pay someone to do this next time". This was next time. We did it ourselves again.

But we do so much better than others. The painting mess we just painted over was badly done. No, we don't know who did it, but we have our suspicions. The place was bought by the previous owners with the intention of fixing it up and flipping it. They didn't live here, they just rented it out. So who did the walls? The cheapest labour possible. Judging by the appliances that were put in (all new, all cheap) that's all we can say.

But what about the next time we need walls painted?

We never expected to paint again. Of course, we never expected to be middle aged, we never expected to be married for 20 years either. Just when did that happen? When did those years fly past? Where did they go?

So what about next time? We said "never again" last time, but that didn't happen this time. Is life too long for "never again"?

Why don't ebooks have indexes?

2011-06-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Must admit, this is a sore spot for me - I create book indexes part time as a freelancer.

I'm one of those people who enter a non-fiction book from the back - from the index! If I know what I want, and I can find it in the index, I will dive into the book... if it's not in the index I can save myself a lot of time by just finding another book. But if the index is missing - or in a lot of ebook cases, it isn't linked to the text... page numbers just won't work for an ebook - using search just makes the effort tedious.

I'm currently using Adobe InDesign to help an author publish his book, and he wants to go ebook, rather than print, to start with. For print publication InDesign does have a rudimentary index generation function - nothing like my professional indexing software, Cindex, but useful when I've already written the index in Cindex, and can just input it into InDesign. But for an ebook... I've been Googling for how to translate the index into a functioning - click an entry and go into the text - index. If I can figure it out, it doesn't look like it will be easy.

So it looks like the available software to create ebooks is not up to the task of creating an index. I think this is a big gap that should be filled. I hope more people will realize this and start asking for indexes on ebooks.

Does a water tornado mean sushi rain?

2011-05-31T12:18:00.000-07:00

Waterspouts or water tornados are a truly awesome thing to see. With the huge number of land based tornados in the US this year, it doesn't seem to be so odd that there are water ones around Australia as well.

But what about the fish?

Do fish get caught up by these water tornados? Well, yes, it seems they do! See this news article from the UK Daily Mail on the subject.

So what would you do if a whole lot of fish started falling on your head? They're probably dead from their flight... but they are fresh. Is it sushi time or not?

And what about the fish's take on this... just swimming around, minding their own fishy business, and whoosh, they're airborne! Flying fish. They probably think those silly fish that started walking millions of years ago were nutters, but now they're flying in the air.

There are fish that leap out of the water by themselves and attack people in boats in the US. Intentional flight, not just a gust of swirly wind.

Does this mean the fish are trying to take the next step on the evolutionary ladder? Is Nature trying to help? Should we sit them down and have a talk about this... is it really a good idea?

How distracting can Google get?

2011-05-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

I think it's wonderful that Google changes its logo for special occasions, but this is getting to be a bit too distracting isn't it?

The logo from one day a month or so ago that was actually a little movie of a Charlie Chaplin impersonator when you clicked on it was very distracting.

The Earth Day logo that had different moving parts on it when you moused over the different parts of it - the swimming fish, flying birds, moving water, jumping frogs, etc. - was so distracting I completely forgot what I was going to Google on. I spent quite a bit of time playing with that logo, trying to remember what I was supposed to be searching on!

But today: "the 76th Birthday of Roger Hargreaves: Little Miss Shy" has many different logos. Every time you go into Google, you get a different picture! Wait, let me reload that page! Oh, that's a cute one.

Honestly, anyone not completely focussed on their task is going to find it very difficult to concentrate today.

This is fun, but is it really a good thing? Maybe I should Google on "distraction" to see if "Google" is part of the definition. Oh, that's a cute one too!

Why is the poll so late in reporting results?

2011-05-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

I worked as a poll clerk at the federal election on Monday. It was an extremely long day. Many people on the outside were grumping that it took a long time to get the poll results in from our area. Apart from bad organization on the parts of most of the people in the room after the poll closed and we started counting the votes, the poll was also late because there is only one handicapped washroom stall in the typical public washroom.

Yes, the counting couldn't start until everyone was locked into the room to count, and I was in the washroom, delaying everyone.

But was it really my fault?

I must use the handicapped stall. I need to use the bars in the stall to help me stand. Another woman - physically fit and fully abled - was in the handicap stall. So I waited for her to finish. And everyone waited for me to finish.

Angry about delays? Welcome to the world of being handicapped.

I think everyone should spend one day in a wheelchair. Try it, you'll see the world from a different perspective.

So do you really need to use the handicap stall in the washroom? Ignorance can be a handicap, but you can get over that one.

Did someone decapitate my Mii?

2011-04-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

As you can tell from the image in the "About Me" box on my blog, I have a Wii.

I have an image of me in my Wii called a Mii. That's the image in my blog. I watch my Mii playing games as I move on my Wii Fit balance board, which I use pretty much daily.

My hair has grown quite a bit since I made that Mii, so I changed the Mii to have longer hair. And now that Mii looks disturbingly like it's a decapitated head.

The scores in the Wii Fit game come up with images of my Mii beside the score, but just the head shows up, not the body. Now that I have longer hair, you can see the hair under my head. No neck or body, but hair under the chin. It looks like a body-less, ghostly head floating about.

It didn't look like that before, when the hair was shorter and none of it showed under the head. But now... it's quite disturbing.

Is the surf really up?

2011-04-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

It's been the coldest April on record here on the west coast of BC, but I was just watching my favourite webcam of Tofino - on the west coast of Vancouver Island - and there were two surfers walking on the beach with their surf boards! Even in the middle of the summer surfers need to wear wet or dry suits to surf Tofino, so that water is always cold, but it must OK for surfing now.

I've been hoping that summer would turn up sooner than later, so I guess this is good news!

Surfs up!

Is life really in full colour?

2011-04-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

It has been such a slow Spring... I was wondering if my favourite webcam from Tofino, BC was actually still in colour, or if it had gone to black & white & a million shades of gray. This screen capture from a few moments ago shows actual colour on the right hand side! It's in colour! The world is in full colour again! Let the Celebrations begin!

Update: The screen shot I captured yesterday disappeared! And today we're back to monochrome... as you can see from the screen shot that I just put on this post (unless it disappears as well).

But there was colour, I saw it.

Of course, this shot is kinda cool because you can see little tiny people close to the waves about 1/3 of the way in from the left side of the picture. It's a big beach.

Does Libya even have flying submarines?

2011-03-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

You may think of submarines as flying through the water... but I just don't see how enforcing the "no fly" zone over Libya means brining in the anti-submarine equipment is called for.

Canada, are we just a bit backwards? We are the ones who sent the anti-submarine aircraft into the Mediterranean according to this news article. Where does "no fly zone" apply to submarines. We may be new at this waging war thing, but really? Submarines?

I was so much happier when Canada specialized in Peace Keeping, not war waging. We were so much better at that.

Does Libya have flying cars?

2011-03-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

There is a "no fly zone" over Libya right now being patrolled by all sorts of airplanes from all sorts of countries.

I just saw a picture of some burning vehicles in Libya that were hit by an airplane from one of the countries patrolling the "no fly zone". They looked like cars and trucks to me.

So does Libya have flying cars? Such an advanced technology... maybe no one should be firing at such an advanced technology, hmm?

Is the super moon super annoying for emergency workers?

2011-03-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

In my neighborhood the people who operate the sirens on emergency vehicles often seem to indicate their emotional state of being.

The quick "woo woo woo woo woo" lets you know that they are really in a hurry and don't want to deal with idiots, so move to the side very quickly.

The bored "woo woo whip whonk weeep" that occasionally comes out can actually start you giggling. The trucks calling that out are not usually going that fast - an emergency, but they just know it's probably another false alarm.

The annoyed "wooooooo" often happens around rush-hour, so get out of all intersections everywhere in the city please.

This weekend we had a super full moon - 20% bigger than normal because the moon is in an elliptical orbit around the planet and it got as close to earth as it ever gets. It was reportedly the biggest full moon in 18 years. And a full moon means many humans on the planet went quite insane yesterday. How many old boyfriends were talking to ex-girlfriends in a drama of insanity? Good day for target practice in Libya, eh?

So yesterday there were lots and lots of emergency sirens going off. And today there were almost as many. All of them were very, very angry.

So has this full moon been super - once in 18 years super - annoying for emergency workers? They being humans as well... they were probably going a bit crazy themselves! I hope the work scheduling has given all of them a break!

Is the wobble not just me?

2011-03-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

I have MS, and problems walking from it. I tend to wobble. OK, as my spouse puts it, I walk like I'm on a small boat in the middle of the ocean. He occasionally complains of sea-sickness if he watches me for too long.

So I wobble.

But so apparently, does the planet Earth. And since the Japanese earthquake, it now wobbles more.

According to this National Geographic article, we may actually be able to measure the increase in wobbliness. To measure the earth wobbles, you need a lot of data, and in Japan, there is a lot of data. Not only from the earth-quake monitoring equipment, but from a large number of GPSs that were up and running along the Japanese coast when the earthquake happened.

So we got data, and we got wobble. This may help to predict earthquakes in the future, which would be very nice.

I can predict my wobbles too... if I walk, I will wobble. I'm a simple person. But it's not just me anymore... the whole planet is wobbling more now!

Is that a character from the book I'm reading?

2011-03-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading a book by Tom Holt - Djinn Rummy. One of the main characters is very much like a lot of Tom Holt's main characters, an unappealing person with very little drive. Not a very active person, bit of a bump-on-a-log, shuffling through life, doesn't have a lot of ideas, no real purpose in life type of person. Not someone the reader would aspire to be... but oh so very true to life.

As a matter of fact, I met a woman on the weekend who reminded me so much of the character from the book, I'm still queasy with recognition.

It's really not a good thing when you seem to be a character from a novel. Bad things happen to people in novels - that's where a story comes from. A novel without something bad happening to challenge the main characters is... not read through by anyone, because it's boring.

And why did this woman's parents give her a stripper's name? She really doesn't fit her name. By the time you get to be an adult, you either grow into your name, or you change it, legally or via a nickname. I don't know what happened in this case, but the name would also make a good name for alcohol, so maybe there's even more trouble here that I don't want to know about!

Maybe she actually is a character from a novel who has escaped from the book.

Are there any more characters wandering around out there?

What does a bonsai tree in chains mean?

2011-03-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

A bonsai tree is created mainly for contemplation, according to Wikipedia.

While having breakfast at a local restaurant, I saw a corner store opening for business for the day. They wheeled some plants out to the sidewalk as they normally do, and then they wheeled out something I hadn't seen before. A small bonsai tree. It was chained to the cart with a very substantial looking chain.

It is an expensive plant - they wanted $80 for it. But it looked like a fugitive with the chain around it.

So is a bonsai in chains a deep statement on life? Are we all chained to something? Is it our lot in life to go on as we can within the bounds of our chains?

Does it mean the bonsai was a bad tree? Is it a reincarnation of a villain? What evil deeds did it do to become a bonsai on a chain?

Is a chained bonsai aesthetically pleasing? Who would find a chained bonsai something good for contemplation? Does it have more meaning than an unchained bonsai? Is the fact that it was chained what makes me think about it? What does that say about me?

It almost makes me want to buy the bonsai, to free it from its chain.

Where did that month go?

2011-02-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

Ever had one of those months when you just get the hang of it on the last day of the month?

I'm set for February now.

Ever found yourself on the same side of the sun (again!) and wondered how many more trips you will be making around it? That's the fun new way I will be thinking about aging now... measuring time in trips around the sun... I just read a book by Christopher Moore - that's his way of putting it. I like it, very cosmic.

