42 Babel Fish

Where did I go?

2009-05-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have taken over another spot on the web! (It was getting aggrivating to have to log out of gmail, and log in using another id, do a post, log out again, go over to gmail again.... life, don't talk to me about life.)

For all future posts see:

42babelfish42.blogspot.com

And this does show up in the old blog... I just felt like confusing myself and anyone else who reads my blog this afternoon!

Why do busses have numbers on the back?

2009-05-27T15:14:00.001-07:00

It's almost guaranteed that, if you need to catch a specific bus, it will be the one that arrives at the bus stop early, and leaves before you get to it. It's a Murphy's Law kind of thing.

But why do they need to put the numbers on the back of the busses so you know which one it was that you wanted as you see it leaving?

Isn't this just a bit sadistic? Can't we have non-specific busses that just may have been the one you wanted? The suspicion that you wanted the bus that you just missed is less painful than the realization that you did indeed blow it.

Or is it? It's nice to know where you stand. If you did miss the bus, and you know it, you have time to make alternate plans. Or you can set off on a tirade of curses and spitting. It may help to blow up and get it out of your system. And if there are other people around to witness your blow up they can call for the ambulance that you will need from the heart attack you just had.

It's at times like this, when you've missed your bus, that your true character really comes out.

If you are me... you sit and ponder some of life's questions as you wait for the next bus, and call for the ambulance.

What was the question?

2009-05-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

Douglas Adams wrote the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was 42. The question is still not known.

I've just spend the year - my 42nd year - searching for the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

From the quirks of evolution, odd parking signs and construction signs, colliding submarines, sound distortions caused by fog... to ghosts and mountains that sneak up on you, I've been finding all sorts of really fun questions this past year. (See the Favourites labeled posts in the Labels Archive on the right for a few of my most fun ones.)

So did I find the ultimate question? ehrm, no.

Did I have fun searching? Yes! I've greatly enjoyed the life view from a questioning position. I think this may be habit forming.

I've let the blog go for about a month now, and I've missed it, so I think I will resume the search for the Ultimate Question... and if I find one that fits the answer 42, I will highlight it in big bold letters for everyone to enjoy!

Is that why otters always seem so happy?

2009-04-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

A missing link in the evolution of sea otters and seals has evidently been found. The newly found link shows the ancestors of otters and seals walked on land before becoming sea animals. Is that why otters always look like they are playing all day and just having fun with life?

Douglas Adams wrote that the decision of human ancestors to come out of the sea was the big mistake. In one episode of the old Hitchhiker's Guide TV shows Douglas Adams actually appears in the buff walking back into the ocean. Was he right? Darwin thought it was a natural progression - the transition from land to fresh water to the sea.

Did we get it wrong by leaving the ocean, and sea otters got it right by going into the ocean? Have we missed something? Are we supposed to be somewhere... else?

See this link for more information on the progression to the sea: BBC News

If I watch that plant long enough, will I see that flower bloom?

2009-04-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

Glorious sunny days are here at last, so I've been sitting in parks, taking pictures of flowers. Well, many flowers are out, but there is a notable lack of tulips flowering. So if I sit there long enough, will I see the tulips bloom? It's been warm and sunny enough that it seems to be possible. Most of the flowers are late this year and they are all coming out at the same time, which is unusual, so maybe they are willing to pop out while someone is looking!

For those who lack the patience to sit and watch flowers come out, there is a solution I've just read about: a Timelapse Garden Video Camera!

You can set this little camera to take pictures of your plants at intervals from every 5 seconds to every 24 hours. It will make a little AVI movie for you. So you can have a little movie of your tulip blooming.

As yet, there have been no signs of plant protests about violated personal - or plant - liberties against this monitoring.

Of course, if it takes time lapse pictures of plants... it could take time lapse pictures of anything really, or anyone. I can see how some people would complain about this surveillance.

There could even be a time lapse video of me sitting and watching the tulips, waiting for them to bloom... thus defining what would be even more boring than sitting and watching plants bloom. I don't think I have anything to worry about, but it does make you think.

April 23 Update: They came out while I was gone! Sneaky little... I've added a photo of one to this post!

Will I ever eat microwave popcorn again?

2009-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking NO!

It's not that the chemical laden bags of genetically suspicious popcorn kernels are that bad, but we've found a fantastic alternative: organically grown popcorn dried on the cob from our local farmer's market!

It's just the coolest thing! You put a cob of the dried popcorn corn into a paper bag and microwave it on high for about 3 - 4 minutes until the popping slows down. You then get chemical-free lovely bits of popped corn!

Now popping the corn on the cob doesn't pop all of the kernels, but more pops than when we use our hot air popper. And the bits of popped corn are not the genetically enhanced super-size-me bits of tasteless white stuff that you get at a typical movie theatre, but they taste really good! We popped 2 cobs of the corn and had a nice big bowl of popcorn - enough for the two of us.

I highly recommend the on-the-cob organic popping corn! We are looking forward to many cobs from our farmer's market in the future.

Is it better to be in an empty theatre or an over-full one?

2009-04-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

Recently we've been to a very well attended movie - Running the Sahara - where the theatre was so full they had to defrag the audience. Groups of people were asked to get up and move down to free up empty seats and some people had to leave their friends and sit in single empty seats. The place was packed.

I haven't seen a theatre that full since Rocky Horror... but in this one they actually served wine! That was definitely a first for me!

And then about a week later we went to see - Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D - in a matinee showing where there were only about 15 people in the entire audience.

Now that was a fun movie! I loved the 3D experience! The story line was pretty much fluff, but the effects were so much fun (trying to avoid meteorites flying off the screen and into your face is quite the giggle)!

So the packed audience was amazingly quiet... and the small audience was talkative. Does the experience of being packed-in make you quiet for the sake of the other people around you, and a lack of people make you act like you are in your own living room?

I do enjoy having my pick of any seat in the theatre, but the other extreme of audience attendance does have its appeal.

Is that rude, or just end-of-term staring into the distance?

2009-04-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

I was on the UBC campus yesterday on my way to an appointment when I stopped to have some coffee and lunch. (oooh, she stopped for coffee, that's unusual - I think she may have an addiction going here...) And I was wondering if a woman in the cafe was being rude, or just trying to avoid doing the term paper she was working on.

The front of the cafe had windows that could be fully opened up, and since it was such a gorgeous day they were wide open, so I sat at a table facing outside for the view. There were a few other occupied tables, most with a single person facing outside as well, but there was one woman at a single table who was facing inside.

And she was staring at all the people who were facing the other way. Or was she?

She had a very thick book with her - Don Quixote - and a lot of paper with hand written notes and a computer. Aha! I recognize that, it's a term paper in it's primeval form, on it's way to becoming an end-of-term must... finish... this... damned...paper assignment. I remember those!

So she probably wasn't staring at other people to be rude, she was just desperately trying to avoid the term paper!

I remember being a student. It was great to be able to reduce the world into something to stare at when trying to avoid term papers. But, when you leave school, you have to avoid staring at strangers in case they get upset and think it's a challenge they have to respond to... similar to why you don't stare into the eyes of predatory animals unless you want to be attacked by them.

But for now, in a cafe on campus (right beside a great pub... I love that campus, it would have been so much fun to study there) a student can get away with end-of-term staring into the distance, and at other people.

Life will get more complicated later, so she should enjoy it now! I envy the place she is at in life right now.

Did I just kill off an entire species?

2009-04-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

Spring cleaning has started with a vengance in our home.

We have a large couch with feather-stuffed pillows. They can't be cleaned by calling in steam cleaners, the covers must be removed and then washed.

Oh... that's why the typical couch is not made with feathers these days. Removing the pillow cases (10 of them) leaves the place looking like a bird fight was staged here!

There are feathers everywhere!

There will be feathers everywhere for weeks! They worked their way out of the main pillow compartments into the areas between the pillow and the outter covering, which I needed to wash.

The feathers just don't all clean up! And where did that static cling come from?

So I washed the pillow cases in batches, twice. And I think I may have killed off an entire species.

I've seen TV programs that show pictures of microscopic animals that live in beds. They eat dead human skin that naturally comes off and stays on a bed. They look like finger prints with legs.

And I think there must have been some in the couch pillows. They've all been washed away now. I killed them off. I feel kinda guilty.

I've just watched a program on Stephen Hawkings which gave a useful size comparison. If you take a massively huge library stuffed with books, our galaxy would fit nicely inside one period (full stop) in one book. So in that case we're the microscopic ones... lets hope the galaxy doesn't need a wash!

Did more Vancouver residents turn off their lights for Earth Hour this year?

2009-03-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Last year I took a picture of Vancouver from out of our apartment during Earth Hour and it looked pretty much the same as it does every night. This year, there may have been a little less light, but I'm not sure people are getting it yet.

This news article shows the percentage reduction that communities around BC's lower mainland achieved last night.

The media are finally getting it. Last year it was almost a secret when Earth Hour was, and why it was. This year the local TV news actually mentioned it the Friday before it happened, so people could do something about it, rather than mentioning it briefly the Monday afterwards like they did last year!

But we still had glowing streets and people with every light in their apartments on during Earth Hour this year. Maybe next year...

What happens to sandbags after floods?

2009-03-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

So the Red River once again is rising in Manitoba and the in states south of it, so once again the news is full of volunteer lines of people moving sandbags to places where they hope to stop the water from going into. But when the flood is over again, where do the sandbags go?

Oddly enough, you can get a ready answer to this question by just googling it! See this news item.

Or, this news item from last July describes how in the U.S. the people who lose their source of income after the flood can get temporary jobs removing the bags that were put in front of the restaurants they used to work at.

The bags are not burlap anymore, they are made up of a plastic that does degrade. After a "few weeks" of exposure to sun they will break down, so you could have a pile of sand on your hands if you don't work fast to remove them.

So you can reuse the sand for gardens, gritting the path in the winter, or mixing into concrete, but some of it does end up in landfill. Great, spend time and effort getting the sand out of the ground and into bags, then put it back in to confuse future archaeologists when they find layers of sand in the ancient dumps. "The ancient people seem to have been wiped out by a desert of sand that covered the planet around the year 2000 A.D."

Who would make their infant park?

2009-03-25T18:23:00.002-07:00

Contemplate this sign, found on Vancouver Island, and you will find many questions come to mind.

Does the parent have such undeveloped parking skills that they could be labeled "infant" parkers?

Which parent is the worst parker, the female or the male?

What about same-sex partners with an infant, are they not allowed to park here?

What kind of parent would make their infant park? Can they even reach the pedals and the steering wheel at the same time? From the baby carrier in the back seat, no less!

This sign is similar to a handicapped parking sign. Does this mean an infant is a handicap? Do the physical abilities of the human adult decline to a point of handicap once procreation has been achieved?

Someone must have thought they were being nice to people with this sign, but were they really? Or were they just giving people a way to point out their inadequacies to the world with their choice of parking space?

Did I want that question answered?

2009-03-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

On February 17 I pondered the question "What will collide next?" and considered submarines and space craft colliding in what one could consider a vast amount of space. They did that you know, I wasn't just making it up.

So today I read the news that 2 US navy vessels have collided in the Strait of Hormuz off the coasts of Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. One ship spilled 90,000 litres of diesel fuel, the other's nuclear fuel was not disturbed (it would be a whole other set of news if the nuclear vessel blew up, wouldn't it?)

But I haven't been able to find any news stories about the environmental disaster that much spilled fuel would cause. If the spill was around North America, people would be flocking to the coast to help injured birds and other wildlife. Maybe all the wildlife around the oil producing area of the world is already dead. Or mutated to a point where it doesn't phase them. A sad thought any way you look at it.

So these 2 boats, one about 110 metres long, the other 210 metres long, patrolling an area reported to be 7.5 million square miles, or 12 billion square kilometres big collide in one of the narrow bits. They were both US boats this time, so no language barriers to blame, no metric versus American measurements to blame, just 2 little boats trying to defy physics and occupy the same space.

I don't dare ask what will collide next.

Isn't that called "loitering"?

2009-03-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

So I was in a coffee shop this morning having a cup of coffee (yes, I do a lot of that), and there was a young Asian couple sitting beside me. The were talking and ... not having coffee. They were also ... not drinking anything else. They were also ... not eating anything. They were just sitting and talking.