Ever found yourself stopped by an inch of snow? I'm getting older, and perhaps a bit grumpy. I grew up in Edmonton where snow piles were often taller than me... now I stay inside when it snows here in Vancouver, which it did on the weekend, and some of the white stuff is still here! We don't do snow here. We have snow, but we keep it on the mountains, where it is nice to look at and you can visit it if you really want to. So now I stay inside and peer out the windows, and go a bit stir crazy.

OK, had enough of February. Let's get on with March.

It grows back doesn't it?

2011-02-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

It sucks that you don't know how bad your hair will look until the next day.

And yes, it did go poof in the middle of the night!

I was concerned that the young little thing didn't have a clue what I was talking about... and I was right to be concerned. What a hatchet job.

I was going for a 1950's style and getting close to it... now I have down-right boring interpretation by a 20-something fool.

So this all grows back doesn't it? That's the great thing about hair it grows back... it will take ages though :-(

Should I wait up for the poof?

2011-02-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

Got my hair done today. But not by my favourite hair stylist.

When I called to book the appointment, they said he left the salon. I asked where he went, but they wouldn't tell me, and since I needed a cut, I went with someone new - Whitney... just as long as she didn't sing, I was ok with that. Boy do I know when she was born and who her parent's favourite singer was! Poor kid.

Whilst I was on hold and they were figuring out what to say to me about my old hairdresser I heard a really silly add. It was for a new product of theirs. It's a frizz control that lasts 12 hours. All I could think was "What happens at hour 12? Is there a popping noise, and your hair puffs out in a huge ball of fur?"

So when the new hair stylist said "Can I use this on your hair, have you ever tried it?" and she pulled out the frizz control stuff I started laughing.

I don't have frizzy hair, but it's their new product to push, and I don't typically have allergic reactions to the Aveda products, so I said sure, why not.

But now I have a dilemma. I would like to see the 12th hour poof, but it was put into my hair at 1pm, so that means I would have to stay up until 1am to see this miracle of hair productus poofius.

So is it funny enough to stay up that late... hmmm.

Update: Didn't stay up... didn't have to... around 1am my spouse actually reported a popping sound... when I woke up, the morning was extreme on the poof, it took much shampooing to get it to stay down! Quite the science lab hijinks on my hair!

Why is he wearing sunglasses?

2011-01-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

You know it's been raining for a long time when the sun hurts your eyes when it occasionally peeks out from behind the clouds for a couple of minutes.

It's been raining for a long time.

So why is that guy wearing sun glasses?

The chance of anything poking out from behind the clouds today is slim to none. The sky is a uniform shade of light grey - flood-fill grey if you are familiar with image software. That guy will not be attacked by any stray beams of light today.

He's looking around at everything and everyone. Looking everyone in the eye, it seems. So he's not blind. He's not trying to avoid being noticed. He's actually looking like he wants to be noticed. That's rather odd.

It seems like a good day to smoke some herbs, judging from the number of clouds of herb smoke I have gone through today on the sidewalks. That's an odd thing when it seems only elderly women are walking around out there... OK ladies, who has the pot?

So is the guy in the sunglasses having an interesting trip? Is that the reason for the sunglasses and the staring into stranger's eyes? So if he's walking quickly around all the streets smoking pot, does that qualify as exercise? Does the pot help make the flood-fill grey less depressing, more varied and interesting? Do dark sunglasses that make everything even darker help?

I think I need to run back to my home and sit by my full-spectrum light lamp. This is just all too odd.

Who is that?

2011-01-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a situation or something I've read starts me thinking about characters for a story. This is one of them.

The Food Lurker

A magazine article I just read had suggestions for starting up conversations at a business conference. The first suggestion was to hang out around the food table and talk about the food as a conversation starter. There were suggestions on what to talk about after a conversation was started - asking what company the other person worked for, or asking what their job in the company was, and other ideas, but it made me shiver to think of someone who missed the part about having other things to say after the food conversation was over.

A character like this would probably be an introvert, a technical guy who works with computers and can be very succinct when instant messaging with the people he works with, but stumbles when talking on the phone or in person with them. He is probably in his 20s and hasn't managed to find a life partner yet - due in part to his lack of confidence when speaking - but has many friends that he instant messages with for hours on non-business topics.

What drove the food lurker to the business conference? Was he forced to go by a well-meaning boss that wanted him to get to know more people? Does he himself want to increase the number of people he knows? Does he want to learn something from the formal sessions? I think it may be a combination of all of these things. Unfortunately, he may succeed in learning something from the formal sessions (I've been to a lot of business conferences, and I know learning things from them does happen, but honestly, it's rare) but will he succeed in getting to know more people?

Now where does this story go?

Won't those fried eggs get soggy?

2010-12-28T00:02:00.000-08:00

It's been raining for um, when hasn't it rained? Oh yes, we had one day in a row of brilliant sunshine this month, so we went to a bird sanctuary to take photos.

But right now the weather forecast for Vancouver has these odd fried-egg like icons on it. They are round and yellow, and there is some white bits around the sides.

Won't those eggs get soggy in all this rain?

I don't believe it could actually mean sun is in the forecast, the icon shows up for about 4 days in a row!

Must be soggy eggs expected.

Is anonymous fame possible?

2010-12-20T16:02:00.000-08:00

If googling yourself is the ultimate in vanity searching or egogoogling (is that a fun new word, or what?) then is googling for photos you've taken a vanity search for the introvert?

I have a very old name, I can still count on one hand the number of times I've met someone else named Clara. The name is coming back into fashion, I've heard of three or four babies being named Clara in the last couple of years, but mostly people with my name have died of old age many years ago, so I'm in a dip of name popularity (and generally very happy for it). So when I do a google on my own name I typically come up with a lot of pictures of grave markers. This kind of vanity search is not a cheerful thing, so I avoid it.

But I do use Flickr to post a lot of photos I've taken and lately I've found many of them right at the top of google searches! All of my rose photos have the full variety name attached to them, I don't bother taking pictures of roses unless I can also take a photo of a name tag to go along with them. Otherwise, there are millions of photos of roses with the tag "yellow rose" or "red rose" and mine would be just one of millions. But if you search in google or google images on "rotary sunrise rose" or "harwelcome fellowship rose" or a few other rose variety names, my photos come up first! I've also found other non-rose images of mine coming up on top in google searches. (And for a fun twist, my photo of an odd image in a tree came up first when searching on "sasquatch suicide" for a few days.)

So on a vanity search for my photos, I come out quite well. Does this mean I have achieved anonymous fame? Is this introvert ego searching?

Did we really move that far?

2010-12-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

This is our first December in our new place. It is 4 city blocks over and 5 city blocks down closer to the water than our old place. It doesn't seem that far, but yesterday - a day after the parade - we realized we missed the Santa Clause Parade noise completely for the first time in a decade! We only realized this when we saw a balloon caught in a tree outside our windows and remembered it was that time of year again.

As I mentioned in at least one previous blog entry we used to be awakened on the morning of the parade by 6 or 7 marching bands at a time warming up outside our building. Then when the parade started we heard many bands walking the parade route a couple of blocks from our home. This year we heard nothing. We saw no traffic jams, no crowds of people. We didn't even notice there was a parade.

Of course, in August we had a great view of the Pride Parade from our balcony in our new home, and that was noisy too, as I wrote in another blog entry, but it was so colourful and fun and warm, it wasn't nearly as annoying. (That may have something to do with the complete lack of tired old Christmas songs being played to death... could someone write something new, anything new, for Christmas?)

So have we really moved that far away? It seems like such a short distance, but it is like a completely different city just a few blocks away! What a difference a few city blocks makes!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

2010-11-30T14:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, actually, it's a bird.

It's a bird in a grocery store. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.... Is that supposed to be here?

I'm not talking a turkey or a chicken here. It's not a dead bird. It's a little, live, and very quiet sparrow. I think it's infiltrating our supply of crumbs. Not content to just pick up crumbs from outside eating areas, it has sussed out where humans go to eat when it's raining cats and dogs outside, and has made it's way into crumb heaven! That's a smart little bird with a strong survival instinct!

I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been sitting drinking coffee in the little coffee alcove. It was just a flash of something dark that I saw a couple of times, and then I looked closer. It was very silent! Not a peep, and it's wings are so tiny they don't make a lot of noise. You really have to look to find him.

So do I tell any of the humans at the grocery store? Hmm again.

OK, so bird poop on the groceries would be a bad thing... but you should look closely at the packages on what you buy as a routine step in the purchasing process, and any fruits and vegetables that don't come in a package should always be washed before you eat them anyway. It's just good hygiene, and if you don't do it already you may have built up an immunity to all the junk you have ingested. So I can't imagine anyone getting sick from the little bird.

And you have to admire the survival instinct of the bird. It managed to get inside. It knows enough to be quiet and it's staying mostly hidden, it's not hopping up on tables begging for crumbs the way they do outside. And it is not in the bulk area sitting on a pile of stuff and gorging itself... at least not while the store is occupied by humans. And the ceilings are very high, so it could easily fly out of reach of any humans and hide.

And how would a human manage to get a bird out of the store? I can't see anyone having the patients to lure it out. It may drive them insane. Would they have to resort to violence to get rid of the bird? I don't want to be part of that, it sounds painful for both human and bird.

So the little flutter you thought you heard could have been a bird... don't worry about it, it's not the end of the world, it's just the little animals getting smarter.

Are ideas really antimatter bubbles?

2010-11-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

An idea comes to you in an instant.

If you are interested in the idea that just popped into your head, you keep it around and think about it. You make an effort to develop the idea and decide to think about it now or later. If not, it's gone, and will likely never come back.

The researchers at CERN have managed to capture atoms of antihydrogen. They've managed to keep them around for about 2 tenths of a second each. That's a long time for antimatter to exist where we can see it!

So are these atoms - that only exist for an instant - little idea bubbles? Are they fascinating ideas that scientists will suddenly realize they've just had? The nature of antimatter is a puzzle for scientists, and the idea of antimatter had to come from somewhere originally and pop into a scientist's mind. Do little atoms of antimatter exist everywhere for brief moments, not just in the CERN hadron collider? Are they little idea bubbles?

Will there be a renaissance of scientific ideas popping up in the near future because of the successful capture of antimatter? I bet there will be!

Did I really just harumph?

2010-11-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

My spouse was shocked and amazed. He told me that I just did the perfect "harumph".

This is a word that will give spell checkers grief, but if you google you will find many good definitions for it - the best one I've found is from en.wiktionary.org: An expression of disdain, disbelief, protest, or dismissal; a huff, grunt, or snort

Yes, I have huffed, grunted or snorted my disdain when I found out there was some great tennis being broadcast right now, but I would have to pay to see it! We don't have cable anymore, and to see tennis online you need to pay for it. I've gotten very used to being able to see most entertainment online for free. Yes I know it costs money to broadcast events, but I thought all the advertising you have to endure while watching the events paid for them! If I do pay for it, do I get to skip the advertising? I doubt it.

But the problem is... a "harumph" is usually performed best by grumpy old men! Have I really mastered the art of sounding like a grumpy old man? Good grief.

And what about "bleurgh"? Can I pull that one off? Or "yeesh", "neener", "argh", or "bleh"? Guttural exclamations, that's my future. I wonder if this is because I've left TV behind? The mind wanders into new territory when not continuously spoon fed drivel, but is this the right direction to wander in?

Looks nice, but does it work?

2010-11-12T15:30:00.000-08:00

Websites have been around for ages now, advertising, selling, making money, etc. so you would think that most of the surviving ones would work. Evidently, you would be wrong.

In the past few days I have been repeatedly disappointed by websites that are supposed to allow you to send image files to photo developers to have your photos printed out.