So, is it just me, or isn't that called "loitering"?

This couple were there before I got there. I sat down and drank my coffee and read my magazine and got increasingly curious about when they were going to leave.

I remember working with people who couldn't even think about sitting down and enjoying their coffee, it was always something they grabbed and ran with. They were exhausting people who spent much of their lives convincing the world that they were desperately important and needed to run about and stick their noses into everything or nothing would ever get done. As if.

There was a lull in the couple's conversation. It was not in English, so I have no idea what they were talking about. I figured they were about to leave. They stayed sitting and apparently thought of something else to talk about.

I've worked with people who figured all the coffee shop was a stage, and they were on fire with their animated conversation. Entertaining, but spillage can be a problem here.

The couple's conversation was not very animated. I'm sure he was considering leaving, but she didn't seem to have any desire to go.

From what I could tell, everyone else in the coffee shop who had sat down before me was gone now, and I had just finished my coffee, so I got up to leave. But, really, I was still curious about the couple, so I hit the washroom before leaving. On my way out ... they were still there.

There are a lot of homeless people in downtown Vancouver. This couple was obviously not among them. The homeless people would probably love to have a comfy warm chair to sit in for hours and just talk without having to purchase coffee for the privilege. They would undoubtably be thrown out of the coffee shop for illegal loitering if they tried this. So why didn't this couple get thrown out? I'm not about to jump on a soap box and rail at social injustices, but shouldn't that couple have at least considered that what they were doing was not socially acceptable, if not a wee bit illegal?

Where is the most inappropriate place to applaud?

2009-03-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

I'm going with a washroom for this one, a public washroom that is. It's the most inappropriate place to applaud. I didn't applaud, but I really felt I should.

No, it's not what you are thinking (and why are earth are you thinking that?).

The community centre where I take a Yoga class on Thursdays has a piano. This piano is well hidden. This piano is down a long hallway. On the way to this piano you will pass both men's and women's washrooms. They quite often leave the main doors to the washrooms propped open (helps with air movement).

So today I found myself in the washroom, listening to wonderful piano music. The person playing the piano really knew what they were doing. They played large portions of about 3 different pieces. Boy, that was a lot of notes. No, I'm not musical but I do appreciate great music, and that really was.

So I felt like applauding... and then caught myself. I didn't venture down the hallway to the piano room because I think it's a really tiny room, and I needed to get to my class, but I didn't want to interrupt.

So whoever was playing such wonderful music should find a better place to do it where more people can listen. What an odd place to keep the piano!

How much food can we freeze?

2009-03-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

The multi-coloured and very pretty map of the street closures for downtown Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics is out, and what I want to know is: how much food can we freeze for this event?

See the pretty map.

Yes, we are right in the middle of the colourful lines of pedestrian only traffic and no parking and no driving roads. We don't actually leave the peninsula very often - everything we need is here really, but ... our weekly trip to Granville Island to obtain food will be impossible.

Yes, we do have your basic garden-variety grocery stores within walking distance of our home, we won't go hungry, but it's not the same. We like to make our own food from farm-fresh produce.

So this officially begins the year of finding recipes for food to freeze. Chili and soup are the obvious, but we need more...

Who wants a "Danger: Work in Progress" sign?

2009-03-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

It may frequently actually mean "there's a guy with a bucket of soapy water hanging from a rope over your head", but wouldn't this be a great sign for everyone to have?

The weather has warmed up (a little bit) so the window washers are up the sides of the buildings in Vancouver again. That's gotta be a cold job on a cloudy day. They set up these great signs on the ground underneath where they are working.

Danger: Work in Progress

Wow, wouldn't that be a great sign to have? You could put it just inside the door to your workspace. It is ambiguous enough it could mean many things, like:

Don't bother me, I'm doing work and it could be dangerous to bug me.

Don't come in here if you don't want to work - that's what's happening in here!

Don't judge me now, I'm still a work in progress, I'm not done yet!

I'm working here, watch out world, there's something coming!

Or, I just stole a window cleaner's sign, so watch out when you're on the street, there's one missing!

Do yoga mats have built-in ash trays in Quebec?

2009-03-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

We had a yoga guru over for dinner last night and the conversation was varied, but a lot of it was about yoga (surprise). The yoga guru was telling us that The Place To Be in the world for yoga was Southern California - no big surprise there. The surprise is: he thinks in Canada The Place To Be for yoga is either Toronto or Montreal - not Vancouver!

I lived in Toronto for 9 years. I escaped Toronto a decade ago, so my knowledge of the area may be old, but I just don't see it. There are no fit-focussed people or communities that stand out in my memory of Toronto. Just a lot of people walking about quickly underneath the buildings: getting off transit underground; walking through the underground tunnels to get to work; eating in food courts in the underground tunnels; and then walking back to transit underground at the end of their day. If they ever saw a window they just squinted and hurried by.

Not really a celebration of life and the wonders of your own body to be had in Toronto.

I've been to Montreal a couple of times. The one thing that comes immediately to mind from there is the huge number of stinky people sucking on cancer sticks. I have seen many people eating and smoking at the same time (a tricky thing to do if you aren't concentrating) and smoking everywhere by everyone in Montreal.

Unless yoga mats come with built-in ash trays for Montreal yoga practitioners, I don't see how that could be The Place To Be for yoga in Canada.

I think this idea is just the symptom of "the grass is greener over there" syndrome for the yoga guru. He has always lived in Vancouver. It's natural to think things are better somewhere else.

It's interesting how prevalent the "over there" pull is for people.

Is that package ticking?

2009-02-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

Recently I took delivery of a very annoying hand-held computer. Annoying because it was programmed to trigger an alarm every time I needed to take some medicine. Regular as clockwork, it declared "you're sick, you're sick" when I needed to take the next dose. Ok, so it actually just rang out a couple of notes, but the implied message was there. And after each dose it always tried to connect to this ancient style modem to send off the news that I had indeed recorded taking the medicine. As if this would help. Some drug companies take too much of their own medication and come up with the stupidest ideas... but that's another rant.

So I talked through the problems I was having with the drug company, and they directed me to the people who programed the little WindowsCE device, who said I could stop the alarms but I would still need to send the smidgeon of data through the wireless modem every couple of days to keep the thing going (the connection to the modem kept having to be reset when I left it uplugged for a week or so). They also gave me some incredibly helpful advice: how to return the little blighter to them. Woo Hoo!

So to send this thing back to Texas I just needed to use Federal Express. They gave me an account code and full instructions on what to write where on the forms and voila, annoying thing gone.

Except... it's about this alarm. It's also about this international border. It's also about a device that is continually trying to connect to a modem to send data... em, that's not good.

So I tried to let the power run down completely. You just don't know how many Solitare games I played on that thing trying to run down the batteries. But it was getting in the way and I wanted it gone already.

So I went into the proper menus and turned off all noises it would ever consider making. I think. I hope.

It does still have a little power, but maybe it has given up on trying to find it's modem. I think. I hope.

So I couriered it off yesterday. Hopefully it made it across the border without alarming anyone or anything. The Federal Express person I was getting help from did ask if it might send out signals during shipping and I said yes, maybe. So hopefully I have not set off an international incident. Hopefully they know what to do about this thing.

Hopefully that package is not ticking.

And you thought the world had lost all it's hope.

What will collide next?

2009-02-17T19:10:00.000-08:00

Submarines colliding in the ocean. Satellites colliding in space. What will be next?

Early in February 2 submarines - one French, one British - collided somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. One of them was 150 metres long, the other was 138 metres long. The Atlantic Ocean is somewhere around 76 million square kilometres. On a comparative basis, that's 6 1/2 times the size of the US. Getting 2 little boats to hit each other in that much water would seem to be a wild shot, but France and the U.K. have begrudgingly admitted it happened. It seems the boats are so quiet, they didn't sense each other - that's a design point of a submarine, isn't it?

Also early in February 2 satellites orbiting the Earth - one Soviet, one American - collided about 270 miles above the International Space Station. There is some due concern that the debris will hit that expensive little jewel of international co-operation. The Soviet satellite was apparently not in working order, just space junk, but the American one was owned and used by a phone company.

To quote Douglas Adams "Space is big. Really Big. You just won't believe how mindbogglingly big it is." (The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 8)

If human-made objects that are tiny in comparison to where humans put them - either in the water or in outer space - are colliding with each other... what's next? Both the Americans and the European Space Agency have sent human-made objects to roam about on the surface of Mars. The American ones have made it, but the European one - named Beagle 2 - disappeared without a trace. Is it possible there was another collision of human-made objects, or did it just collide with Mars? (Hmm, that was in February as well, a few years back but... is that a coincidence?)

Should humans really be sending these extremely expensive objects into space? Unless it's the same country sending all of the objects, will different countries give enough information to each other about where their objects are to avoid collisions?

Alien 1: "Oh look, they're sending more bits up! Oh look! Those ones collided too! What a mess!"
Alien 2: "No need to contact that planet, if we did they'd probably send junk up to collide with our ships."

References:
Submarine sizes

Ocean size

Submarines hitting each other

Satellites hitting each other

European Space Agency looses contact with Beagle

Did someone say Spring?

2009-02-15T19:48:00.001-08:00

I think it's finally here! This picture of little white snow drops about to bloom was taken in Vancouver's West End a few days ago.

So when will they get divorced?

2009-02-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

There has been a TV commercial airing over and over endlessly with minor changes here and there for the last month at least. It's an ad for a dating service. It shows two people who met, fell in love, and got married.

Joshua and Tanyalee were made for each other, but didn't meet until they answered long questionnaires and were matched up by a dating service. It was a sweet story the first time I heard it. Then after the 30th time I heard it, I wondered why they had made a big impressionist painting together as a date thing. I also wondered why I had to see it so many times - it wasn't that good of a painting. As the days went on there were more and more annoying commercials with more and more details of their romance.

Do I care about Joshua and Tanyalee? Nope.

Do I want to see other couples that have been matched? Well, if it stops the Joshua and Tanyalee endless repeats, yes! They have one or two other couples to annoy us with, but they don't get as much air time.

Do I want to see Joshua and Tanyalee get divorced and off my TV? Yep.

Valentine's Day is typically the "break up" day of any unstable relationship. I think Joshua and Tanyalee should take this opportunity to stop the insanity and divorce.

I admit I may watch too much TV but I've had enough of these commercials! It was sweet at first, but now it's a canker sore and I want them to go away!

Did they really want to phone me?

2009-02-11T18:22:00.000-08:00

After a recent cold I now have a sinus infection and I'm taking some really strong antibiotics that are making me feel woogy and easily distracted. So when I kept getting a call on my cell phone from a 1-866 number (which I don't answer as a rule - its' just someone selling something) I dropped what I was doing and went for a little explore time.

There are a few services that come up when you google a "reverse phone number lookup" and they will tell you who keeps calling from a specific number. For a price, anyway - the free versions couldn't find the number. I'm not that annoyed.

So I googled on the phone number itself and found a wonderful forum where people were complaining about phone calls from this phone number! It was Fido phoning it's customers back in March 2007 and charging them for the calls if they were out of the country.

Just then, my cell phone rang.

So I answered it. Eventually the call centre agent came on and I talked to her for a bit. She promised it was a free call for me, so why not? Yes, I'm happy with the service. No, I don't want a new phone for the privilege of signing up for a contract. No, I have no questions or comments... and no, I missed the opportunity to share my existential angst with an unwitting call centre agent - but I was tempted.

Every once in a while I have answered calls that are obviously from someone selling something just for the fun of having someone tortured because they called me. The time that I was still living with my parents and got a call from a carpet cleaners was probably the most fun. Clean my carpet? I don't have a carpet. Clean my furniture? I don't have any furniture. Do you have a phone? Yes! I have a phone! Isn't that great? I obviously sounded like a kid, so this was just a bit of fun that wasted his time, but he called me, so he was fair game.

Sometimes I just feel like wasting the time of someone phoning to sell me something. They are paying for the phone time and the call centre agent, so it costs them money. Getting the call aggravates me, so why not make them pay for it? I don't get angry or abusive to the agent, it's not their fault, they are probably just stuck in a noisy room doing a job they hate. But the company they work for is fair game.

So next time I'm feeling easily distracted... I may not hang up so easily.

What is that sound? Are they Back?

2009-02-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

Oh noooooo!!!

The construction workers are back!

They are taking their little moving platform up the outside of our apartment building again!

This makes year 3 of our tour of hell. They've been "fixing" the windows on the 30-odd stories of this building for what seems like forever. Apparently some people have very wet windows - on the inside - so the windows are being sealed on the outside. This of course means less air movement on the inside, but couldn't that have been the problem to begin with?

In Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings, where all of the ancient mummies they could find still in Egypt have been gathered they are also having problems with water - on the inside. The humidity in the underground tombs is destroying the 5000 year old mummies. Living humans have recently discovered that this is from the living human beings that are visiting the mummies. Tourists are unwittingly destroying the mummies they are coming to see. It's that whole "humans are 62% water" (percentage info from Science Fact Finder) - warm water that tends to send moisture into the air when people... live and breathe. Most of the mummification efforts were actually to get rid of the wet parts of the human body. The internal organs that would stay wet after death and start decomposition of the body were removed and put into jars or boxes separate from the body. The ancient Egyptians knew about this humidity of the human body problem, can we not learn from this?

Back in our apartment building, many of the suites in this building are not occupied for months at a time, which should mean less of a problem, but people leave all their windows and curtains tightly shut when they leave, so the moisture that was in the air when they left sticks around and festers while they are gone. Other people like to have very warm apartments. There are many people living here that are originally from the Middle East or the Orient and they like their homes to be very warm. Unfortunately, in this climate we frequently have close to 100% humidity in the air - and yes, a lot of rain. Heat up that much water, and yes, you will grow mold quite easily.

So have we had a humidity problem in our suite? No. The difference here is we Like fresh air. We always have at least one window open. We don't keep the place too warm - we grab a sweater when we feel cold. And we have no mold. But this winter we did have a bit of humidity for the first time in 10 years - easy to remove as soon as we saw it, but that's new. Our windows were sealed in last year's round of construction. Can we bonk someone on the head for this? Actually, a mangled coat hanger to the vents around the windows has helped... the ones that were sealed last summer by the construction workers going up the side of the building in their
little
noisy
platforms...

How can I get a police escort?

2009-01-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

A brief blast from a police car makes me look up from my coffee in my local coffee shop.

A motor cycle with flashing lights comes up to the intersection I'm looking out onto. The light is against it, so the driver goes into the intersection carefully and stops the motor cycle. Then the driver holds up his hand to halt traffic before it gets into the intersection.

A slowly moving group of runners, bundled up against the cold of the day, run through the intersection. There is another motor cycle in front of them - presumably doing a leap-frog maneuver to get to the next intersection to stop traffic there. I count about 20 runners in the group.

Behind them is a police car with lights flashing. And another police car with lights flashing. And another, oh, this one's an unmarked car, with lights flashing behind that. And then another police car... and then an unmarked police van... and then another couple of police cars go by. And then finally the motor cycle leaves the intersection and drives on in the same direction that the rest of them just went in. I'm guessing that's one police car for every 2 runners. How does a group that small rate such an extravagance of police presence?

Oh, that's why: the runners ARE police. They have a banner in front of them - very colourful, says police, and um, something they are running for. Well, that's nice of them, to run for something that the casual observer can't read on their banner. I'm sure it's something worthwhile... I just don't know if it's worth 10 police cars and 2 motor cycles.

There are many running groups in Vancouver. You typically see 2 or 3 a day in and around downtown Vancouver. But most of them are on their own when it comes to traffic. They stop for red lights and run on the sidewalks, not down the middle of the road like that group did.

So how can an average running group get a police escort? Maybe every group just needs to have a member that is part of the police force. Or maybe they just need a banner to cary in front of the group. Or maybe they really don't want all the flashing lights when they're running, and it's not worth the effort to have people staring at them as they run slowly. It does look a bit like a funeral procession... ok, scratch that idea.

Is that my picture?

2009-01-23T12:14:00.000-08:00

Oh look! Schmap has included one of my photos of Vancouver's West End on their website.

It's the picture of rainbow flags if anyone wants to wander through the link on the right side of this page to see it and other photos of Vancouver.

Am I hallucinating or is this an illusion or am I delusional?

2009-01-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

I've notice recently that a lot of medications warn of hallucinations as one of the possible side effects of taking them. Am I hallucinating a huge increase in seeing this warning? Or are the warnings an illusion that I haven't actually read on all the labels - just on one? Or is this really a conspiracy by aliens trying to fool us into thinking they aren't actually here, it's just our medications that are tricking us into thinking we see them.

A definition of hallucination from a medical dictionary:

Hallucinations are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions. These sensory impressions are generated by the mind rather than by any external stimuli, and may be seen, heard, felt, and even smelled or tasted.

Some interesting boundaries around this and related word definitions:

Hallucination: a sensory perception without a source in the external world.
* I taste strawberries.
* Wow man, that elephant has been sitting there for days now.

Illusion: a mistaken or false interpretation of a real sensory experience.
* That's not water, that's ice.
* The wind is talking to me.

Delusion: a false belief that a person maintains in spite of evidence to the contrary and the fact that very few others believe them.
* I'm going to go on the next UFO to Jupiter. I have a ticket.
* No, the world never changes and you never have to rethink any of your ideas.

So are all those tiny little black flies just in my head - or is this place just really dusty - or have they been flying over the text on the medication labels when I've been reading them just to make me think I'm hallucinating, so I won't catch on to their evil plans?

What is that sound?

2009-01-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

It's been foggy here in downtown Vancouver for about a week now. It sometimes clears for an hour or two at a time, and the fog shifts in heavy and light pockets around buildings, but we've mostly just been socked-in. This has led to many weird sounds!

Just after midnight one night we were being kept awake by someone pounding plastic buckets. When I got up to find out what was happening I saw a man in the loading docs of the building across the alley from us pounding at these buckets - probably to empty them. I yelled at him to stop the noise - and he heard me! I don't have a booming voice and he was half a dozen stories below me! He said something like sorry, and I heard him! It was like we were in the same room!

We are very close to the water in the Straight of Georgia and Coal Harbour which has many ships sailing into it. We've heard fog horns sounding many times... but there have been many times that we've noticed that we don't hear any fog horns! I'm sure they've been going almost constantly for a week now but we don't always hear them.

There seems to be more police around during this fog - which makes sense, when you can't see more than a block in front of you, you know people can be doing illegal things almost anywhere - and probably are. The sirens from the police cars are either incredibly LOUD or tiny little sounds even when they speed by!

Fog is cool (downright cold, actually) and it really distorts sound.

I've been surfing around the web looking at fog related items. It seems that fog is quite the subject to study for people interested in sound. I just gotta say, wow. I grew up on the prairies so ocean related weather is fascinating for me.

This is a neat link - Open Source Audio has recordings of fog horns on Ferries going through Howe Sound from Bowen Island.

How many English words are there for precipitation?

2009-01-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

The snow has finally gone away from Vancouver's West End! Three Cheers for the warmer weather! It's amazing how many people are swearing they will never complain about rain again... at least for a few days anyway (of course that lasts as long as the average new year's resolution, we do love to complain about the weather). So how many different ways can weather forecasters describe precipitation? This is the list I've come up with so far:

• accumulation
• blizzard
• blowing snow
• cloudburst
• deluge
• downpour
• drizzle
• electrical storm
• endless rain
• flood
• flurries
• fog
• freezing drizzle
• freezing rain
• gale
• hurricane
• ice pellets
• light rain
• lightning storm
• maelstrom
• mist
• monsoon
• pouring
• precipitation
• rain
• rain showers
• rainfall
• raining buckets
• raining cats & dogs
• rainstorm
• relentless rain
• severe thunderstorm
• showers
• sleet
• slush
• snow
• snow dump
• snow showers
• snow squall
• snowfall
• sprinkle
• storm
• storm surge
• thunderstorm
• torrent

Do Yeti do Yoga?

2009-01-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched and episode of "Destination: Truth" on TV and saw a cast of a Yeti footprint from Nepal. You can see a picture of this on the cryptomundo website.

My question is, does this Yeti do Yoga? If he does, he has very good Yoga posture.

In Yoga, stability of the feet and hands is encouraged by the instruction to lift your toes or fingers and place them on the ground one at a time a splayed position so your feet or hands cover as much surface as possible. The Yeti footprint is very large, and the toes are splayed very well for good Yoga posture.

Check out this fun website that has pictures of a plush Yeti toy positioned in Yoga poses!

So is that really the footprint of a Yeti? These footprints are often dismissed as bear paw prints, but If you look at bear feet there is the possibility that they could splay out those toes, but I think it's unlikely a bear would (unless they were deep into Yoga as well). See the grizzlybay website for an image of a bear paw.

I think the investigation into Yeti should include the question of do they do Yoga. Would those Yeti toes really be that wide apart if the splaying wasn't intentional? And it would be easier to find them if you caught them during Shivasana.

Does anyone want some toast?

2009-01-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Talkie Toaster on YouTube

Are there some good video shots of the winter solstice?

2008-12-31T19:18:00.000-08:00

It does make for a dull celebration if the sun doesn't come out on the days of the winter solstice. The sun didn't come out in Vancouver this year for the 3 or 4 days around the shortest day of the year. Oddly enough, it was snowing, not raining as usual this year, but there was still no sun, no shadows.

But we don't have any ancient monuments in the Vancouver area - that I know of - that show amazing sights when the angle of the sun is just right as sun rises on the solstice. In other areas of the world there are many monuments that relate to the winter solstice. So in this age of video cell-phones and YouTube are people donating video to the world of the sun rising on the winter solstice on ancient monuments?

The 5000 year old mound at Newgrange in Ireland has a webcast of the event. This year they didn't get sun for the solstice, so they "incorporated clips from the 2007 webcast into the 2008 webcast". That's a bit of a cheat, but it's fascinating to watch.

2,000 people gather around Stonehenge for the winter solstice to see the sun shine on the monument and cast it's shadows. This year, that was a bit of a bust because it was cloudy there as well. (Ten times the number of people gather at Stonehenge for the sumer solstice, but that marks the time when the days start getting shorter, a bit of a bummer, and you're a bit of a wimp if you make it to the summer solstice and not the winter solstice.) Check out some of the celebrations on YouTube.

But beyond that, there are very few videos of winter solstice at ancient monuments around the world. Is there any way to encourage people to video these events and share them? In the future I will be keeping my eyes open for opportunities while surfing to suggest those lucky enough to be close to ancient monuments to take some time to video them.

Will Vancouver run out of yogurt?

2008-12-24T15:54:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago we saw on the news a tragedy of major proportions: a tractor-trailer truck loaded with (gasp!) yogurt overturned in a ditch outside Vancouver. The snow we never have, but for some reason have a overwhelmingly huge amount of this year, is to blame. The driver wasn't hurt, and no other vehicle got damaged, but the loss of yogurt to Vancouverites is a frightful thought for many people.

Will there be panic in the stores as people search empty shelves for the milky delight?

If people hear a rumour of a store that has a stock of yogurt, will the store be overrun with hungry granola munchers who need the silky liquid to mix with the grains to create a complete meal?

Will people just stop getting up in the morning because their breakfast food is just not there for them? Will they skip the morning yoga classes? Will the sushi bars have to extend hours so "last call" is pushed back for people to drown their yogurt-losses in sushi?

The answer is of course not.

In Vancouver we have developed a huge network of sources of yogurt. When one source of supply is interrupted another one can be used to cover the deficit. This is something we take very seriously here.

Silly.

How badly do we want to photograph Snow Geese?

2008-12-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

At this time of the year there are snow geese in the Vancouver area, but they don't stay around for long, so photographing them can only be done for a short time. We are getting quite into taking pictures of birds, so this sounds like a challenge we need to pursue. But should we?

It is very cold out there right now. There is snow on the ground, so it's difficult to drive safely. The birds are typically found in fields - last year many schools had to keep the children inside because the school grounds were covered in birds. But the fields they like are way outside Vancouver in the suburbs, so that means driving.

We were at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary a couple of days ago, but the birds were not. We did see some flocks of large white birds that were probably the snow geese while we were driving to the sanctuary, but there were no snow geese in the sanctuary, so we missed the opportunity to photograph them that day. On the way home we may have seen a flock flying back where we had just come from, but we weren't sure, so we decided not to go on a wild goose chase.