It seems like a simple idea - I have an image file, they have the ink, paper and a machine that reads the file, and they print out a picture for me. Then I pick it up at their store. But I have run into so many problems using this simple idea.

The first site I went to is for a pharmacy that does photo printing. I located a convenient store on the map on their website and prepared to print. I downloaded their version of some software that looked safe that the website needed to make the pictures look pretty online. Only after I had spent time uploading the files and preparing to pick the location I wanted them printed to did I find out that they only print to one shop in the city, and it's not the one I wanted to pick up the pictures at!

The next site I tried was a camera store that prints photos. I located one of their stores that was convenient, and checked that I could send files to be printed there. After downloading an update for Flash, uploading my files, and going through a pretty - but rather silly - interface that made you go through each picture as if you were holing prints in your hands to make sure they were all successfully uploaded, I went to the payment page, put in my credit card, hit enter and... the page blanked out the fields. It didn't let me complete the order.

OK, so I was on a PC (I usually use a Mac) using Google Chrome, a wonderfully lightweight and fast browser which may cause problems for some badly designed websites when their developers have use browser-specific code. So I tried again with Firefox, not my favourite, but most websites support it... many minutes later I had the same problem. So I held my nose and tried it again in Internet Exploder... and had the same problem. So it's the website that is the problem. It has pretty Flash graphics to play with your pictures... but it doesn't work! I can't use it to print my photos. And I'm not a novice who can't use a computer. As an e-commerce site it is a disappointing and annoying failure.

So I went with a site I know and have used before. No special software, no cutesy playing with virtual photos in a hand, just a list of files, thumbnails that can be clicked on to check the larger versions, and it prints at a drugstore about 3 blocks from me. Unfortunately, I wanted to print out the pictures in another city and have someone there pick them up, saving me the effort of mailing them, but that is just not going to happen.

Advice for e-commerce websites: kill the cutesy graphics, and spend your money developing a website that actually lets a customer acquire what they want, where they want it, and pay you money for it. Or it will be a case of:

Nice graphics... shame about the profits.

Is this some kind of message?

2010-11-07T17:56:00.001-08:00

Evidence of Sasquatch Suicide
Originally uploaded by Clara Johnson

So, I was in Stanley Park, I was
Just takin' some photos, you see
And I looked up at the beautiful blue sky
And saw this.

So I'm thinking this is really weird.

There is no way a human could have trimmed this tree limb to look like this, it was at the top of a very tall tree in Stanley Park - and trees in Stanley Park are very tall, being part of that temperate rain forest and all.

So is this a message from Mother Nature? If so, I don't like the general gist this is taking...

Is rain really breaking news?

2010-10-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

It's October 25. This is Vancouver. It is raining. And this is news?

There is a rain warning out for Vancouver. And it's not the warning: "It's gonna rain until March" which, well... we know that. The warning is that it's going to rain more than 50mm today. OK, so it's a very wet day... yes, we have those.

The rain warning includes a request for people to keep storm drains clear of leaves and try not to put the wet leaves into the road, where it makes it slippery for cars. This is good advice any time it rains, and I can see where people new to the city need to be told this advice, but it's not just for today... until March would be the real advice - things other than leaves fall into storm drains after the fall is over!

For the average person living in Vancouver, this warning thing seems rather over the top... until you read that the Grouse Grind has been closed due to the heavy rain! Oh my goodness! The Grouse Grind! That's extreme! Think of all those people who won't be able to run up Grouse Mountain today! And it may be closed for a few days while they assess the trail!

Outdoor recreation curtailed by rain, that is the news that scares Vancouver.

I love this place!

Should a submarine really be a tourist attraction?

2010-10-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Submarines typically travel in the water. Usually below the surface of the water. So really, an average person doesn't get to see a submarine that often.

But when they run aground and then the tide goes further out... well, that's an event.

In Scotland right now there is a nuclear submarine which has just been towed back out to see by tugboats after running aground off the Isle of Skye. There is a good picture of the submarine - I think after it was saved - in the Guardian news.

The report says many people were on the shoreline watching the event. Stealthy. Well, I live beside an ocean as well, and I would be on the beach taking photos if a submarine started coming up on our shore. It would be thrilling. But should a working submarine really be a tourist attraction?

Are these water craft really that hard to steer? If they are that hard to steer, should they really be nuclear powered? The news article said they ran aground while doing an exercise in familiar waters. Does this mean the driver got a reckless driving ticket? Is the driver a rookie just learning how to aim that thing? Isn't that just a bit more than bloody dangerous?

Back in February 2009 I posted the question "What will collide next?" when two submarines crashed in the ocean and then two satellites crashed in outer space. I am once again struck by how badly these very expensive bits of technology are aimed or driven. Do the drivers just need some more sleep?

What food to pair with this?

2010-10-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Chicken and other white meats, including several types of fish - but not all - you pair with white wine. Which variety of white wine... well, that depends.

Beef and other red meats - you pair with red wine. Which variety of red wine... well, that depends.

The rules can get to be quite challenging. And then you get the people who say you have to drink what you like, and forget the rules. So you have to know what you like... which is a test, because some liquors taste better with certain foods, and do you know what you are talking about, or will you make yourself look foolish by picking a bad choice?

But I've recently consumed a wonderfully inclusive and easy-going cider. It says "ideal with food" on the label.

That's almost Zen-like.

Ideal with food. Simplicity in itself. And a wonderful cider I definitely recommend!

Do we really need pink toilet paper?

2010-10-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

There is such a thing as supporting a good cause. Financial support to fund research for the cure for cancer and emotional support for people affected by cancer - that's supporting a good cause.

Then there is jumping on a bandwagon for a good cause, and for brand advertising. Putting little pink ribbon logos on the shoes you manufacture and sell - and presumably give some of the profits from sales to research - would be an example of this.

And then there is planning and executing a guerilla attack on the bandwagon to raid the cause and make everyone on the bandwagon look like they are grabbing an advertising opportunity instead of supporting a good cause. Pink toilet paper is an appalling example of this. I saw it yesterday. There was lots of it. It was on sale in the local drug store. There was still lots of it.

Do we really need pink everything? Is it even healthy to use coloured toilet paper? What did they dye it with, and why would we want to come in close contact with that? Who thought this was a good idea? It should give the competition a boost anyway... maybe it was corporate sabotage... make all the product un-sellable so the competition gains the advantage. Devious.

Isn't Wednesday the 13th more scary than Friday the 13th?

2010-10-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's hump day. The middle day of the week. If you can make it over this hump, you can coast to the weekend.

That's a big IF.

And this week it's the 13th! The dreaded 13!

The number 13 has it's very own phobia - triskaidekaphobia. When the 13th falls on a Friday it has an additional phobia called Paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia. That's just friggin' amazing, eh? The earliest documented evidence for the Friday the 13th phobia is from the 19th Century. I think it may be time to update the phobia list with a Wednesday entry.

So far today, I phoned my pharmacy to renew a prescription 5 times. The first 4 times my call was dropped the moment I said I wanted to renew a prescription. I tried phoning an insurance agent about the status of a travel medical insurance application and they said "yeah, we'll get to it". The travel starts on Friday, so I think that's a slim chance. The new neighbor is renovating his entire apartment and the workers are making a hell of a mess of the hallway. I have put masking tape around the front door to try to keep the dust out, but they are keeping the front door of his place open to allow for the most dust possible to get into everyone else's home. And now they are storing stuff in the hallway in front of the door to the stairwell.

That's the fire escape route I would need to take if there was a fire...I may be in trouble.

I would like this day to be over, and I'm ready to go hide under the bed sheets now.

Friday the 13th is nothing... I have 2 more weekdays to make it through before the weekend comes and life calms down... Wednesday the 13th is the scary one! Let's call it wiggatriskaidekaphobia, to coin a word.

Am I late?

2010-09-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

It's September, so the summer is coming to a close and the world is getting serious again.

For many children it's time to go back to school. For others, it's time to have that September nightmare of finding yourself in a classroom stark naked; or everyone in the classroom is speaking gibberish; or coming into an empty classroom to discover the final exam was yesterday, and you missed it!

No, I don't have issues from my years of education, why do you ask?

One thing I've been remembering a lot this week is "late slips" from my Junior High School years. I was late so often, I routinely went to the office to get a late slip before class, even if I wasn't late... my first taste of the fun to be had by confusing people and shaking up their world view. (So that's where that started... I didn't realize that until now.)

I've been having these "late slip" flashbacks because we've unwittingly moved to within 2 blocks of both a high school and an elementary grade school. I think it's the grade school that has bells. Bells at 8:55am, 9am, 10:30am, etc. etc. until the last one at 3pm.

It's the set of "you're going to be late in 5 minutes", "yes, you are late now" bells in the morning that really bug me.

It always makes me think "Am I late?" until I realize the bell does not toll for me.

I wonder how many more people they are scarring for life with those bells. Poor kids.

Did the skunk get them?

2010-09-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

The rather pleasant - from a distance - scent of skunk once again fills the night air, and I remember an incident from last week that has made me think.

My spouse and I were walking home from the Tea House in Stanley Park after a lovely dinner on the patio, watching the sun go down surrounded by puffy clouds. We were in mid-conversation when we heard someone whisper loudly (like a stage whisper) "Watch out! There's a skunk over there!"

Looking ahead of us we saw the skunk. We glanced back, and saw a couple of humans who were apparently hiding from the skunk. (All things considered, it was likely the humans, not the skunk who whispered the warning.)

The skunk was just crossing the path in front of us, so we slowed down, let it amble on it's way, and then kept going past the skunk. We know the skunks, they live here, we live here, we all try to keep out of each other's way. (And oddly enough, skunks DO smell of skunk just walking around... the creators of Pepe Le Pew had it right.)

But thinking about it now... I don't know if the whispering humans made it past the skunk.

We have had many nights of smelling skunk lately, so someone has been scaring them. We find the scent infinitely preferable to the cancer stick smoke coming up from one of our neighbors who likes to smoke on his balcony, and it keeps him off the balcony, so it even has a bonus! But it has been very frequent.

Hiding from a skunk doesn't actually make any sense. It's when they get frightened that they spray and run. If the skunk doesn't see you until you pop out from behind something... that's a frightening kind of thing. The whispering humans may have found this out... I do hope not, but I am wondering now if they simply followed our example (giving the skunk a wide berth and walking slowly by) or if they panicked and scared themselves and the skunk into more of a life story than they had planned to tell for the rest of their lives!

Are those crows or women?

2010-09-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

Crows often sound like they are having conversations with each other. If you get enough of them in one place it can sound like a heated argument.

This week while at the farmer's market I was sitting waiting for my spouse as he did the shopping and I guarded the bags. I was playing a game on my cell phone to keep myself awake and didn't take too much notice of the other people. I was listening to a bunch of crows behind me having a conversation. And then I heard a much louder group on the other side of the street and I was worried there was about to be a crow fight in the middle of the farmer's market!

I looked up at this point, wondering if there was going to be a bird fight... and saw the second bunch of crows was actually a gaggle of women.

Is that supposed to be appealing?

Is Pink the new Black?

2010-08-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

We just sold a pink leather recliner to someone through Craigslist. She loves all things pink and just had to have it.

We only had the pink chair because we needed a chair many years ago, and a friend had the chair and needed some cash... in the days before Craigslist, we bought it from her. We would never have bought a pink chair otherwise!

We have a friend who came to visit last year, with her teenaged daughter. I did some laundry for them while they were out doing a tourist thing that I did not want to join them for. The clothes were separated into the pink pile... and the other pink pile. It was somewhat confusing.