So now we have to decide how much more effort we will go to for photos of these birds... it is cold out there, but we didn't get any pictures last year, do we wait until next year? That's pretty long term planning for us! And if we get some pictures this year, will we have to get better pictures next year? Such pressure from these migratory birds!

This could be the makings of a multi-year wild goose chase!

What can you buy for 50 cents?

2008-12-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

Interestingly, there is no easy key stroke to get the cent symbol anymore. Maybe that was just on typewriters.

So you're probably saying there is nothing you can buy for 50 cents... but there is something very valuable that provides for many minutes of enjoyment. It's bird seed!

We went to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary on Tuesday. It was a frigid -6 degrees celsius (yes, in Vancouver that's too damned cold and no one is used to it) and there was snow on the ground (which also doesn't usually happen in or around Vancouver) but it was sunny and it's a great time of the year to take photos of birds. So we braved the cold to take some photos. Because it is winter and it's very hard for birds to find food under the snow, we opted to get a couple of bags of bird seed at the entrance gate. It was 50 cents a bag!

When we got the bird seed the woman at the entrance said the birds would be happy to see us because very few people had been there in this weather. The mix of seed was good for the birds right now, so they could use the food and we were sure it was all good for them. Typically we don't get bird seed because it's not a great idea to make wild birds dependent on humans. Unfortunately, that's why the birds are at the sanctuary, so they already are dependent.

We saw many little sparrows and chickadees, the ubiquitous mallards, coots, and pintails, and 3 sandhill cranes! The sandhill cranes were almost as tall as me! They are graceful grey birds that introduced themselves by walking on water - the frozen water in one of the ponds. After a great photo shoot they flew off and we followed them. They were near some handy benches, so we got the bird seed out and had a wonderful time feeding the cranes (and some ducks too). The cranes have long thin beaks and very good aim to collect the bird seeds on the ground. So we took even more pictures.

It was good for the birds, and good for us too. So that's what 50 cents will buy.

What is that white stuff?

2008-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's snow. Yes, we're in Canada, so we should know all about this. But we're in Vancouver!

When we moved to Vancouver 10 years ago it was fascinating to watch the snow removal efforts of people here. They actually moved the snow into the middle of the streets! That way it melted faster. It was guaranteed to rain soon after the snow had finished landing, and it would all be gone in a matter of a couple of hours.

Yesterday it started snowing in the afternoon and it kept accumulating. The snow is still here now, the next evening, and will likely be here for a few more days. This is just not right.

Of course there are compensations, we live at the top of a rather steep hill, and our windows face the right direction for viewing this hill. The entertainment value of watching people attempt to drive up the hill lasts for quite a while. Just some clues for the clueless:

1 - When driving in new snow, use the busy, most travelled street, not the back alley! The best surface you can get is the travelled street.
2 - Slow and steady works. Spinning your tires in a blind effort to go as fast as your tires will spin wastes gas, makes ice under your tires, and will not get you anywhere quickly. Those cars that are going slowly are actually...going somewhere, unlike those with spinning wheels.
3 - Park the car on the side of the road if you're going to give up on it and walk away from it. Abandoned cars in the middle of the road are only good for bumper-car games.
4 - Stay home when it snows if you can. It's the smart thing to do, and you don't want to die of stupidity.

What does 'oversharing' mean?

2008-12-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

Oooooo, Webster's New World Dictionary has chosen their Word of the Year and it's "oversharing". It means "to divulge excessive personal information". Been there, sat through that, wondered how to politely escape from it.

It happens on buses. Some people like to talk to bus drivers as if they were bar tenders. This means there is way too much detail given about the person's life to the bus driver and everyone else within hearing distance. Maybe getting off the bus one stop early is a good idea today.

It happens in drug stores on weekday mornings. And you know the conversations in the drug store are going to be about health issues... it makes that product on the shelf way over there extremely interesting all of a sudden. I wonder if that's how they sell a lot of products in drug stores, they put the visually inviting products in strategic areas so people can edge away from other's conversations politely.

Oversharing is also at an almost epidemic level on the Internet. This very interesting article from the New York Times describes the experience of a blogging-addict, for lack of a better term (warning, it's a long article). I've been wondering how many people are actually hitting the wall and feeling that they are oversharing their thoughts and feelings with the world. If it's the word of the year, maybe it's a substantial number of people. Interesting.

Is running with a musical instrument safe?

2008-12-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

"Don't run with scissors!" Was definitely something you learned as a young child. (I hope, for your sake.)

But how about running with other objects... like tubas, flutes or drums? Those could be dangerous as well - even though it's far more entertaining for onlookers, so there's got to be an embarrassment factor in there too!

The Vancouver Santa Clause Parade went off on Sunday in sunny skies and all! We live next to the start of the parade route. No, we didn't go out to see it, but we lived it for a few hours. Starting at about noon, we were woken up (hey, it's Sunday, we sleep in) by a set of drummers - about 10 of them - warming up in our back alley. They found an acoustically great place to make lots of noise in the loading bay / garbage area of the restaurant building next to us. So we were drummed out of bed.

And then the other bands in the parade started warming up - apparently we are living in the band practice area. In the alley, on the streets, everywhere you can stuff a marching band to warm up, there were marching bands. Do you know how many marching bands are in your average parade? LOTS.

The funny part was when one of the bands was a bit late getting into line to join the parade! Runners holding - and trying not to hit themselves with - wind instruments, followed by these poor guys carrying the tubas and drums. It was like a wrestling match! I bet on the instruments! Too bad it wasn't the bagpipers, now those instruments would have an unfair advantage!

Is that disapproval or admiration?

2008-12-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

On December 5 diamonds valued at 85 million euros were stolen from a Paris retail store. From the description of the heist in this article it almost sounds like the police are admiring the work of the thieves. They describe the heist as "meticulously planned" "the biggest jewelry heist yet in France" and the thieves as "major pros".

They then go on to describe the market they expect the thieves to sell the diamonds at as a "new El Dorado for traffickers", which conjures up visions of legendary markets of wealth.

The writer of the article definitely was on an admiration kick. The store that was robbed was given a good write-up as well, it "specialises in ultra-luxury jewelry" and sells to royalty (both rulers and pop stars). And then recent record breaking or unique robberies in Europe were numerated.

It seems as if a really good heist of ultra-expensive items from the very rich is something to be admired.

Is painting in the dark with a flashlight good?

2008-12-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

OK, so they are working into December to finish painting the outside of our condo building, which can be considered nice because they may actually finish this year. (It's already been a year and a half since they started.) BUT is it good that they are painting in the dark? Is it good that it's past 5 pm and they are still painting? The sun went down about an hour ago.

The building has gone through stages of men redoing the edges of all the windows, replacing tiles on open balconies (to the exact same colour tiles, just a bit bigger - why?) to painting the beige bits (with more beige paint, maybe a bit lighter, but essentially the same colour). And it's all been annoying as hell due to the construction debris that is everywhere (don't park your car near this building unless you want dents), the scaffolding which makes the place look terrible, and the bloody noisy, bad mouthed construction workers with the bad taste in music constantly outside our windows.

We have many paint spots on our windows already. I shudder to think what these men are doing to the windows in the dark. Is there any chance of ever having clean windows again?

What's over there?

2008-12-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

It's not a deep philosophical question, but it's an energizing question that gets you off your butt to go exploring.

If it wasn't for that question, would any European have discovered North America? What about South America? What's over there? And Australia, what's over there then?

Would you ever find that great new restaurant or the coffee shop with the best views to sit and have coffee in without that question?

If it wasn't for that question, would everyone convince themselves that where they are is "good enough" and they never need to move again? And isn't "never need to move again" the definition of death?

Some questionnaire developers want to know the attitude of the responders, so they ask questions about your attitude towards change "Are you a change seeker or do you like things to stay the same?". In truth the answer is, of course, "It depends" on the situation. The orbit of the planet - yes, that would be a good thing to stay the same, we just don't want to know what would happen if the planet stopped moving. Changing newspaper boxes so you have one big one instead of a dozen little different colored ones all over the sidewalk - yes, you could change that and life would go on, be less cluttered, yup, change that.

But if they asked "Does the question 'What's over there?' get you interested in seeking out the answer?" that is much easier to answer, and may give them a better idea about the attitude of their responders. It would be easier to get rid of the "dead wood" that way, wouldn't it? Knuck, knuck, ooh, I like that one.

I think this has got to be one of my favourite questions. A whole world of possibilities are open to you when you ask this question.

Has anyone seen my screwdriver?

2008-11-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

We are finally putting our books back into the second bedroom after the flood that made us frantically move them all out 2 months ago. We have a lot of books, so we needed more shelves and this was an appropriate time to add to our collection, so we needed to put together more shelves before beginning the long slow process of re-shelving the books.

The big stumbling block to this plan was a missing screwdriver. It wasn't where it should be, and it doesn't come when called.

Apparently we're not the only ones missing some tools that seem a bit out of reach. The astronauts on the space station have also lost some tools. During a space walk last week a tool bag deftly escaped from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. It floated off into the vacuum of space never to be seen again. Except now it's the latest challenge for amateur astronomers.

Find the tool bag. If you have a powerful telescope, an accurate watch, and can point the telescope in the right direction, there are instructions on the web on how to see the escaped tool bag in orbit. See this news article.

Typical humans, anywhere they go they misplace their screwdrivers. No shelves going up in the space station now, they won't be able to grab a good book and a cup of tea and get comfortable.

Does anyone hear that knocking?

2008-11-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

So I'm just sitting at my desk in my home office, working on my computer, when I hear this knocking. It's a metal sound. Doesn't sound like it's coming from inside. It must be something outside.

I look out the window and I don't see anybody. But there is this large metal container that the construction workers are using to put their equipment in. I hear more knocking. Oh damn, one of them has been locked in the metal box. Now who do I phone to get someone with a key to let the guy out?

As I'm going through the list of possible people to phone I realize that there is no business name or phone number on the metal box. I could phone the office downstairs, our building has 24 hour security, but they do walk around the building sometimes making them hard to find, and they don't have the key. I could phone the police, but they don't have a key. I could phone the fire department, hey, now there are people with some heavy metal busting equipment...

And then I see a construction guy come and open the metal box and let his coworker out. They seem to be joking about it, so I guess no harm was done.

Oh well, it would have been more fun to get the fire department in on this. Bummer.

Why are they digging deeper in that hole?

2008-11-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

I was walking along Georgia Street today between Thurlow and Bute, just past the new Shangri-La Hotel which is set to open in January when I heard several shrill warning whistles. A few seconds later there was a boom. It was more of a base-note that you feel rather than a loud noise that you hear. And then I heard one more shrill whistle, which would be the all-clear whistle. They were blasting in the hole in the ground that was going to be the foundation of a new Ritz Carleton. But there isn't going to be a new building there.

Part of the impact of the current global financial crisis is that construction has been halted or abandoned on new buildings. In downtown Vancouver the hole in the ground that was to be the foundation of a Ritz Carleton hotel / apartment building has all but been abandoned. The huge signs with the great pictures of the planned building are gone. No company name is displayed anywhere near the site.

So why are people still digging deeper in that hole? Shouldn't they be filling it up so no one falls in while the financial crisis continues and nothing is being built?

Some "news" on the web suggested that the construction was stopped because they needed to make changes to the parking garage design. Uhuh, that would be what was going in that hole, but I don't think that's what is happening. The derelict building that was there before the construction was started was your basic rich-person's graffiti - a partly-built building that was never completed and just abandoned to be an eye-sore. Maybe this is just a more insane and dangerous version of rich-people graffiti, a hole where people can fall into and die rather than spray paint and squat in.

It's fall in Vancouver now, with the coming rain maybe this will be the biggest puddle on the planet, and they're going for a Guinness World Record!

What is the future of questions?

2008-11-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

So as just a random thought I decided to google on "questions". I got about 861 million results.

The top result was a link for a Twenty Questions toy - that would be a paid link, and not too interesting.

The second result was a link to Wikipedia, not much of a surprize, but boy was that a dreary Wikipedia entry. I was expecting a dissertation on the Socratic method but it was only briefly mentioned.