In high school there were girls who only had black clothes... well, some black, but lots of grey clothes, darn that whole washing thing. I did not have lots of black clothes because I looked rather ghostly in them. As a matter of fact, the girls who did only have black clothes looked quite ghostly or gothic in them, but they liked that. Me, not so much.

So with all of the middle-aged pink addicts today, who only have pink clothes, do they look any better than the teenagers of my youth who only had black clothes? Not so much. You really need the right mixture of white, red, orange, and yellow to make a pink that compliments skin tone. And everyone's skin tone is different, so it is a very personal pink that can make someone look good. So no, many women look ill in the wrong pink, some look rather ghostly in the wrong pink.

I think the answer is yes, pink is the new black. Only a few women are lucky enough to get the right pink to make them look good, the same way only a few women look good in black. There are many more women wearing pink than look good in it, the same way there were many more teenagers wearing black than looked good in it back in my youth. But are they the same people? Hmmm, maybe.

Is there catnip for squirrels?

2010-08-14T19:58:00.001-07:00

Squirrel Playing
Originally uploaded by Clara Johnson

This is one of three squirrels I watched playing next to a schoolyard this week. They were having fun, and a lot of it!

The squirrels chased each other, ran up and down the chain link fence (amazing dexterity!), chased each other around the tree trunks, and played with twigs! This photo shows one of them playing with a twig.

So I wondered if there was the equivalent of catnip for squirrels... and with a bit of googling... catnip has the same effect on squirrels as it does on cats! So maybe these squirrels dug up someone's supply of catnip! Awesome!

Is the automobile an extension of the human?

2010-08-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

Whilst at the farmer's market this morning I heard a snippet of conversation:

"I was broken into! During the fireworks. I was parked in the underground."

I was a bit alarmed when I took that at face value - breaking into a human being sounds painful! Then I realised she meant her automobile was broken into.

It sounded like this person took personal affront at having her automobile broken into. But this sounds like just a crime of opportunity to me. The robber probably had never thought about - and will never think about - the owner of the car! It was truly nothing personal, he just wanted to steal stuff.

So now this woman is traumatized about having her automobile violated. This does not sound like a healthy extension of the self to include your possessions. If you extend that to all of your possessions, you will see yourself getting old in so many ways, and bumped, and bits of you will break down and need replacing, and other bits will be hopelessly outdated and tired.

This doesn't sound healthy, but I think it's a prevalent attitude in the western world. How sad.

Is there anything worse than a summertime cold?

2010-08-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Oooh, you had to ask... how about a summertime cold with smoke from dozens of forest fires clogging the air?

Is there anything worse than asking "Is there anything worse than..."?

You just know that the infinite universe can think of a whopper of an answer for that, no matter how you end the sentence.

And if you don't ask... can you escape the universal "worse"?

If we all pretended that everything is wonderful and life is simple and easy... would it be? Pardon me while I blow my nose for the 667th time "667, neighbour of the beast". At this point I'm willing to try anything, but my cold keeps interrupting my concentration. What was I writing? Is there anything worse than having a head when you have a cold? The ancient Egyptians regarded the brain as an icky organ that dripped out of your nose. Blow like an Egyptian...

OK, well, think about it... I don't have the answer... brain is dripping

Will the evicted people be living in the alley now?

2010-08-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

An extremely odd thing is happening in the alley behind our building right now.

The people from an apartment a couple of floors below ours are being evicted today. There were a lot of complaints against them and the person who owns the apartment is kicking them out. But now they are sitting on their furniture in the alley behind the building. I've never seen anything like this.

So will they be leaving? Or do we have squatters in the alleyway now?

One of the drawing points of this building when we decided to buy a condo was that no more rentals would be allowed, anyone who bought one of the places would have to live in it. Over time that should effectively get rid of absentee land owners who don't keep the place well maintained. But there are still a couple of apartments being rented out. The place with the evicted squatters is one of them.

The Pride Parade happened earlier today, less than half a block from us, and there is still a party (or several) going on in the street, but here just below us are evicted people sitting on their furniture in the alleyway. This is a bit surreal.

Aug 6 update: Ooh, this building has quite the information gathering mechanism, everyone knows lots about everyone else who lives here... the people evicted were essentially using the place as a shanty town with a roof. Every available surface had an inflatable mattress on it, and there were at least 18 people living in the 2 bedroom apartment. It is, as expected, a complete shambles. New sinks are going to have to be put in, etc. etc. The fire that they started on the lawn outside their balcony will need to be rehabilitated by the gardeners, thankfully we have automatic sprinklers in the lawn that put the fire out!

So the scoop on the furniture in the alleyway is: the people were just sitting and resting there for a while. These people somehow found another apartment a couple of blocks away and were using their two office chairs with wheels to move all of their stuff. I'm not sure how they got the old couch onto those chairs... would have been interesting to watch. So the problem has moved on. So much for buying a place and renting it out as an easy way to make money!

It is unfortunate that there was one really nice guy in the group. He was friendly and tried very hard to be helpful whenever I ran into him in the lobby. He's now lumped into the "group of scum" on life's scorecard, but he could be so much more. That's the tragic part of life.

Could we have just one loud music player?

2010-08-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Vancouver Pride Parade just finished a couple of hours ago, and it was great. It was extremely colourful, and well attended, and very long - more than 3 hours of floats and crowds going through Vancouver's West End. We have a great view of the parade from our balcony, and even had an MC with a microphone just in front of our place so we had all the commentary for each float! What a great place to live!

And in the next couple of days I will have lots of photos posted on Flickr of the colourful excitement.

But now there are people partying outside at the hotel across the road from us, and some more over to the left, also partying outside but at a different party. The problem is, they are each playing extremely loud music, but not the same music.

One could say there is a battle of music going on outside our home right now. This is not nearly as much fun as the parade was. We have all the windows closed now because we couldn't stand it anymore, but we can still hear the cacophony.

We're not against loud music, it's a festival atmosphere and quite fun, we just want it to be from one place, not two. Is that too much to ask? Do they have to make us sound like grumpy old people because we want just one source of loud music? That's somehow not fair.

Which law would I rather have fail, gravity or Murphy?

2010-07-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

I was having a lovely weekend, I was. Everything seemed to be going so well for me finally, and then Monday came.

I got a magnetic door stop in the mail - something that I had ordered weeks ago - and when I got it out of the package I realized I couldn't install it. It needs to be floor mounted, and we have carpet (yes, I know that's not a great thing to have by the front door, but we haven't had it changed yet in our new home) so we need to mount the doorstop on the wall, which won't work. Now I have to send it back and get a different one. (It will just make it easier to get my wheelchair out of my front door if the door is kept open by the magnet.)

I think I am suffering the after affects of a good walloping by Murphy's Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It just took a break, so the smack was extra hard.

So I got to thinking, if it was possible to mute one of the universe's laws for just a brief moment, would I rather have the law of gravity fail, or Murphy's law fail?

To keep the universe together you need gravity, so a momentary glitch in gravity might be a really bad thing. But if it was short and just localized, it could be a moment of fun. If you had warning of when it was going to fail, you could jump at just the right time and be flying! And then when it came back, well, it was fun when you started. A moment as a bird for a long stay in the hospital could be worth the trade off. It seems skiers who end up in wheelchairs after really bad falls think it's worth the trade off.

To keep your expectations in life down to a "reality" level, you need Murphy's law. If you didn't expect something to go wrong, you wouldn't be planning for it, so you wouldn't have a back-up plan. But wouldn't it be nice to have a brief moment when you know nothing will go wrong? A moment when your plan "A" will work like a charm? A moment when you can just relax and not worry about anything?

Well, it won't happen, you can't fly, and you always need a plan "B". But if you know about these things, you can get on with your life and deal with anything that the universe throws at you really. Being flexible is part of living.

I think I'd like Murphy's law to fail more than the law of gravity, because if I was flying... Murphy's law would send an airplane to smack into me.

Do you really want to park there?

2010-07-22T09:58:00.001-07:00

The first night of fireworks in Vancouver was last night. It was our first fireworks in our new home, which is about 3 blocks from the beach that you sit on for the best view of the fireworks.

Unfortunately, we don't get a good view of the fireworks from our balcony - too many buildings in our way - but we do get a good view of the crowds. We also get a good view of the alley behind our building and what people do in it.

There are many public transit options to get you close to the fireworks. We recently had a little sports event here, so there are even more options this year, with a new skytrain line and all. It is quite a walk down to the beach from there, but it was a nice night for a walk, and it's good exercise.

But some people still insist on driving their own vehicles down and paying ridiculous sums of money, or risk parking illegally, to park their vehicle and then walk to the beach with the thousands of others who took transit. They get less exercise that way.

The organizers of the fireworks realize there will be thousands of people down at the beach, and they do bring in portable toilets for the crowds, but apparently not enough.

As the crowd walked away from the beach after the fireworks, many many many males - human males, not canine males, no one in their right minds would bring their dogs to the fireworks - peed in the alleys.

We have a small parking lot next to our building. They peed there too.

So all of the vehicles that were parked in the alley, or parked in the parking lot, got peed on. All of the vehicles people couldn't bear to leave at home will now have urine stains on them. If they're lucky, it's just on the tires.

So do you really want to drive down to the fireworks? Do ya?

Is there really an app for the end of the world?

2010-07-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

I heard about one, so I went on a search for it.

Oh the fun advertisers have!

For those who believe that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012 there is an iPhone app that will let them keep track of time using the ancient Maya calendar!

A countdown to the end? Not really.. but if you want to know what the date is according to the Maya calendar, complete with the proper glyphs for it, this app will let you keep up with the ancients. The end of the world hook in the advertising is subtle: "learn about various Maya cycles of time and gain a better understanding of why December 21, 2012 A.D. is an important Maya date." The end is near!

I remember many years ago the sandwich board with "the end is near" painted on it that doomsayers sported on the streets was as high tech as the end got, but now we can count down to the end of the world with digital accuracy. Now, yes, there's an app for that! Progress.

Is everything I'm missing in the same spot?

2010-07-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

I know I've seen my sunglasses somewhere...

My iPod surfaced a couple of weeks ago, so I know it's around here somewhere...

The cork coasters all turned up in the same place at the same time... but I can't remember where that was, so we've been using another bunch that turned up together and haven't escaped yet.

This may be just the effects of moving, but I can't help thinking that everything I've been missing is somehow in the same spot.

When you find socks that go missing in the laundry, aren't they usually all in the same spot? When you find yourself a whole lot of paperwork you forgot to do, that's usually in the same spot. When you find that book that you were looking for, there's a whole lot of books that you want in that very same spot.

So maybe somewhere in our new apartment, there is a treasure trove of everything I've been looking for.

Well, it's possible.

What will I miss about cable TV?

2010-07-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

We've recently moved, and in all the clutter, we haven't bothered to get ourselves comfortable around the TV yet.

We do intend to get a flat panel TV, but we haven't bothered yet.

I do use the old TV to play with my Wii, but that's about all we've done with our old TV so far.

We moved in over a month ago. I don't think we'll be needing cable TV in the future! We haven't missed it!

With the growing availability of TV programs available on the Internet - through youtube and many of the networks like the food channel and even the space channel - we have been watching some programs on our computers. They do typically insert 1 commercial 4 or 5 times inside the program, but it's better than 6 commercials 18 times an hour like you get on cable! And you can start and stop the programs whenever you want! No more making it home in time to watch...

But what will I miss about cable TV? I will miss Vince and his Slap Chopper.

I went to see my dentist last week, she has TVs on the ceiling so you can distract yourself when she has her hands in your mouth. And she of course has cable. I flipped through a few channels and landed on a commercial for Slap Chopper. Yes, Vince is so thrilled about his product, and so eager to convince his viewers that their life will be so much better with his product, I stopped flipping channels and watched the commercial!

So why is this commercial the only thing that catches my eye? Why is it the only thing I've been missing without cable TV? Is it the product? Nah. I have something just like it, and it doesn't make life better, it's just more to wash up when I use it. Does Vince have sex appeal? Nah. He's kinda young for me, nice kid, but. Does the artistic value of the commercial scream for attention? Nah. It's just a guy in a kitchen.

So why is this something that pops? I think it's because Vince seems to be talking directly to you, and he's just glad to be doing it! How often does that happen?

When I'm out in the park in the morning and someone says "Good morning!" as they run by, they mean it, and they only do it because they're happy, and I say "Good morning!" back at them. It's the same kind of feeling as I get watching Vince. There's no obligation, it's just a happy person being happy. I find that appealing, and so unusual coming from the TV. So I'll miss Vince.

Funny old world, isn't it?

Do you think anyone would buy this?

2010-06-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

Gadzooks! We have just participated in our first yard sale, and we sold lots of stuff!

Oddly though, it's the stuff we thought wouldn't sell that sold quickly! The kitchen cart, which we used to keep a microwave on, made someone extremely happy. Based on that quick sale, we brought down our old filing cabinet - and it sold too! And we made someone happy with lots of Dr. Who VCR tapes!

It was a day long effort, and we got lots of fresh air, and met lots of our neighbours because it was the annual yard sale for the building we just moved into. So it was a great thing all around.

And to top it all off we actually sold our CD stand! We've had it on Craigslist for months and no interest, but someone wanted it today!

We've never been to a yard sale, let alone sold stuff at one. But it was greatly successful. Who would have known! Go figure!

What is he doing with those handcuffs?

2010-06-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

We are sitting in a restaurant on Denman Street having dinner, watching people go by when a cop on a motorcycle comes up and parks on the other side of the street.

The waiter - quite the flaming type - looks to see if it's his favourite cop. Oh, no it isn't, how sad, this one is not quite as well built. But he does have an interesting trait.

As the cop slowly gets himself set to walk about, he takes his helmet off... and handcuffs it to his motorcycle!

The waiter finds that quite exciting, and suggests positions that can be taken on a motorcycle with handcuffs... he's quite entertaining.

As the meal goes on, no less than 3 more motorcycle cops come up and park next to each other, in preparation for going on a walk about. They all handcuff their helmets to their bikes!

So if you ever see a motorcycle cop walking around in Vancouver's West End... pssst, they don't have their handcuffs on them!

Unless they have a spare set... I don't think I want to bring it up with any of them... that could be a bit more "exciting" than I really want it to be!

This is a fun place to live!

How many layers of black paper can you get on a roof?

2010-06-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a nightmarish move that was... yes, we've up and moved house, so I haven't been blogging lately. And I don't really want to ponder questions that came up while moving... so on to brighter things.

Yesterday I was sitting in my new living room watching men mow the roof of the building next to me. Yes, I said mow, as in cut down the green mossy growth. There was a veritable meadow on top of that building, bit of a drainage problem maybe?

Today I am sitting and watching more men take layers and layers of black paper - with a lot of dust on them - off the roof. Every time they seem to be finished taking off the black paper and they grab brooms to brush the brown dust around, they find more paper! And then they stop and rip up more paper. And then they start dusting again. How many layers are there on a single flat roof?

Oh yay, it seems to be getting a bit cool out there, they've put their shirts back on! I may just be getting older, but there was nothing good about bare torsos on those guys, that looks much better now. Of course now they are removing something with a sander that is throwing up lots of smokey white dust, so we've closed all our windows.

And they've found more paper!

And I've found an interesting entry in Wickipedia explaining problems with flat roofs. Yes, that would be why the roof was so green, lack of drainage. That can be quite the extreme problem in Vancouver. Now I get to watch to see if they put down a single sheet coating like the article suggests... and level it so the water runs off... I guess time will tell on that last part!

So many new things to ponder in my new home! This could be fun!

Post Script: Nope, no leveling. Nope, no single sheet coating... and boy does the dip in the middle of the roof look more like it's going to be a water feature, and not a roof to keep the rain out. I guess we will be seeing much more green in the months to come!

How did these adults manage to get this old?

2010-04-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to wonder how a person has managed to live as long as they have...

There was a flood in our apartment building a few days ago. Today the water was shut off for most of the morning while they fixed the broken pipes. For several days now, notice that the water would be shut off today has been posted in all the elevators. You can't get into your apartment without using one of these elevators, the doors to the stairs are locked, so unless you are being a hermit, you have been in an elevator and have seen the notices. Even if you haven't read them.

So lets take a count of who didn't know about the water being shut off... a staggering number in the teens, if not more.

The most egregious ignoring of the notices award goes to the dentist. She has an office on the lower level of the building and was in the middle of a dental procedure that requires water when the water was shut off. This is supposed to be a well-educated, literate person who needs to use the elevators to get to and from her car in the parking lot every day and runs her own professional business.

So what is the stupidest thing you can do during a water shut off... kill your children.

We have a pool. The pool is full of water. It is treated daily with bleach and other chemicals. The award for most dangerous stupidity goes to the woman who came down to fill her children's water bottles with water from the pool. She had to be told by other shocked adults in the elevator not to give this water to her children. Just imagine explaining what happened to your children to a person in Emergency at a hospital - this should get you locked up for life-threatening stupidity.

The children of tomorrow have no chance, the adults have doomed them, but how did the adults get to be as old as they have? What did our western society miss? Has wealth and over-abundance made everyone stupid about basic human survival? Has clean running water readily available in a million taps made people forget how precious that is?

Forget the danger of a comet hitting the planet and wiping everyone out... we seem to be doing the job ourselves.

Are crop circles alien skid marks?

2010-04-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

We are experiencing more construction chaos at our home again. Luckily, we are moving!!! Yaaay! But before then, I need to use a temporary wooden ramp to get in and out of our building because the wheelchair ramp is blocked by construction tarps.

This temporary ramp will likely last until way after the middle of next month, when we are leaving, but it doesn't inspire confidence right now. It is made of wood, and they've stapled a black-gritty-sheet-of-something to it so it's not as slippery as bare wood. But it's not a stable black-gritty-sheet-of-something, it is a dispensing-millions-of-tiny-black-pebble-like-things-sheet-of-something. And those little black pebbles are getting into my wheelchair wheels.

On my way out, the little black pebbles don't bother me that much - they do eventually make their way out of my wheels - but on the way into my home they are a menace. I do park this wheelchair inside my home after all! So I've been driving back and forth and around in circles in the hallway outside my apartment door before driving in... which has made me wonder about crop circles.

The carpet in the hallways is reportedly going to be replaced soon (it's quite insane to do this when there is construction going on outside the building's front door, but the strata council is quite insane, so it's to be expected) so I'm not feeling so guilty about making a mess.

I can turn almost on a dime in my wheelchair and I can make completely round little circles of black pebbles in the carpet in the hallway. If I try hard, I can reproduce some of the more interesting crop circle designs in the hallway. Unless someone saw me doing this, how it was done would be a complete mystery to folks!

So do aliens in space ships use crop fields on Earth as places to get gritty stuff off their ships? Do they occasionally run through comets or other space debris, and they're just trying to get the gunk off?

If so, I can sympathize with them. It's just crap you shouldn't have to drag around with you. And if it can entertain the natives (or the neighbors) at the same time, that's a bonus!

Are there more odors down here?

2010-04-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've ventured into busy downtown Vancouver during the lunch hour on a weekday, but I needed to go out today and it was about that time, so I steered my wheelchair slowly through the crowds to get to my destination. While driving I noticed a plethora of odors in the crowds. So am I being very sensitive, or are there more odors down here at sitting level?

The perfumes were extreme - both from people and from the shops that sold perfume. The oddest thing of late is that the men are wearing more perfume than the women! Seriously doused males wreaking to the max! Who are the advertisers who thought selling perfumes for men was a good idea, and how can we stop them? And why are men putting so much scent around their waists? Are they trying to attract females in wheelchairs? It isn't working.

The wreak of cancer stick cigarette smoke is always a problem, and down here at wheelchair level is worse than at standing level! On the other hand, the scent of smoke from recreational pharmaceuticals isn't that bad... and there was lots of that everywhere, not sure if I should complain about that... nah, relax, it's all good.

The sewers also have their own odors, and I'm closer to them now than I was before. Luckily I can hold my breath while I pass them, and I am as fast as your average jogger when I go at my normal outdoor speed. (I can go faster, but I reserve that for driving on the seawall when it's empty, because that IS faster.)

So there are many odors down here that I have to live with now. But I'm an adult and can understand all of the odors, what about all those children in child strollers? What are we doing to them?

Post Script: OH! That's where all the pot smoke came from! There was a marijuana rally outside the Vancouver Art Gallery - as I drove my wheelchair past it! Well, that was timing wasn't it?

Will a washroom be a tourist attraction?

2010-04-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

The new Vancouver Convention Centre is quite the tourist attraction. It is built out over water with a fish habitat especially designed to attract fish, and it has a roof with "thousands of indigenous plants" planted on it. (What plants - beyond moss - are indigenous to roofs? Now that's a good question... looks like a lot of grasses... maybe they're from the planet of the roofs.) But I digress.

The more interesting question is... during a hot, dry August day, will using a washroom at the convention centre be a tourist attraction?

Yes, it rains in Vancouver. A lot. A really great deal. Many days of non-ending rain. But that's in the winter. In the summer it gets hot and dry and watering restrictions are put into effect. In August most of the grass is brown in Vancouver - it will come back to being green in the Fall when it starts raining again, but August is a brown month. So what will happen to the grasses and other "thousands of indigenous plants" on the roof of the Convention Centre? It is prized at being a green building, so they will not be using water to irrigate it from the municipal water supply, not directly anyway, they will be using "brown" or "black" water from the waste drains inside the building. So if you wash your hands in the washroom of the convention centre in August... the water that flows over your hands will then go up to the roof to water the plants!

Cool. Does this mean the washrooms will be a tourist attraction? I'm thinking I want to go just to pay a visit! I'm not sure what kind of conventions will be going on there in August, but I'm going to keep my eyes open to see if I want to go to one of them! Or at least go to visit the washroom when they're happening.

Anyone for skiing?

2010-03-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

In Britain they have a saying "Anyone for Tennis?" which is packed with British humour and actually means "Anyone for going outside and getting soaked in the rain?"

In Vancouver we should have a saying "Anyone for skiing?" which will mean "Anyone want to go for a jog on the snowless ski hills?"

So we just had the Winter Olympics, and one of the mountains that was used to hold many of the events had no snow. Well, it did have snow, but the snow was trucked in from other mountains, it didn't spontaneously fall from the sky onto the hills that the skiing was on. Seriously. But now, today, weeks later, at the end of March, there's tons of snow up on Cypress Mountain.

And a collective groan goes up from Vancouver.

Did the universe just end?

2010-03-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

The search for dark matter and the Higgs boson particles using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has started! They started slamming particles together today!

See http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE62T26K20100330

So are we gone yet? Did replicating the actions that happened when the big bang started the universe make everything hit the restart button?

No. Looks like we didn't stop.

Or did we? How would we know? Maybe our existence has more to do with a collective belief in our existence than in physics. Maybe the people who believed that the hadron collier would end the universe and tried to get the work stopped in law courts are gone. Maybe they ceased to exist a few minutes ago. Maybe just little bits of the universe have winked out of existence. How would we know? Has anyone got the inventory list so we could check things off?