The third result was a link to asnwerbag.com where people ask questions - not very interesting ones from my quick wander through - and other people answer these questions - not experts in any particular subject, just people. The answers were just about as interesting as the questions.

The rest of the results on the first page were discussion questions for people learning English as a second language, job interview questions, advice on how to ask questions to technical people (them being only illusionary humans), and an intriguing FAQ from the American Internal Revenue Agency. This means the number of googles on the IRS FAQ list must be incredibly huge for the page to rank that high in google results.

The other interesting part of the google result was "Searches related to:" area which included a suggested search for "answers". That search resulted in only 389 million results. So there are at least twice as many hits for "questions" as there are for "answers". I think there's a life lesson in there somewhere.

And just to compound the feeling that there are more questions than answers in life, the fourth result in the list was for "Google Answers" the text for this hit started out: "We're sorry, but Google Answers has been retired, and is no longer accepting..." Well, that's us told.

Did it bounce or did it sink?

2008-11-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

When you have an email address for someone (that you haven't sent an email to in a long time) and you try to use it and it doesn't work... did it bounce because the email address doesn't exist anymore? Or did the owner of the email address tag you as a spammer to get rid of you? Did your message sink into the ether never to be seen by anyone?

How do you tell? How can I find out?

I don't recall pegging them as spammers... but they claim the email address doesn't work anymore. I have been trying to get rid of the slush, so I might have tagged them as a spammer. They've used another email avenue to contact me, but I don't really feel like responding using that one.

So I could tag one of my own email addresses as a spammer in one of my other accounts (I have 6 email addresses and counting now... I don't want to go on about it, they just mushroomed, and are a current source of clutter in my life.) But I don't want any of my emails being pegged as a spammer anywhere. But I don't really know what happens when your address has been pegged as a spammer. How much do I want to find out?

Well, I guess the real question is, do I want to respond to this person who sends only yearly Xmas spam - part of the message being "I'm too busy to read any of your email, so don't send me any email replies from this Xmas greeting. You bastards." OK, so the bastards part isn't explicitly stated, but it is implied.

Well, when I put it that way, why am I even bothering to think about it? If I did peg them as a spammer: Sink baby, sink. If they typed the wrong address: YP (your problem)

What does the status evaluation "5 by 5" mean?

2008-11-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

It's a term used by the pilot in Aliens right before the small landing craft is launched from the interstellar mother ship (in the 2nd Alien movie). It's also a term used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the Faith character uses it a lot, but no one else knows what it means.

I've found the answer to this one! It is a way of describing the quality of sound in communications. The first number is for the strength of the signal, and the second number is the clarity of the signal. 5 is the best rating for each, so it means "excellent strength and perfect clarity".

The question then becomes, does that have anything to do with the movie or the TV show?

No one is left on the interstellar mother ship in Aliens to communicate with the people in the landing craft, everyone is in the same ship. They could turn around and talk to each other in person. The landing ship does drop off a big tank with most of the people in it and then flies away from them, but they were not testing the communications between the two of those vehicles.

There is no testing of any equipment for sound or other abilities on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think the Faith character was just quoting from the Aliens movie because "5 by 5" sounds cool.

I think the Aliens movie uses "5 by 5" just because it sounds cool too.

Pondering questions of "what does that mean" can be fun, but don't expect deeply philosophical answers.

Can we get rid of daylight savings time?

2008-11-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

We did the "fall back" portion of daylight savings time last weekend. So on Sunday 2 am became 1 am and we got an extra hour of sleep.

And then we had traffic chaos while people tried to deal with reseting their internal clocks to match the new time.

And then people came to appointments an hour earlier than they should have because they didn't know it was the time change weekend, and had to waste an hour of their lives waiting.

And then we found out just how early the sun went down when it was 5 pm and all of a sudden it was dark outside.

In Canada we've changed the dates when this infernal daylight savings "fall forwards" and "spring ahead" will happen. We "fall" later and will "spring" earlier. This is because the 'mericans have changed when they reset their clocks, and we all know they will never understand what time it is in Canada (if any of them really care) if we don't change with them. It's the younger sibling being bullied syndrome.

But I was so enjoying having the days get slowly shorter! It was an easy transition into winter that way - almost a natural change that the body could handle. Working with the planet instead of fighting to control the ultimately uncontrollable.

The spring shift is always the more chaotic of the two changes. From traffic chaos to more heart attacks, springing ahead is worse than falling back. See this article for more from a Swedish study on that subject: Norwich Bulletin Article

Theoretically, daylight savings time is supposed to save energy costs, but most studies find this is really not the case. See this newspaper article: Star Tribune Article

I think we should get rid of the idea entirely and skip the spring time shift and the fall time shift. Our health is at risk. The entire country's health is at risk - except for Saskatchewan, where they are smart enough not to bother doing the time shift. We need to learn from Saskatchewan - not something people often say, but it's true.

Why are so many people wearing berets?

2008-11-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting fashion statement to say the least. A beret on the head identifies you as either an artist with a healthy ego, a little old lady who crochets a lot, or a mime. And there are dozens of berets being worn in Vancouver right now. (I'm hoping they are mostly artists... the mime idea kind of scares me.)

But why is this fashion statement being made? These hats are not water-proof. Most of them will look awful if they get water stains on them. Many of them are crochet hats with lots of holes - the parts that are not holes are very absorbent wool that will stay wet for hours.

The Vancouver Writer's and Readers Festival - that I volunteered at again this year - was crowded with many beret covered heads. A large portion of the audience are want-to-be writers, so it wasn't that odd to see - that was the artists with healthy egos.

But I've seen many more people wearing berets out on the street after the festival wrapped up last weekend. In the rain. Yes, the rain is back in Vancouver. We expect it to stop in April - or March if we're lucky - until then we expect rain most every day. The only beret that will keep your head dry in this rain is a shower cap. I'm gonna look closer at these hats....

Does anyone have a pen?

2008-11-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

My spouse and I attended a few of the events at the Vancouver International Writer's and Reader's Festival this year. It was great to watch a few authors read from their books - and then have on-stage discussions afterwards or answer audience questions.

We even purchased a couple of books and had the authors sign them. Ooh, my first signed book, I was quite thrilled!

So the authors had pens to sign their books... but the audience members were given surveys to fill out, and do you think anyone in the audience had a pen? The audience is made up of mostly wanna-be writers, but no pen was in sight. Going to a writers festival without a pen is quite ironic.

It seems odd to think about it now, but with computers taking over the planet, why would anyone cary a pen? It's about as anachronistic as wearing a watch, rather than using your cell phone as a time keeping device. It's odd how the everyday of a decade ago is a foreign concept now.

Can a 9th century German ghost understand current English?

2008-10-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's a ghoulish time this halloween, little children are all dressed up as super heros and princesses. Little adults are dressed up as bums and hookers. It's amazing how our hopes in life dive so very far in so little time.

And on TV there is a veritable avalanche of programs with people looking for ghosts and trying to get them on film or audio tape. These TV programs typically involve a group of people - some psychics, some TV show hosts, some skeptics - asking "If there's any ghost that wants to talk to us please let your presence be known." There is no real rationale behind why any ghost would want to respond to these odd people who are doing a one-time visit to disturb the dead. I'm sure they don't get any commercial funding in the afterlife for making appearances on TV programs. But it is nice to see the different castles and areas of the world, and it is fun to watch the people freak themselves out in dark, scary places.

The one thing I'm not so sure about is, do any of these ghosts understand current English? Have they been doing community-centre learning programs to learn modern English? I've just seen a TV program stalking a ghost from the 9th Century AD - a German ghost. All the people were speaking modern English. One of the psychics had a strong Scottish accent. Oddly enough, they didn't get any evidence of the ghost.

Are there many ghosts of babel fish - the ultimate universal translator that sticks in your ear and translates everything for you - and does each human ghost get one when they agree to haunt a place? If not... where do they learn their English so they can respond to the TV investigators?

Who thought self-flushing toilets on boats was a good idea?

2008-10-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

The thing about a boat is, it travels on water. The thing about water is, it moves. Whey you are walking around on a boat - even a very large BC Ferries boat - you are occasionally tipped and rolled to the side. Even when you are sitting down - you are occasionally rolled to the side.

The thing about self-flushing toilets is, they flush on their own. The thing about toilets flushing on their own is, they do it when they sense movement off the toilet.

If you put these two ideas together... you get self-flushing toilets doing their flushing whenever a big wave moves the person sitting on the toilet to the side.

Who thought this was a good idea? I remain confused on this one.

Why are there so many SORRY busses?

2008-10-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

In Vancouver we have a lot of busses. They are typically stuffed with people and are a very useful, if crowded, way to get around the city. But why is the most prominent feature of these busses the SORRY message that shows when the bus is not in service?

When a bus is in service the number and name of the route is displayed on the electronic sign on the top of the front window. This is always done in mixed upper and lower case letters, so it's not an obtrusive sign - just a very useful one.

Sometimes when there is a sports game on, like a hockey game, the sign occasionally flashes Go Team Go. The message goes back to the number and name of the route fairly quickly, so the cheer does not interrupt or confuse potential riders that much.

Typing anything in all capital letters is considered rude. It's called "shouting" at your readers. It's almost as bad as using all lower case letters and actually expecting people to go through the pain of trying to read what you didn't put enough effort into writing to properly capitalize. Life is too short to bother with text written in all lower case and too stressful already without having text shout at you.

So the busses that are not in service shout the fact out. You can't miss these shouting busses, even if you weren't waiting for one. And if you were waiting for one, it's rather disheartening to be passed by so many screaming SORRY ones! It's nice to know when a bus is not in service, but do they have to be so noisy about it?

Where should I put this spoon?

2008-10-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Now, before I get too many suggestions for anatomically questionable places to put a spoon, let me give some background on where this question came from. I was on a BC Ferry last weekend, and wanted some yogurt to munch, so I asked my spouse to get some while I watched our stuff. He returned with some yummy yogurt and a spoon - not just a disposable plastic spoon, a real spoon that you put in a dishwasher and use again. Which was great for the eating of the yogurt, but then the question came up: Where should I put this spoon so that someone will take it to the dishwasher, wash it, and put it out to be used again?

This type of question is popping up more often these days. With the idea of reuse really hitting the mainstream, you can often find the more environmentally responsible options. When I go to Starbucks I typically ask for my coffee "for here" which gets me a real live ceramic cup to drink it from. This is wonderful, it makes the drinking more enjoyable, guilt free, and I think the coffee actually tastes better in a ceramic mug too. But then where do you put the empty cup? I do hate leaving debris on the table when I leave - that being akin to littering - but I don't see an easy option of where to put the cup.

It's not as bad as a story I heard from a friend who was on a beach in Portugal with families with babies all around. One mother actually changed her child's diaper, put the dirty diaper on the sand, and then packed everything else up and made to leave. The diaper was still on the sandy beach, so my friend encouraged her to pick up the diaper so it wouldn't still be there when she visited the beach the next time. The mother was pissed-off at the suggestion, but the father had enough sense to look embarrassed and picked up the diaper before leaving. So how often did the mother leave dirty diapers anywhere she happened to be sitting at the time? The poor small human child probably had its excrement dumped freely all over Portugal. The karma of the infant was probably damaged to a point where it would take years to recover. The planet would be cleaner and more sanitary without that child. What was it's mother thinking?

So my spouse did manage to find the right place to put the dirty spoon before we got off the Ferry, but it did take a bit of hunting. And I am still leaving the Starbucks mugs on the tables, but the people working there are pretty good at clearing the tables. Maybe the child will grow up to be a doctor and help mankind. Hopefully the "where should I put this" question will be an easier one to answer as more environmentally sound practices become common place.

Isn't it nice dealing with people who have pride in their work?

2008-10-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

I had to go have blood taken for tests today and it's always something I hate doing because people have great difficulty finding my veins. I typically have a pink tinge to my skin, but my body's attitude is generally: "Yes, there is blood in here. No, you can't have any of it." So when I find someone who can find the vein on the first shot without leaving a huge bruise, I'm very relieved. I'm sure I will never see them at the same lab again, it's only the ones who have problems who seem to stick around in the same job for extended periods of time, but I take my happiness when I can.