This may be the results of an overactive imagination with a cold, but it does make me wonder.

How old are those fashions?

2010-03-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

Whilst sitting in the Public Market at Granville Island a couple of days ago I couldn't help but notice a lot of people who looked oddly familiar. No, I didn't know any of them - and most of them were in their late teens / early twenties, and I don't think I know anyone in that age group.

So why did they look familiar? Because they were wearing the clothes of the 1980s.

And because they were the same age that I was when those clothes were in fashion in the 1980s. Thunk. Am I that old now? If I was their age, I'd think someone my current age is... old. Oy vey. This is a time warping experience that I wasn't expecting.

Of course, skinny pants from the 1980s on the turn of the century women of today makes most of them look like... ice cream cones. The ones with the pointy bottoms that won't stand up by themselves. High definition is not always a good thing ladies and gentlemen! I hope that's not what I looked like back then! Sometimes reviving fashion is not a good thing!

What crowds? Were we expecting crowds?

2010-03-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

HMMMM.... all is quiet on the crowds scene in downtown Vancouver right now. Where are all the Paralympic people?

The zipline across Robson is up and running again, the olympic torch in Coal Harbour is lit up, and all the other crowd gathering points are once again open for gathering, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest any more.

It is nice that the helicopters that pounded the air around us every day of the Olympics have stopped - there was some excitement on the weekend, but we're back to normal city noise now.

The sports action in Whistler and the various venues in Vancouver is going well, but the crowds are not as numerous as for the Olympics.

Did we overdo it on the 2 weeks of Olympic excitement? Are we all too pooped to party? Or is it just a Tuesday, wait for the weekend time?

Will the crowds be different for the Paralympics?

2010-03-11T17:41:00.000-08:00

The constant reverberating sounds of helicopters flying low over Vancouver's downtown signals the start of the 2010 Paralympic games as I wonder what this crowd of athletes and watchers will be like.

The opening ceremonies are tomorrow, but the crowds have not been as big as they were just before the Olympics began.

The last set was happy, enthusiastic, healthy (except most of them were committing slow suicide by sucking on cancer sticks), and really didn't understand what to do about people in wheelchairs around them. Reminders of human mortality were not what they were expecting.

But these new athletes are paralympians, not olympians, so many of them are in wheelchairs. Top performing athletes in wheelchairs.

I expect the crowds will be different, but I'll wait and see. I'm almost looking forward to crowds... and odd thing indeed.

Does everyone in Vancouver have a hangover?

2010-03-05T14:14:00.001-08:00

Many people are lingering longer in the coffee shops.

Many people are buying a tub of ice cream and consuming it.

Many yoga classes are focussing on "restorative" poses - the ones where you get into one position and stay there for 5 minutes. No one is complaining.

The early morning news is describing a marked rise in people calling into work sick with colds, but the traffic is still quite a mess this week as droopy people get themselves into work.

Do we all have a collective hangover from the Olympics?

The early morning news says all the "high-fiving" people were doing in the streets with complete strangers during the Olympics helped the cold spread. It's like the office cold gone global. But some of us didn't join a lot of crowds. (Those of us in wheelchairs tried to avoid the crowds at all costs!)

A distinct difference between the Olympic weeks and now is obvious on the streets. The streets are empty. We have normal traffic, but that's it. We've all calmed down and gone back to normal living.

I think we were all a bit over-stimulated by the Olympics, and now we have a low-energy hangover. It's an amazing, shared, hangover of immense proportions.

Are they going to change the words to Oh Canada again?

2010-03-04T11:14:00.001-08:00

Warning, this post may end up being more of a whine than a fun thought or two.

My blog post from February 28, 2010 marveled at the amazing ability during the Olympics for people to spontaneously break out into singing Oh Canada on the streets. It was a wonderful feeling, and the energy was terrific (although now everyone in Vancouver seems to be having a hang-over of sorts - everyone seems lethargic here now...)

One of the things I marveled at was how everyone knew the words to the anthem - considering how many times they've been changed, it was surprising. So of course now (this started yesterday) the politicians in the nation's capital want to change the words again.

But everyone knows what they are now!

So the politicians want it to be more gender-neutral, sure, that would be nice... but no one will be able to sing the song anymore! After the words "Oh Canada" everyone will be muffing it again!

Nice idea, but couldn't they have gotten it all correct the last time they changed a large portion of the words? How slow are these people? Are they going to change it again in another 20 years? Can we really trust them to get it right this time and then stop picking at it? Is this the last time this will happen?

These are all questions I'd rather not have to ponder... I don't think I'll like the answers.

If I had a parrot what would I teach it to say?

2010-03-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

An old comedy sketch from a kid's TV show The Electric Company has a plumber knock on a door, a parrot inside the house says "Who is it?" and the plumber says "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." The comedy happens when the plumber is driven to distraction and collapses on the door step because the parrot keeps saying "Who is it?" over and over again and the plumber keeps answering "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." The humans then come home and find the plumber on the door step and ask out loud "Who is this?" and the parrot says "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." Ta-da-dump-bump.

We've just had our 5th flood since we moved into this building 11 years ago. The plumber just left after fixing the faucet in our shower. This is the first time the damage has started in our suite.

This is the also 5th spot that the flood damage has been in! A whole new area of damage has been opened up to us! It even goes out into the hallway outside our front door! It's amazing how an apartment condo building is put together to maximize damage from leaking pipes!

So if I had a parrot, what would I teach it to say? I may go for the "Who is it?" approach, but wouldn't it be so much more fun to teach it to say "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." whenever anyone asked it "Who is it?"

Some people would be confused by the parrot, but others would just have to smile and laugh. That's the best way to deal with floods - I know this from experience.

Do we all know the words to Oh Canada now?

2010-02-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

The crowds are singing our national anthem. This is because our athletes have just won another gold medal in the Olympics.

I am surprised. Not surprised at the winning, surprised at the knowing of the words!

Until now most Canadians didn't sing the national anthem. There was no real reason to, and most people would mumble in the middle if they were pressed into singing it.

A born Canadian who has lived here all my life... I know most of the words, and can muddle through the rest, but the words have changed since I learned them in school, and I learned half of them in French (the ones in the middle that get mumbled the most) and I don't speak French, so they did not mean that much to me when I learned them. I expect many others are in this position as well.

But the crowds that have been occupying Vancouver's downtown core for 2 weeks actually have spontaneously broken out singing Oh Canada! Many times!

And the athletes are singing Oh Canada when they win the gold - many have been captured on film doing it. They know the words!

And the crowds in the stands are singing Oh Canada! They know the words!

Everyone seems to know the words! This is an amazing change that has happened within my lifetime!

What is this line for?

2010-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

Queueing, queueing and more queueing... we seem to have a world-class set of people who queue in Vancouver right now!

Forget the Olympic events - the queueing for those events is expected - it's the queueing for everything else that's amazing.

Early in the morning, people queue to take the zip line across Robson Street. People don't start going across until 11am, but the lineup starts many hours earlier. According to what I've heard from volunteers who work around the zip line, if you go between about noon and 1 pm, the lineup is much shorter! Everyone who was scared off by the morning lineup has given up, and everyone who was in the lineup has done the zip line! Then the rest of the day builds to one solid line! Talk about stamina! Go queuers go!

The there's the Olympic cauldron queue. It's an interesting sculpture, and has been the source of a story for media world-wide - with the fence that blocked the view, then the overnight alterations to the fence to improve the view, then the opening of a viewing platform in a close building for an even better view... and another opportunity for world-record queueing!

"It looks like they're building a pyramid!" Is a comment from one Vancouverite who was running on the seawall when they looked up at the zig-zagging lineup up the hill to get to see the cauldron. That's got to be a world record, not beaten for about 5000 years! Gold medals for everyone!

Do statues need mittens?

2010-02-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

An obvious "no" would seem to be the right answer. Statues made from rock or metal have no need to keep their hands warm. But there are many statues around Vancouver decorated with red mittens right now.

The red mittens are a marketing idea for the Winter Olympics which are happening right now in Vancouver - the idea is to show civic pride in the Canadian athletes - and many, many people are wearing them. So why not the statues?

The statue of Robert Burns to the left has been given a pair of red mittens strung together with red string so he won't lose them. I didn't know this was a statue of Robbie Burns until I googled statues in Stanley Park, where he is standing! An educational time is had by all!

The Inukshuk is a symbol of these Olympic Games, so it seems fitting that the Inukshuk on the beach at English Bay has been given some red mittens too. They have been scaled up for the statue, very thoughtful.

Statues really don't need mittens, but it is amazing how many people are wearing the red mittens - and red everything else - and many people are wearing the official Olympic clothing too! In an odd way it makes sense that the statues should be part of the celebration. It's odd to see Canadians showing so much civic pride, these are truly amazing Olympics!

How do you simulate an earthquake?

2010-02-13T16:10:00.000-08:00

A few years ago we had an earthquake tremor here in Vancouver which was big enough that we felt it in our apartment. The lamp in the dining room ceiling swayed and water sloshed. It was a memorable experience.

The Olympics started yesterday several blocks to the east of our apartment. Along with thousands of people really enjoying the event, we had about 200 protestors enjoying being annoying and complaining about... well, anything that struck them as something to complain about.

This morning there was a "big protest" about 2 blocks west of our apartment. About 200 protestors who are reported to be protesting "against capitalism".

That's a few decades old as a complaint, isn't it? A Bit lacking in either creativity or at least something a bit more meaningful to be against isn't it? They were right beside a movie rental store, a coffee shop, a convenience store, and a gourmet baking supply store. Maybe they could complain about getting to bed late because they had too much coffee, their cake baking experiment failed, they didn't win on the lottery ticket they bought, and it all made them return their movie late and they had to pay a late charge...

So the cops were out quelling the riot and nabbing the worst of the rioters to send them to jail.

One of the tools the police are using to quell rioters during the Olympics are helicopters. Big helicopters. Big powerful, loud helicopters flying close to the ground. They've been circling high in the sky for days now from early in the morning until very late at night, but they come in close when there is a riot.

Anyone seen the movie Apocalypse Now? Remember feeling the ground shake as the helicopters darkened the sky? It happens in real life too.

So with the lamp once again swaying, and water rippling in our apartment, we are left to wonder if someone is trying to simulate an earthquake, or if the rioters rented the movie Apocalypse Now, and that's the one they returned late and had to pay a late fee on.

And there the helicopters are again as I type... anyone got some popcorn?

Was that exciting?

2010-02-12T10:47:00.001-08:00

Well it was only 2 blocks away from where we live, so we did go out to see the Olympic torch go by this morning... meh.

There was still traffic on the street when everyone was lining the route for the flame - mostly trucks on business, but there were some idiots in single occupancy gas guzzlers trying to drive in downtown still. "Oh, I didn't know there was going to be any traffic problems, I thought about transit, but I drove instead." What planet have these people been living on? The police on bicycles were interesting, the horses were great to see - they didn't look too thrilled about it, but it's the last day of the relay, so they can stop this soon - but the torch runner was just a blur as he ran by.

I don't recommend trying to see anything when you're in a crowd and in a wheelchair. Doesn't work. (I only ran over one guy's foot - but that was his fault, not mine!) (I drove over my own foot once, I wasn't wearing shoes either... long story... it actually doesn't hurt that much, so I'm not worried about him.)

My spouse heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger (spell that one without Google, I dare you) was going to be running in Stanley Park at 6 a.m., so he got up in the middle of the night to see if he could see Arnold - not as a drooling fan, just because he was going to be close, so why not? What he learned was, never believe what you read from unofficial sources online. Arnold was going to be at Prospect Point said the unofficial source - nope, it was Brockton Point on the other side of the park. So my spouse got some unexpected exercise, he didn't expect to run that far, but he's done it many times before, so he's fine.

The result of seeing Arnold... "He's got a big head."

So was that exciting? Meh.

Has the News gone party already?

2010-02-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

Floods, earthquakes, lack of snow on the mountains... and after the break, how to pour the perfect Guinness.

Yep, it's party time in Vancouver!

The CBC news had all the serious stuff out of the way last night - quite the accomplishment in less than half an hour (we like the shorter half-hour versions of the news on the CBC, less repeats that way) - so they went for the party aspect of what's happening in the Irish pavilion.

Unless the end of the world - currently scheduled for Dec 21, 2012 - comes early during the Olympic Games, I don't think we'll be having too much serious news broadcast around here!

No worries though, switching over to the BBC World News will always be an option if we want a reality break...... Nah

Where did that light come from?

2010-02-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

Now this is fun. There are search lights at the mouth of False Creek in Vancouver set up for public art. The fun part is that anyone can submit a light design to be shown.

Yes, of course I did!

All you need to do is go to the website Vectorial Elevation (and maybe download the google earth image plugin if you don't have it already, and reboot - ok, it does take a bit of effort, deal with it) And then you can point the search lights to make an interesting pattern. The design I made for last Friday is to the left.

Once you submit the design, the website tells you when the design will be shown. The lights are on from dusk until dawn, changing every few minutes to a new design.

They even send you an email with images of what your design actually looked like on the night! See the image to the left! It looks a bit more dramatic with the clouds.

I've set up another one for tonight - it will be displayed at about 7pm. And we can even see it from our balcony! Well, most of it, there are these buildings in the way... but it's cool anyway.

I may do this many times before the Olympics are over!

Do you have a map?

2010-02-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

We've been living in Vancouver's West End for about 11 years now, and we've been stopped and asked for directions an untold number of times. Vancouver is a tourist destination - we came here on vacations ourselves before we decided to move here permanently - and there are always lots of people who are new to the area and need directions. And with the Olympics - WOW - we now have maps on poles imbedded into the ground! See the photo to the left!

What a wonderful addition to the city! Bravo!

So do we get to keep them? Is this part of the Olympic legacy that we get to keep? I do hope so!

Will they all be wearing perfume?

2010-02-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours just came back from Prague and the one thing he remembers most is the smells. Everyone smoked everywhere, there was a lot of pollution in the air, and it seems everyone poured bottles of perfume on themselves.

Back here in Vancouver, there is no smoking allowed in public buildings (or within 10 metres of doors, or on restaurant patios), the pollution is not that bad due to the ocean breezes, and most people don't feel the need to wear perfume. If anything, the perfume of Vancouver is marijuana smoke that you pass through very frequently while walking downtown (very herbal).

A couple of nights ago, while we were in a restaurant in downtown Vancouver, we wondered who had dropped a bottle of perfume. Looking around to see what had happened, we saw a group of tourists sitting down at the table next to us. Oh, that's where that smell is coming from.

I remember working in an office once where there was a woman known for her smell. She doused herself in so much perfume you could smell her coming, and her desk was the place to avoid at all costs, because you couldn't breathe when next to it. No one wanted to say anything to her because she would have started crying, but she really overdid it, and probably had lost her own sense of smell from dousing herself with so much perfume.

The tourists sitting beside us at the restaurant, bathed in way too much perfume, were speaking German. They had Olympics pamphlets and stuff at their table, so we assume they are here for the games. So these are some of the people we will be welcoming here for the games.

People who come to visit from other areas of the world are fascinating to be around. People from different cultures are great to see. But will they all be wearing so much perfume? It's hard to be welcoming when you can't breathe when sitting next to someone.

Who wallpapered the Art Gallery?

2010-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

Public art and other very appealing outdoors beautifications have been done in Vancouver for the Olympic games that are about to start.

Unfortunately, someone seems to have wallpapered the outside north wall of the Art Gallery with chintzy pink and red flowered paper.

I had heard there was an interesting flower display on the outside of the Art Gallery, so I went over to take a look. Oh dear. I thought it would be one big flower. Or a big bouquet of flowers. Or something really spectacular. It isn't.

I know art is a personal matter of taste, but that seems to be a cheap cop-out rather than a challenge that an artist took to heart and worked hard on. So does the pattern repeat every 10 metres? Or does it repeat every 15 metres? What kind of material did they print it on?

The Art Gallery is a very architecturally interesting building with pillars and carvings. It looked better without the latest art installation attached to it.

How long has it been since I saw a "Made in U.S.A." tag?

2010-01-29T18:32:00.000-08:00

An early Spring cleaning and a massive de-cluttering effort has been going on in our apartment in the past 2 months.

We have made at least 2 runs to our local Value Village drop off centers to donate things that still have some life left in them - and we will be doing more. We have also made good use of the dumpster downstairs for worn-out clothing, etc.

After living together for 21 years, it's amazing what kinds of stuff we have accumulated!

Some items really made us stop and think. When was the last time we saw a tag that said "Made in U.S.A."? We had some, on thermos bags and a scarf or two. But that was all. Nothing even remotely "new" had a tag like that.

So when did the U.S. give up on making things?

"Made in China" is what everything says nowadays. We actively try to buy things that say "Made in Canada" whenever we can - but that's not too often. It seems the only place that makes things anymore is China.

I find it odd that the dominant capitalist country in the world (U.S.A.) is making the largest communist country in the world (China) the dominant provider of goods for the capitalists. Is this a bit of a hole in the capitalist system? What happens if the U.S. pisses-off China? How would the U.S. survive, now that they don't "make" physical items for themselves anymore? How would the rest of us survive?

We seem to be in an odd position here. A bit of a vulnerable position, I'd say.

Should we be concerned about our sovereignty?

2010-01-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

A big part of the Olympic Games that are about to happen here in Vancouver is security. Lots of people will be here to keep people safe and terrorist-types stopped.

From what we've heard, the hotel right across the street from us will be full of RCMP officers for the duration of the games.

The Canadian army has set up camps here and in and around Whistler so scores of armed people will stay close to the games.

And I recently saw a news item that said that the American military will be camping out in Washington State, just south of our border, ready to help if we need them...

Oh, isn't that nice of the Americans.

Well, that's a Canadian response if ever we heard one! And it's the response most of us give when we hear it.

In ancient Rome the Roman military was not allowed to march into Rome because that would be considered a military offensive against Rome, even if it was just all the soldiers coming home. They were that uneasy about armed people taking over their city.

Fast forward to today, and Canadians are quite happy about Americans being ready to flood over the border to help us in the event of a terrorist attack. They have a bloody huge, well financed, gung-ho group of people ready to invade (sorry, I mean help), and we'd be happy to have them come for a while. We just assume they will leave.

Well, they will, won't they? Leave? It won't be an invasion by a foreign army that we didn't think to stop, will it?

It's not like the Americans invade other countries and then refuse to leave... uh oh. This could make the future very interesting.

Who are all those people?

2010-01-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

While sitting in my local coffee shop, having my morning latte and reading a magazine, I saw a large group of people. They were wandering around looking rather aimless.

Eventually they came into the coffee shop, I supposed to get some coffee. This could have been a problem, because it's a small shop and most of the tables are for 2 people, and I would have felt the need to move if they were going to all try to sit down. I was almost finished my coffee, so, sigh, I prepared to vacate.

And then they were gone.

Wait a minute, where did they go? Did they all take their coffees outside? It's not bad out there today - it's about 8 or 9 degrees Celsius and not raining - but it's not really sit outside time yet - it's only January! But yes, they all went and sat outside.

A while later it donned on me... oh, it's Olympic time already! These must have been people who help the Olympic teams. I expect there are already some athletes here getting used to the time, the atmosphere, and the coffee in Vancouver. I can see non-locals thinking it's a good time to sit outside. These people did not strike me as athletes, but they were probably part of the team!

Wow! It's already started then! The pretty banners and the art installations are all set, so let's have some tourists!

Winter? What winter?

2010-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw my first 2 trees with pink blossoms on my way to my yoga class. That was January 21, 2010!

What happened to winter?

The Winter Olympics start in about 3 weeks here. Unfortunately, up on one of the local mountains - Cyprus Mountain - they are going to hold some of the competitions. There really isn't any snow up there anymore. We're doing spring now, everyone! So there is a movement to save up shavings of ice from freezers and ice cream storage to collect enough to put on the mountain for the events. Actually, the organizing committee is fully prepared to air-lift in snow from other mountains for the events - that should cost a mint.

So where did the winter get to? Well, Europe is getting a wallop of winter. They aren't used to the amounts of snow they are getting. And the Sierra Mountains in California seems to be getting the snow we are supposed to get. (Yes, that would be in a region generally, typically, normally called the dessert.) So anyone want to dispute global climate change?

So what do we call that decade?

2010-01-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

It's now 2010, so we've left "that decade" and are on to the next, which will soon be called "the Teens", even though that won't be completely accurate for another 3 years... but what do we call "that decade"? The '80s and '90s were easy enough, but no one thought through what we would call the next decade.

We've all managed to stumble through a decade without a name now. In a few years a name will ultimately be assigned by general use as the masses agree on what to call it, but are we still too close to name it?

Some options:

"the turn of the century" - yes, this would be a good one, but people still refer to the first decade of the 1900s as this, so it may be confusing
"the turn of the millennium" - as if people will be able to spell that one, even if they can handle the enormity of the thought (disaster movies for everyone!)
"the Os" - this could get confusing "Oh what?"
"the Uh-Os" - this one has a grasp of current events backing it, but I can't think of a decade that hasn't had it's problems, so this can only get more depressing as the next few decades also have their problems
"the nots" - a British term for zeros is "nots" (or is that spelled "knots"?) which can confuse all other people on the planet, but it has a good negative connotation that everyone seems to be feeling
"the 2000s to 2010s" - well, this is certainly descriptive, but it's a mouthful, so it probably won't catch on, and what is the appropriate placement of those s s?
"the first decade of the century" - easy to say, but still a bit long
"the first decade" TFD could catch on, but it kinda ignores a huge number of decades that came before it
"the 2000s decade" - sounds like a movie, and the 2000s will have a lot of decades, so it's not that specific
"the first decade of the XXI century" - yes, let's get some roman numerals into the game to confuse everyone. I have seen this used, so we may finally go with mass inappropriate labeling, it's been done before ("hydro" means water... not electricity, but people do talk about their "hydro bills" - sorry, pet peeve).

And then... what about those 3 years before we can call the decade "the Teens", that's a no-man's land of descriptive hell too.

So do I fly from here?

2010-01-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

On the weekend my spouse and I went exploring with my power wheelchair using the new Sky Train transit line. The stations, subway cars, and elevators are marvelous. A great deal of thought was put into the design, and it shows.

Unfortunately, when you get out of the station nearest Granville Island - the Olympic Village Station - the path to get to Granville Island is much less appealing.

The path down to the seawall is long and winding. The path we figured would be the shortest route went down a sidewalk that goes over train tracks (for the new, old, trying-to-revive-it-again street car to Granville Island). That was a first for me - I didn't know if the wheelchair would make it over the tracks - but the sidewalk paving was good, so it did fine. Then a short trip down a winding ramp let out into a parking lot. Carefully making our way out of the parking lot, crossing the road to get into the residential housing area between us and the seawall was a bit nerve racking.

From that point, it was relatively easy to get to the seawall, but the seawall between there and Granville Island is paved with paving stones. Large rocks with lots of thick grout lines between them. It looks very nice, and is probably very good for drainage, but the vibrations it caused for the wheelchair were numbing.