Today I actually had a lab technician who found the vein without a problem! Celebrations began almost immediately. I asked if she thought they would ever get one of the machines that use blue light to light up veins in people to make the job easier. She said she expected hospitals could make good use of those, but in the drop-in labs they don't really need it "Because we're all so good!"

Wow, actual pride in her work! That is so rare, and so incredibly welcome! Someone who does her job well, and takes pride in doing it well. Life is good.

Why did the pigeon cross the road?

2008-10-05T20:49:00.001-07:00

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

The question I have is: Why are those pigeons on the road in the middle of traffic? And if they are crossing the road, why are they moving in odd circles rather than going from one side to the other? And if they are pigeons - which they are - why are they walking instead of flying across the road?

These are the pigeons who usually sit on the power lines that cross the road at the corner just up the hill from us. They are the ones that are known to aim their droppings so that they hit as many people as possible - we have washed off plenty. So they don't seem to be dumb birds.

The weather may have changed rather drastically at the beginning October here in the rain forest (oh yeah, rain forest, I remember that, it was such a sunny summer I almost forgot) but the pigeons knew about this. They've been through this before, the rain comes, it gets cooler, been here, done that. It's fall, it's now going to rain until March.

But the pigeons seem to have, on mass, lost their common bird sense about not walking across roads and into traffic. As we drive onto the ramp down to our parking lot, 3 pigeons decide to walk right under the car! We are going at a crawl and hoping the birds get out of the way of the tires, but why are they walking under the car instead of flying away? A quick look back confirms that no one was hit, but that was a tense drive for us! Are the pigeons messing with our minds?

Has mother nature gotten bored with the using obvious climate changes to wake us up to the peril that faces us and she's now making the birds do wacky things to get us to pay attention? Or have the pigeons upped their consciousness to a point where all of the pigeons have been watching us long enough to get a few ideas on how to make the monkeys freak out?

I don't think it's a random occurrence, I think the pigeons are playing with our minds. Why did the pigeon cross the road? To play with our minds!

Is using a clock as a calculator odd?

2008-10-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

This week my volunteer work helping in the offices of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival included the task of adding up hours. This is because all volunteers can request a free ticket, and these tickets are given out in a lottery of all tickets available, but the volunteer must work at least 12 hours to be eligible to request a ticket.

So the festival needs to know who is working enough time to get a ticket. So I was adding up everyone's scheduled hours. I was using a clock and a piece of paper to scribble on to do the math. The next volunteer who came in for the afternoon shift thought that was very odd. She said there was a calculator in the desk drawer. I find those annoying when adding up time.

So is it odd to use the clock as a calculator? As a visual key it's very useful to count the hours from 9:15 to 11:30 on the clock face (2 1/4), and count 6:30 to 9:45 on the clock face (3 1/4). It's kind of like an abacus. It doesn't really help with the fraction math, and I admit it's been years since I've added 3/4 + 3/4 + 1/2 and the like, but it was a good mental work out.

I admit it's close to using your fingers to do addition, but I find it very useful.

I wondered if other people do the same as I do. So I did some googling. There are abacus and clock combination apparatus that you can buy. Actually, many of them. So I think this is a valid and popular way to add up time. I guess it's not that odd. Google is a very comforting tool for making life make sense.

What do I want to watch?

2008-09-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

On the weekend the spouse was busy putting together some of his favourite photos to create a book (potentially quite a nice book, updates to follow). So he said "watch whatever you want on the TV, but not a pirate movie". OK, so maybe I've played those DVDs too much lately, but what do I want to watch?

I want to watch something with adventure, humour, fun, physical action... no, actually I want to be IN something with all those things. I want movies to take the next step and be 3 dimensional, and I want to be involved in them, not just watching them on a flat screen.

We have a Wii game console, it's a great tool for having fun because you typically stand while playing a game, and your arms swing and you can actually work up a sweat. Unlike other game consoles, your thumbs are not the only part of your body getting exercise when you play with the Wii. I want the same kind of interaction with movies. I want to do sword fights and swim underwater and be inside the movie.

So how long do we have to wait for this to happen? The Star Trek series was said to inspire the iPod and other MP3 players into existence. When will something inspire enough smart people to create the technology to put people inside a movie rather than in a chair watching a flat screen?

Sometimes progress is just too slow.

What is that mouse doing?

2008-09-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Dude. If you want a freaky experience, try using a wireless mouse when you're half asleep - or half pickled.

The neat thing about a wireless mouse is, it's wireless. The neater thing is, you really can't tell which way is up and which way is down when the mouse is upside down!

Try using the wireless mouse with the buttons at the base of your palm and the other end under your fingers. The pointer does really freaky things, and it's really hard to click that thing!

Don't drink and surf... the mouse will be your undoing!

What's another term for overly ambitious?

2008-09-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Dehumidifying Vancouver

So we have a flood in our apartment building and for the 3rd time, yes, the water is on our floor and in the walls of our apartment. So we have the disaster recovery dudes come in, rip up carpets, drill holes in kitchen cabinet toe kicks, put 3 industrial strength fans in a bedroom and the kitchen. and put a huge dehumidifier in the bedroom. The disaster recovery guys are typically fun guys, they cheerfully rip up your home and warn you to keep the windows closed, or else the dehumidifier won't work - it will "dehumidify Vancouver" before it will take the water out of your room if you leave the window open.

Now there's a term! Dehumidify Vancouver. The mere thought brings to mind many other fun overly ambitious terms like:

* boiling the ocean
* solves all our problems
* hole in one
* self-appraisal
* honest feedback
* getting your ducks in a row
* business intelligence
* help hotline
* herding cats

Is there something trying to escape from the walls of my apartment condominium building?

2008-09-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Maybe I jinxed it. A couple of days ago I wrote about the labyrinth of duct work in my apartment building and the new access doors on the 9th floor. I figured a small Minotaur had moved in because they would feel right at home in the maze. I also talked about the perplexing maze of pipes that run through this building. The noise that comes from these pipes had me thinking there were small versions of mythical sea monsters living in there. And yesterday we had another flood. So maybe we do have monsters and they are having epic battles in our walls.

The flood started on the 9th floor and the water flowed down to a point where the cupboards above the kitchen sink on the 1st floor had a waterfall coming out of them. It took a while for the investigators to find the leak. All of the apartments from the 8th floor down now have holes in their walls. The investigators started looking on the 2nd floor and moved up through all the apartments until they found the source. It was the 9th floor. The floor plan on the 10th floor is different. The amazing mess of piping and duct work on the change-over is the culprit.

So yet again we have holes in our walls, water on the floor, people from our property management company who want to get restorers in here as soon as possible to fix the damage, and an unresponsive Strata Council who will have to pay for it and will delay the entire process for months. Yes, this has happened to us 3 times now, we know how bad the Strata Council is, we are expecting the worst.

But have the monsters managed to escape? Or do they enjoy the pain and frustration of the human inhabitants of this building when we have a flood? If they enjoy floods, an apartment condominium in Vancouver is The Place To Be.

Why are people queueing behind me?

2008-09-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

We typically do food shopping at Granville Island Public Market on the weekends after we get as much as we can from our West End Farmer's Market. This weekend it was especially busy at Granville Island. There were a lot of people, mostly milling about, a few were purchasing items, but there were a lot of tourists taking pictures of us doing our grocery shopping, as there oddly often are.

But why were people constantly forming queues behind me?

When we do our shopping in the Public Market my spouse and I typically discus and decide on what needs to be purchased at the various vendors. Then the spouse typically requests the items and handles the transaction and I move to the side to get out of the way.

This weekend I did my regular getting out of the way maneuver, but I noticed every time I found a place out of the way to stand, I found I was standing in a crowd again. Now it is typical to find ourselves in a crowd when we're together at a vendor discussing what to get... people see others purchasing and they come up to see what all the excitement is about. Or something. But when I'm standing beside a pole, or in the middle of a walking area without any vendors, why would I find myself in a crowd?

Then I figured it out. Everyone is queueing behind me! I'm not standing in a line. There is no one in front of me, but these people are lining up behind me! I was standing outside in front of the bakery, just under the awning to stay out of the rain, and people came and stood in a line behind me! I moved to the side and the crowd milled around and looked confused. Then they slowly dispersed.

There is a whole group of tourists who are queue addicts in Vancouver right now! And they all want to stand behind me. I must look like I'm from around here and must know what I'm lining up for. But I'm not lining up for anything!

This is all I can think up for this odd group behaviour I've observed. Anyone else have any ideas?

Why is shredding paper so enjoyable?

2008-09-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

I'm volunteering once a week to help in the offices of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival and I have to admit my favourite job is shredding paper.

There is something therapeutic about taking small sheets of dead tree with colourful squiggles on them, putting them into a machine that shreds them into smaller pieces of dead tree and then taking them over to the recycle bin and adding them to other pieces of dead trees. It's destructive, and yet, it's going into recycling, so it's not as bad as if it was going to landfill. A not-so guilty pleasure.

The other fun job today was rolling up huge - bigger than me - posters for bus shelter advertisements. You don't realize how big one of those things are until you try to roll them up!

Other than that, not much happened - I didn't even have to take a phone call. Not very exciting, but it may pick up as we get closer to the event.

What is living in the walls of apartment condominium buildings?

2008-09-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Vancouver is a sea of apartment buildings. Most of these buildings contain a large number of privately owned condominium units. And most of these lovely apartments hide a labyrinth of duct work, electrical wiring, and plumbing design done by a certifiable madman.

In our building we've recently had our dryer ducts cleaned. Well, most of us have had our dryer ducts cleaned. But several months after this process started, today they are finishing up the 9th floor. What happened on the 9th floor that caused the act of duct cleaning to take several months? It's the labyrinth. Maybe it's something that's been living in the labyrinth. Maybe we have a small version of the Minotaur living in our walls!

The final solution to removing the Minotaur from the dryer ducts on the 9th floor has involved making holes in the walls in the apartments of the 9th floor. Big holes with new hatches. Permanent doors to give access to the world of the labyrinth beyond the walls. Maybe the Minotaur just thinks this is a home improvement, giving it access to wander about outside the labyrinth.

Why the 9th floor? You may ask. Because the floor plan of the 9th floor is not the same as the floor plan on the 10th floor. There are 4 apartments on the 9th floor and 3 on the 10th floor. The floor plans change again a couple of times as you go up the building, but the problem is only on this one change-over point. The Minotaur obviously doesn't like heights.

We had to find a water shut off point in our main bathroom a couple of weeks ago. It was well hidden under the vanity, behind the drawers, covered by a metal plate that was screwed on, 2 handles surrounded by pink insulation. And this is all a very long way from the shower stall and bathtub. Just how the pipes get from there to the shower we will never know! So what's been living in that maze? Is it the refuge of sea monsters that have had to find new homes because all the divers with side-scanners and sea monster investigators with cameras are making too much noise in their regular environment? At night there are some very odd noises that come out of our pipes. Maybe it's the sea monsters.

Since we live on the 6th floor, maybe the Minotaur on the 9th floor is battling with the sea monsters from our floor at night. I'm sure the plumbing on the 9th floor has its own special problems as well - maybe it is connected to the labyrinth.

This is, of course, all wild speculation on my part... but noises in the night do make the mind wander.

Why is transferring a call so difficult?

2008-09-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Every office has a different phone system, and every phone system is different, but no matter where you are, transferring a call is always fraught with peril.

This time I think I've run into the ultimate in silliness. Transferring a call with this phone system means you need to hit transfer, 3 numbers, # and 6... and the extension you want to transfer the call to! Er, well, that's a probably... I don't think I've mastered that yet, I may have sent someone off into oblivion! Why do the designers of phone systems make it so difficult?

This morning I started this year's round of volunteering with the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. I'm working in the office doing reception on Thursdays. There's not much to do just yet, the festival happens October 21-26 and tickets go on sale to the public next Monday, so they're still warming up.

So far I've done some envelope addressing and stuffing, some shredding, and some alphabetization... and I've handled one call... badly. Most calls go directly to the right people, but if the caller doesn't know the extension, I need to pick up the call and transfer it. I so wish another call had come in so I could have redeemed myself! Everyone in the office says they have problems with the phone system too, so I shouldn't feel bad, but it is annoying.