On the way back to the Sky Train station we decided to try the road that leads fairly directly to it. The sidewalks along this road were not the most wheelchair friendly. The bushes in several areas were encroaching on the sidewalk space, and some of those bushes were raspberry canes - read OUCH, those have thorns! Thankfully, it's January and not the summer when they are growing!

So taking the Sky Train to get out of downtown and most of the way to Granville Island looks good on paper... but do I need to put wings on the wheelchair and fly from the station to the island?

I've likened the joy-stick I use to drive the wheelchair to a controller for a video game. The control is pretty much the same. We've been playing Rabbids Go Home on the Wii quite a bit in the last month. I drive the shopping cart in the game, and my spouse shoots a rabbid out to collect stuff to put in the shopping cart. If you steer that shopping cart in a circle quickly it generates sparks, and then if you press the right button you can boost the shopping cart and drive up walls... so if I do the same when I'm in the wheelchair... hmmmm

Will the end of the world come to Australia first?

2009-12-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

Early in the morning, we are up and out of bed because we have a flood in our apartment and the disaster people are searching for the cause of the water that has broken out of the pipes and gone onto our floor. So we listen to a bit of the morning news, where they report that Australia has already celebrated the New Year.

So if the world really is going to end - let's see, the latest estimate is on December 21, 2012 - will Australia be gone before we wake up here in Vancouver?

It seems rather anti-climatic to have the world end while we slumber. So will the end of the world be on the morning news? Or will the end hit everyone at once, so the timing will be off for most of the planet?

What if the world ends when it's midnight in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Only the smallest fraction of people on the planet will see the world end at the time it's supposed to end. A bit of a dull end for the doomsday mongers.

Of course, if you look closely at the latest date for the end of the world, it's actually defined as the start of a new cycle. If you are an optimist, it's the start of something - but it's hard to make a compelling movie out of that, nothing blows up and L.A. does not do a swan dive into the ocean. If you are pessimist, not only can you make movies, but books, books, and more books can be written about the impending disaster.

Right now, another flood in our apartment seems much more likely than the whole world ending. Bad plumbing will end the world, mark my words.

If you can hear me... can you turn the sound system on?

2009-12-30T21:10:00.000-08:00

Falling asleep in front of the TV can be a dangerous thing. The programs begin to blur together.

For example, if you fall asleep during an "ultimate rooms" program that is showing ultimate home entertainment rooms, specifically showing a room with a million dollar sound system that vibrates the chairs... and wake up to a ghost hunters program where people are asking "If you can hear me... can you make a noise?" the mind goes into some really weird places.

"If you can hear me... can you turn the sound system on?" is the question I heard when I woke up. I wondered who had died without telling their heirs how to turn the million dollar sound system on. That would be so annoying. Instructions should have been left... so am I having a really weird dream, or is the world going nutty?

That may have been OK as an isolated incident, but more recently I found myself not paying much attention to the TV when some monster hunters were showing the cage full of chickens they were going to leave out to tempt the monster to show itself. The ghost hunting show often has people trying to "provoke" the spirits into making a noise or moving something. The thought "Wouldn't leaving chickens in a room provoke those spirits more than moving the furniture... maybe someone should suggest it for the ghost hunters..." popped into my head.

Way too much TV. Or is that way too many ghost or monster hunting programs? Maybe I have my own ghost who is muddling my mind... that must be it.

Are they singing to the statues?

2009-12-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

Half a dozen people in red pointed hats with white balls on the top. Hanging out together around an art installation of 7 foot tall statues next to English Bay beach. We couldn't tell for sure from our table inside Raincity Grill, but I think they were singing Christmas Carols to the statues.

It was Christmas Eve, so that's the last day carolers would be wandering around annoying people with off-key renditions of old worn-out songs. But would the statues be enjoying it? The statues look like they are made of a metal of some sort, so maybe the music would resonate quite nicely around the circle of statues.

Of course, if the carolers had vivid imaginations, that could be quite frightening. Voices echoing off 7 foot tall semi-human versions of fierce ball players. No, that one in the corner of your eye didn't move, really, it didn't. It's just shadows from car lights, it's just dark out, so you notice it more. Very dark. No snow on the ground, it's not raining, there aren't many stars out, but the moon is a half-crescent. The clouds passing in front of the moon aren't scary, and the coyotes that live around here are probably sleeping, not hunting.

And don't worry, people always drive that badly, they aren't drunk during this time of the year... none of those cars are going to careen into the open field and hit the statues and the carolers, really. I'm just an alarmist, sitting in a restaurant watching extremely bad driving outside the window I'm sitting at. Really.

Singing to the statues sounded nice at first blush, but an overactive imagination could make a horror story out of it!

Did we just get transported to a war zone?

2009-12-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

Honk.

Honk. Honk. HOOOOONK.

Sirens, sirens, more sirens.

It sounds like we've been transported to a war zone. Our wonderfully livable downtown Vancouver is now a battle ground.

Canadians generally feel it's rather rude to honk their car horns. A brief tap if someone is sitting at a light that went green several seconds ago is about as much as we venture to do.

But it's Christmas. So damn the politeness, honk the horn. Forget counting to 10 before getting angry. Get into that car with the intention of beating everyone to wherever they are going. Shop, shop, shop until you've bloodied at least one nose getting what you want. Grab whatever you can reach because you can, whether you want it or not. Hit as many other people with your bags as you can reach.

'Tis the season... to be nasty... it will be over soon, we bloody well hope.

How do you have a control group in a surgical trial?

2009-12-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

The key to a good medical trial is having a control group of patients who do not get the actual medical procedure being tested. This is a group of people who should not see any benefit to the treatment if the treatment actually works, because they didn't get the treatment. If they do see benefit, it's due to the power of their own minds convincing themselves that they are getting better (called the placebo effect).

So how does this work for a surgical trial?

I asked my Neurologist this question today. There is a new hope for MS patients called CCSVI, and I absolutely want in on it if there is a trial here in BC. So I wanted to know if I was in the control group that didn't get the surgery involved, wouldn't it be obvious that I didn't get the surgery?

She said they do placebo surgery! They cut just a little into the patients then they sew up the hole. That's not taking sugar pills instead of real medication, that's cutting into flesh! That would be soooooo annoying.

It was the first time I met this particular doctor. I've decided I don't like her. I told her that as an overriding stance on the subject, I don't like taking medicine. All medications have side effects. All medications are open to the "we thought it did this good thing, but now we know that it does that bad thing" future possibilities. She completely ignored me and suggested about 5 drugs I could take to help with this symptom or that symptom.

She did not listen to me. That means I will give her about the same respect she gave me. I will take whatever she says with a huge crystal of salt, because she doesn't listen well, and I don't think it's just me that she ignores. Her mind is closed.

For example, she said they just do a little cut, then sew it up if you get the placebo surgery. I happen to know that the patient is awake during this surgery, the patient would know if a tube is being inserted into a vein and moved up the body or not. The placebo surgery would need to be far more than a little cut.

I still want to be in a trial, even if I get the placebo surgery. It's the best chance I've heard of for real improvement in the lives of people with MS. Bring it on.

Who moved all the books?

2009-12-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in the library to return a book, and since it was very cold outside and I had just frozen my hands getting there, I looked around at books in the fiction section while warming back up. I went to the aisle that typically has my favourite authors in it to see if there was anything new... and the books weren't there!

Yes, there were books on the shelves, but not the books I was looking for. Not the books that had been there every time I had looked before.

I did eventually find the books I was looking for... in an area with about 3 rows of bookshelves, the books had moved from row 3 to row 1. They had done a little jump to the left.

Who moved all the books I was looking for a jump to the left?

And who moved the other books a step to the right?

Who put their hands on all the books and risked their knees in the tight shelves?

But it's the pelvic thrust that's really got them insaaane.

Let's do the time warp again!

Sorry, couldn't resist the slip into Rocky Horror there...

So was this a grand scheme to confuse everyone? (Shuffling the books around, not the digressing into Rocky Horror, I've done that so many times over the years it doesn't confuse anyone anymore.)

Did they actually dust the shelves? Was that the point? I wonder what kinds of odd things they found on the shelves... there's more than just books on them there horizontal surfaces. And I'm not talking about dust. Think unconventional conventioneers... a party... musical numbers... a library would be the perfect place for reprising Rocky Horror, lots of twists and turns... maybe some interesting experiments in the storage rooms...

Is that the definition of cacophony?

2009-12-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, the world is defining things again.

We had the Santa Clause Parade on Sunday in downtown Vancouver. The parade starts about a block away from our apartment, so we typically hear some warming up of bands before the parade starts. This photo was taken outside our bedroom window at about 11:30am. This year the noise was far greater than normal, making me wonder if this is the very definition of cacophony.

A brief rundown of the noises (note, most noises overlapped each other - thus the cacophony defining):

11 am

Santa Clause is Coming To Town - live band playing
Oh come let us adore him - live singers
Ratta tat tat - live drummers
On the dance floor oooh ooooh - recording
You better not cry - recording
Something that sounds like a Beach Boy's song - live singers
Oh come let us adore him - live singers
Wooo hooo - live young girls
Da da da de daaa da da - live horns
Smoke alarm going off in someone's kitchen

11:30 am - I gave up on sleeping in and went to have a shower

12:30 pm

Rock'in Christmas - recording repeated at least twice in succession
A welcome garbage truck in the alley making it's usual banging noises while emptying dumpsters - a semblance of normality
Ratta tat tat - live drummers
Oh come let us adore him - live singers
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy - live horns
Christmas Day in the Morning - live horns
Bagpipes! Maybe we're getting close to the end?
Clean and crisp and even - live horns & drums
I blessed the rains down in Africa - live band - very odd
Various other recorded songs

1:30 pm Drummers jamming - live band

1:40 pm Go Tell It on the Mountain - live band

1:45 pm Joy to the World - live singing and Santa Clause is Coming to Town - live band (at the same time)

2 pm - Didn't the parade start at 1pm? Shouldn't everyone be gone by now? Ohhhhh, the float for Santa is still in the street below our window... slow parade! Santa Clause is still Coming to Town.

I've recorded the cacophony so I can remember it once we've moved away from here. Typically we have the marching bands practicing in the street and the alley on the other side of our building when the parade comes to town. This is the first year we've had the floats and multiple bands and cheerleaders (they had pink pom-poms - that means cheerleaders, right?) crowding into the street below us. It's much noisier than having just the marching bands. They don't take turns, it's more like they try to out-noise each other. Cacophony. Yep, that's the definition.

Should I start singing now?

2009-12-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

I was in Stanley Park taking pictures on a beautiful sunny day a couple of days ago, and I've been having trouble getting the song "Talk to the Animals" out of my head ever since!

Why is this? Because the animals were sitting on me!

This is a picture of one of the chickadees that perched on my hand while taking seeds from me. There were about a dozen of them landing on my hand, on my shoulder, on my wheelchair, some tried for my head, but I was moving about... they were just everywhere.

And the squirrel that surprised me last time I was in the park by climbing up my leg climbed up my leg again. This time I had some walnut pieces ready for it. It sat on my leg and ate! I thought it would grab the nut and run, but it didn't! It was very soft and warm. (I haven't finished up the photos I got of the squirrel yet.)

So I've learned a couple of things from this - one, the breathing exercises from my yoga classes have paid off in my ability to stay still and relaxed while little animals are running all over me. Two, it's still very difficult to take photos of chickadees, even if you know exactly where they will be - getting seeds from your hand - because they are incredibly fast! I took maybe 30 pictures, and this is the 1 that came out. This will take a bit more practice... If I could talk to the animals, talk to the animals...