Next Thursday I will need to study those instructions again! I am always amazed at the ability of receptionists to handle transferring phone calls - maybe the designers of the phone systems are receptionists who like amazing others with their skill and calm management of phone calls. I'll bet that's why it's so difficult, it's a badge of honour if you can figure it out!

Does anyone really want to know how you are when they ask "How are you?"?

2008-09-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Normally I assume that the answer to this is "No!" and I don't bother going into any detail beyond "Great!" or "Happy now that the sun is out."

But today my pharmacist asked "How have you been?" when I was picking up a prescription. If anyone on the planet really wants to know the answer, I figure it would be him, so I tested that idea. I told him I had a really bad cold last week, but I'm better now. He said "Oh, that's too bad." I told him it had been a year since I've had a cold and I had a hard time remembering which cold symptom relievers worked for me last year. A pharmacist sells these cold symptom relievers, and probably makes a lot of money from them. He could have had something useful to say. He didn't. I think this is odd.

And no, I don't ask people "How are you?" as a general rule myself. It's a question that makes people very uncomfortable. They may not be well, and don't want to think about it. They may think I'm not being genuine and don't really want to know. Or they may tell me their life's story. Any result makes the question a bad one to ask.

And even more frightening is someone who asks and really wants the 2 hour answer!

The answer to "How are you?" is definitely NOT 42, so I'll leave this question unasked.

Is that an off-leash child run?

2008-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Living in Vancouver's West End, we typically go to the farmer's market on Saturdays in the West End. The market is held on a street beside a small park / school yard. In the small park is a new area, a fenced-off area without grass. This is the off-leash dog run. The dogs are kept inside by the fences, so their humans can let them off their leashes and the dogs have a most enjoyable time socializing with other dogs without any fear that they will run away.

This off-leash area is a hit with the dogs. Many of them lead their humans to the gates and look up expectantly - even if the humans claim "You were just in there! We have to go home now!" Watching these dogs having such a great time is also very enjoyable for all the humans in and around the dog run.

This weekend we didn't make it to the Saturday market, so we had to go with our backup plan: the farmer's market in Kitsilano on Sunday morning. It's the same vendors, but the customers are a completely different group of people. We try to avoid this, but sometimes we just can't do a Saturday.

So I was sitting on a bench waiting for the spouse to get back from the first drop-off trip to the car and I noticed something I found really odd. The market is held in a school parking lot, in the field to the south of the market there seemed to be a off-leash child run.

The setup was the same as the off-leash dog run in the West End, fences to keep close-to-the-ground off-leash beings inside, some apparatus for them to climb on, a variety of adult humans around the edges having conversations among themselves, and about as much noise and running and colliding as you can see in the West End dog run. But the off-leash beings were definitely human. Is this an off-leash child run?

So does this mean the dogs are being treated like children? Or does this mean the children are being treated like dogs?

Will this cold ever end?

2008-09-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

It takes about 7 to 10 days. Well, that's not too long.

Get plenty of rest. Always good advice, I'd love to do that.

Drink plenty of liquids. Sure, I can do that easily.

But I have a cold, and I don't want to take 7 to 10 days to get over this.

Getting plenty of rest isn't really a decision I have to make, I couldn't do anything energetic if I wanted to.

Drinking plenty of liquids means using the washroom frequently, that's the room with the big mirror so I can see my nose turning bright red from all the blowing and dark circles growing under my eyes because all the rest I'm getting isn't high quality rest.

There are "cold remedies" in drug stores. Entire aisles devoted to them. These provide the cold struck individual with an amazing array of syrups, lozenges, drinks, inhalers and pills promising to make you feel better. But none of them make the cold go away. Most of them make the average cold linger longer than the typical 10 days. Many of them give you a sugar rush - so much for that "plenty of rest" instruction. And all of them will give you that "I'm very medicated" feeling.

Why can't someone cure the common cold?

Is it a conspiracy among the makers of "cold remedies" to keep people staring at the aisle of syrups, lozenges, drinks, inhalers and pills? That's a rather far-out theory, but when you have a cold, you begin to think this is possible.

Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yeah. I feel really strong. So we shouldn't cure the common cold because that would make us weaklings. I vote for weakness. Can I see a show of hands with tissues in them voting for that?

And somehow the worst part is that I haven't had a cold for about a year now, so I forgot how bad it really is, and I don't remember which of the "cold remedies" actually made me feel better. So I start all over again, staring at the aisle of lotions and potions, trying to define my symptoms, and remember which ones worked last time. How's that for a "glass half empty" point of view? Well, at least there is a glass. That's the best you get when you have a cold.

Can I throw dirt and gobs of paint on your windows?

2008-08-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Construction dudes have been working on the outside of my apartment building for more than a year now. Apparently mostly glass walls start leaking after 15 years or so - go figure. The construction has meant we've had dirty windows for more than a year now, removing all the benefit of having walls that are mostly windows.

The most aggravating moment happened about 2 days ago. After drilling, hammering, globing out sealant around all the windows, and making a general mess, they've started painting... ooh, could they be getting near the end? I'm afraid to hope. But they aren't being any more careful with the paint than they were with anything else they've done.

At the end of the day, there was a huge gob of paint on the window. The window that we look out of most often. The window that faces West, where the sun makes the shadow of the gob of paint so incredibly obvious. The window most likely to have paint burn a hole in it from the sun beating down on it. I guess it had to be that one, didn't it?

But this story doesn't end like that! I am stunned, thrilled, and amazed that today the construction workers have removed most of the gob of paint off the window!!!

I've always wanted to open a window to ask these construction dudes if I could have their home addresses, so I could come to their homes and throw dirt and paint on their windows. They all seemed to care nothing about the people living in the building they were working on. But I guess some of them do understand that this is our home, and there are humans living here, it's not just a bunch of windows they are working on.

So my faith in human nature has recovered somewhat, and I may not refer to these guys with the derogatory name I've been using for a while for them. This is a happy day.

Did I really need security slippers?

2008-08-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

Fall is coming and it's time to bring out the warm slippers and sweaters again. I needed some new slippers, and I was in a store that had slippers, and they cost next to nothing because they were last year's slippers. So I have some new slippers.

But my new slippers do more than just keep my feet warm - they are security slippers.

The slippers have a grippy sole. Very security conscious, I won't be slipping anywhere. But they grip so much... you can hear me coming when I'm walking on the hardwood floors in the hallways and kitchen of my apartment. Think of space boot suction cups. Hear the squish? That's me. Echo location to pinpoint my existence in space, just what I needed.

I've also been told that the heels have added security features. There is a bit of elastic around the opening with a little pull to tighten it behind the ankle. This pull glows in the dark. Actually, if there is a light source, it flashes in the light when I walk. In case you didn't hear me coming, that flashing light will help you locate me when I'm going.

So now I'm easy to spot, I can't sneak up on anyone, or quietly sneak away without being noticed. And I feel my existence in space. There is no doubt that I'm here, no chance of fading into the background. Yep, I'm here. I have bright blue slippers (they didn't look that bright in the store) that are little security pods for my feet.

Did I really need this? Was I playing a joke on myself? Does this mean I'm going to get other new slippers as a gift in the near future? Hmm.

Are clouds darker when the sun is out?

2008-08-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

It's getting late in the summer and the rains are slowly, but surely, coming back to Vancouver. So when it's sunny here now, there are often big dark clouds in the sky as well. It may just be a trick of the light, or an emotional reaction, but are these clouds darker than the average clouds we get in the winter?

Sometimes when you can see the clouds in the distance between buildings they are very dark and have little white clouds in front of them. If you didn't know better, you'd think the mountains were getting closer. Of course, if the mountains were sneaking up on you your other senses, beyond just vision, would be screaming out warning signs and shaking your very existence into a new view of the world. It's very unlikely that the mountains are stalking you.

If every cloud has a silver lining... the silver needs polishing, dear. These clouds are dark and angry.

But when the sun goes behind one of the clouds, the clouds don't seem as dark. Is this just nature's way of showing you that the upcoming months of clouds and rain are not nearly as scary as they could be if the sun was always coming out? Are we supposed to be happy about the days of flood-fill gray with no detail in the sky?

I think the clouds are darker when it's sunny. I also think I think way too much about the rain that is coming. Could it be that after 10 years of living in Vancouver the rain is getting to me? Hmm, I guess that's better than having mountains sneaking up on you when you don't expect it, she writes, looking over her shoulder.

Are they old enough to drink?

2008-08-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, here's a question that makes me feel old!

We just spent the weekend up in Whistler - the spouse was running up the mountain, and I was there to be bored stiff.

The huge number of adrenaline junkies who were there hooting and hollering were expected, but there were also so many party-hardy people there that looked like children! Not doing anything other than having a good time and apparently a lot of alcohol, there was nothing particularly wrong with this... but they all looked so young.

Yes, I've come to that point in life where I could be the mother of people who can legally drink... and I'm oh, so glad I'm not!

So maybe that's the real question for which the answer is 42: When will you feel old?

Why is there an elephant in my dream?

2008-08-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm having a bit of a sleep-in one morning and I start having a dream. I'm on a bus going somewhere, I'm not sure where, and then I decide to get off the bus because I really didn't want to go where the bus is going. Once off the bus, I'm in a suburban neighborhood, I don't know where. I realize that was a bloody stupid thing to do, because I don't know where I am and now I'm stuck there. So I start walking down the sidewalk, and then this little (only as tall as me) baby elephant rushes up to me and tells me to move off the sidewalk. He head-butts me off the sidewalk and onto some grass.

The elephant was my height, still had some of the fluffy tufts of hair that baby elephants have... and spoke English.

So now that I'm fully awake, I realize that I'm very cold and I need to go get another blanket.

I find it extremely odd that my body has found a way to stop a dream and wake me up by simply making my dreams go odd past the limit of credulity. "That doesn't make any sense" is a feeling I've had many times when I've awoken after dreaming.

So is it just me? Do I need to do dream research on the meaning of baby elephants that appear in dreams... speaking English? Am I going a bit odd? Do I really need to just relax and let dreams go to odd places, because that's what dreams are supposed to do?

The thing is... every time I wake up from a dream because it didn't make sense, there is a good reason for waking up. Either I forgot to do something, and I remember it when I wake up, or I'm cold and need more blankets, or I'm sleeping in an awkward position and need to move, or something like that.

I just don't know if this elephant is a good thing, or something to worry about.

I guess I'll have to sleep on that.

Did you remember to bring the...?

2008-08-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

It's taken ages to get everything together and you're outside your apartment waiting for the elevator now. Then someone says "Did you remember to bring the ..."

Now the elevator door opens and there's someone in the elevator. So you either:
* decide we really didn't need that anyway and go into the elevator
* split up and arrange to meet downstairs at the place you usually meet up when this happens
* apologize for making the elevator stop and everyone goes back into the apartment ... thus starting over again: "Did you remember to bring the ..."

On the outside of my apartment building there is a lot of construction work going on. This means that there are at least 5 construction platforms being used by the construction workers to go up and down the outside of the building. They are like little, slow elevators. They've been doing this for months, getting onto years now. Up and down. Slowly. The men on these little elevators wreak of body odor and cancer stick smoke and it all gets blown into our apartment. Day after day.

It's become quite obvious that the "Did you remember to bring the ..." problem is a plague on these construction workers. First thing in the morning, you hear the little motors going and the bumping on the outside wall begins. The babbling of radio programs gets louder as the platforms get closer to our floor, then fades as the platform goes higher. The stench of body odor and cancer stick smoke makes everyone inside wrinkle their noses in disgust. A few minutes later, the motors get louder again, the radio blabber gets louder, the smell gets worse. Then it fades again as they reach the ground. Half an hour later and yes, they are back, once again with the motor, the radio, the stench. They forgot to bring something.

It's annoying when you're going out for the day and have to go back to get something. But wouldn't you have a checklist if you spent your days going up and down on slow little elevators for a living? Wouldn't the aggravation of having to go back down to get a forgotten tool just drive you nuts?

Did I mention that the building is about 30 stories tall? Urgh.

Battle Plant Update: The Mint Wins In The End

2008-08-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

So after a hard fought battle between left-over Mint plant seeds and left-over Bachelor Button plant seeds, the Mint has finally taken over the pot.

Back in April when I planted these seeds I was expecting the Mint to take over and squeeze out the Bachelor Buttons very quickly. I was surprised when I did get some flowers from the Bachelor Buttons, and the Mint has not taken over that side of the pot yet. The Bachelor Buttons have since given up due to the climate - there is a lot of construction being done on the outside of my appartment building, and the construction workers have to keep closing the windows of the balcony... thus making an oven out of my balcony. So I will remove the sad Bachelor Buttons from the pot soon... when we get a cloudy day.

All in all an interesting experiment with plant seeds that didn't seem to be viable, but I gave them a chance anyway. And I'm looking forward to more Mint Tea. I wonder what I will plant next Spring...

Isn't talking on your cell while driving rude?

2008-08-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

So, ignoring the fact that talking on the phone while you are driving strikes terror into the hearts of pedestrians on the sidewalks around you, and flares anger from the other drivers around you as you do such a bad job of driving... isn't it rather rude?

Putting aside the possibility that it really is All About You...

1. Are you really supposed to mount the curb while parallel parking?
2. Are bumpers really supposed to be used to hit the cars ahead and behind your parking spot when you are parking your car?
3. Is the terrified passenger in your car ever going to want a ride from you again?
4. If you are talking to someone while driving, shouldn't it be your passenger - or do they really enjoy having to hear half of someone else's phone conversation?
5. Does the person on the other end of the phone conversation really only deserve a small part of your attention?
6. Is talking to you really a pain in the ass for the person you are talking to on the phone - so they aren't really paying attention to you either?
7. Have you noticed that no one wants to talk to you when you don't catch them on your phone? Is that the only way you can pin them down to talk?

Hints are flying at you, lets hope they don't hit you like that telephone pole that just jumped out in front of you...

Why is the sky over BC a milky-white?

2008-08-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

Allergies making you cough and sniffle? Is your throat dry, making it hard to talk? It could be smoke from forest fires in California - even if you live in BC.

The more than 2,000 wildfires burning in California are now being made worse by strong winds, and these winds are blowing smoke northwards as far up as BC. It's one planet, so what happens "over there" is just as important as what happens "here".

It's quite the lesson in global thinking. Nature's way of hitting you over the head with an idea, giving you a headache.

Do corn husks grow the other direction in South America?

2008-08-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

On the weekend we acquired our first corn of the season from our local farmer's market. It was picked that morning, and we had it for lunch, so it was almost the sweetest corn-on-the-cob imaginable - it could only get better if we were sitting in the field it grew in and pulling it off the plant and popping it into our mouths right there!

While I was taking the leaves off from around the corn cob I noticed a definite pattern. If you hold the cob at the stem, with the small end facing up, the leaves grow around the corn cob to the left in a clockwise manner. Taking the leafs off one at a time starting at the left and working to the right works well. Taking the leafs off one at a time starting at the right will give you a big knot of leaves that is tough to pull off.

From what I've read, the petals of a daisy grow in a similar pattern to the corn husks. So playing "he loves me, he loves me not" with a daisy is much easier if you pluck the petals off in a counter-clockwise progression around the flower - if the flower is from north of the equator. But if the daisy has grown in an area south of the equator, the petals grow in the other direction!

It's a memorable part of listening to travelers who have been south of the equator, to hear them describe how the flushed water in a toilet swirls in the opposite direction to what we are used to in the northern hemisphere.

It seems that more than just the water swirls in the other direction.

If the daisy grows in the other direction, maybe other plants do too. I haven't found evidence for corn growing in the other direction yet, but apparently the swirly patterns on butterfly wings swirl in the other direction, and the ozone layer swirls differently at the different poles... so maybe swirling is an integral part of that planet thing.

What? No spreadsheet application on my MacBook?

2008-07-31T17:19:00.000-07:00

After searching my MacBook, and then googling on the subject, I've discovered that my new computer does not have a spreadsheet application on it! Not even a light-weight one with minimal functions.

I may be in the minority, but I do have several spreadsheets I use and add to on a monthly basis, so I do need this type of application. I think since I have a few spreadsheets of 60+ connected sheets on the go that I can call myself a power user of spreadsheets. So a light-weight spreadsheet is not for me, but I'm not paying for MSExcel one more time...

So I've loaded Open Office (OOo) onto my MacBook. I was a bit worried after looking at several posts in blogs - was this still in Beta or not? I'm still not sure - but it has been working fine! It did have a bit of a hiccup the first time it tried to open a 60+ sheet spreadsheet for me, but the second time I tried it I had no problems... no satisfying reasons for starting the second time but not the first, but it works now, so I'm wary of it, but I can work with this.

I haven't tried other spreadsheet applications that work on the Mac, but I used OOo on my old Windows system as well, so there is no learning curve for me here. The transition to the Mac world has so far been easier than I expected.

Battle Plant Update: Tea

2008-07-29T14:50:00.001-07:00

A fitting update for my 42nd post, a nice cup of tea with mint flavour added by steeping some of my mint leaves in hot water and adding them to tea from my favourite blend!

There are still some flowers coming out from the Bachelor Buttons, and now I've been able to have some mint added to my tea. Not bad for having a pot with no plans for growing anything in it and old seeds that didn't do anything last year, so may not have even sprouted! I think I'll try this kind of random planting again!

Why are old road names used for new roads when the old roads still exist?

2008-07-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

In Vancouver - well, in a suburb way outside of Vancouver, but kind-of attached - is Dewdney Trunk Road. A few blocks away there is another Dewdney Trunk Road. They both go in the same general direction, but one of them gets lost in the middle of a field and suddenly becomes 132 Avenue - and the other one starts where the first one ends off - but about 13 blocks south of it on what would be 119 Avenue if they had stuck to numbers! What vintage of BC Bud were the city planners smoking when they named these streets?

And Google Maps will give you a meandering route that uses both of the Dewdney Trunk Roads liberally to get to Golden Ears Provincial Park in Maple Ridge and waste a lot of gas and time doing it.

According to the early morning traffic news, Dewdney Trunk Road is a very important road that broadcasters keep their eye on when giving their audience advice on roads to take. But which one are they talking about?

"Well, everyone knows that one's the old Dewdney Trunk Road, and the other is the new one." Yeah, that helps. Did anyone ever consider naming one of them "old" or "new". Or better yet, there are 26 letters in the alphabet, if you put a single ounce of creativity into your life, you can use any combination of any of these 26 letters to create a new name for a new road!!! (They can't use the numbers because someone put the new road between 119 and 120 and there is no 119-and-a-half street. That was good planning too.)

Did anyone ever consider making the go lights green and the stop lights a different shade of green, just because everyone knows which one is which by their relative position on a set of traffic lights? Of course not!

Do city planners ever think that a person who hasn't lived somewhere for the past 40 years may want to travel through an area? Did they consider that naming a new road with the same name of a road about 13 blocks away might just be a tad confusing? Have they never heard of using new names for new roads?

The dearth of creativity in city planning is appalling.

What input device should I use?

2008-07-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

My new MacBook is much easier to work with than I expected it to be! But now I have so many choices of keyboard and mouse pointers, what should I do?

My wrist started hurting after using the touch pad for the mouse movements, so I have bought a bluetooth mouse from Logitech. When I turned the mouse on I clicked on the symbol in the upper right hand corner of the screen (with the touchpad) that had the same symbol as on the mouse, the MacBook found the mouse. It was a brief period of hand shaking, and the mouse was off and running. No need for any opening of CDs for the software etc. etc.

When I put my new MacBook in my regular work area, I have a keyboard that I use for my PCs at an ergonomically good position. I plugged it in to one of the USB ports on the MacBook. The MacBook saw this as a foreign object that was likely a keyboard and I was guided though about a 10 second process to identify the keys to the left and right of the two shift keys and viola, my MacBook will work with my keyboard!

(OK, previous post about not having a spelling correction facility in this TextEdit program was wrong... I just used it with the right-mouse button on an underlined-in-red word and got the expected variety of possible words I meant to use... I guess the unique 3 finger mechanics of using the touchpad for the right button click was what had confused me... I am a right mouse button addict, and I guess Apple is new to the concept.)

So now the problem is... there are so many other interesting keys on the MacBook, but should I be exploring them, or doing something useful? Would exploring those keys actually be "doing something useful"?

From the looks of it, the "command" key on the MacBook is just like the flying windows key on the PC keyboard ... which I have dug out and removed due to it's annoying way of booting me out of video games when I accidentally hit it. This may be a concern.

Hmm, yes, there are some other interesting keys I've never seen before, but the MacBook is now up at a good viewing height, not a keyboard height. I guess this means a retreat to the comfy chair where I can use it in my lap! This is an exciting thing for me because my old Dell laptop has a touchy keyboard that doesn't work when you move the laptop off it's flat desktop surface... not really a laptop at all anymore, part of the reason I'm abandoning it!

Such an adventure!

Is Google indexing my life?

2008-07-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I wanted to make cornmeal puffs. They are something I've made before, and a great way to use up left-over egg whites. But I couldn't remember where the recipe was. I keep most of my favorite recipes on my "for fun" website when I've modified them, but not this one. So I checked the indexes of the recipe books I thought it was most likely to be in, but I couldn't find it.

After a short time searching through my recipe books I gave up and did a google. First I searched on "corn puffs" and got several thousand results. Then I searched on "cornmeal puffs" and got 74 results, which was getting better. So I searched on "cornmeal puffs" and "egg whites" and got 1 result!

Getting back 1 result in Google is a rare thing indeed, but it gets even more odd. The recipe that google found was a Google Books result, a scanned-in version of a book page. The recipe looked very familiar. I looked at the image of the book cover. The book looked very familiar. I have that book. I went to my bookshelf and found that book. I looked up the page I was seeing on the screen in my book, and there was my recipe! Google found the recipe in my book!

This is just too good! Has Google gone into my personal bookshelf and indexed all my recipes? Can I use it as an index to my own paper-based books? I've often wanted the ability to use an electronic search facility when reading a book - when I've forgotten who a character is and want to find where they were introduced or what city they were in.

Is this just an aberration, or will Google be indexing the rest of my life soon?

Is a power outage a good thing or a bad thing?

2008-07-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

Due to a underground fire in downtown Vancouver yesterday the power to most of the business district was out yesterday and continues to be out today. So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

From a business point of view, productivity of workers is zero unless they can work from home. From a retail business point of view profits will suffer - but if they have insurance, maybe not. But from an individual's point of view, on a gorgeous sunny summer day, I'm thinking this is really a good thing.

Yesterday all of the traffic lights in the affected area were out. That meant many police officers found themselves directing traffic all day. But today there are portable generators on almost every intersection powering the lights so traffic is back to normal - just a bit noisier due to the generators humming. So that's not good, but it's not that bad either, it's interesting to find out that portable generators are enough to run the traffic lights in a downtown this size.

Workers from the power company are underground replacing more than a dozen power lines that were burnt in the fire, it's quite an education to see on TV news reports just how many power lines there are down there. Education is always a good thing. It's important for people to think about how much their lives depend upon things they don't see because they are underground - and to realize their lives won't end just because the power is out. There is a difference between necessity and convenience.

Some of the office buildings are completely closed and there are chains on the doors because the elevators won't work, so even if the daylight is enough for workers to do work in their offices, they can't get into the building. So that means a lot of people must have used the stairs to get out yesterday. That would suck. But why are people even bothering to try to get in today? That's a wake-up call that should make them think.

Oh look, over there, it's water, it's park, it's beach! So if you can't work from home... you've won a day off, and it's a great one! Celebrate!

I was walking through the affected area earlier today (on my way to a courier shop that was not in the outage area) and I actually found an open coffee shop! It was on the edge of the area that was hit, so they were open, and according to them, very busy yesterday. They were not as busy today, and when asked, the woman behind the counter said "It depends on how you look at it" when asked if she was happy the power outage didn't affect them. She looked like she longed for the beach. Words of wisdom in a coffee shop, the right place for them really.

I won't trivialize the inconvenience to hotels and apartment buildings in the area without power - for them it's a really bad thing, but for the office workers who have the day off today, take time to enjoy the bad thing that can be a good thing "depending on how you look at it".

Battle Plant Update: Flowers!

2008-07-12T15:11:00.001-07:00

An early winner in Battle Plant! The Bachelor Buttons may look a bit short and the leaves are a bit stressed, but there are flowers!

I don't remember the Bachelor Buttons I grew last year actually flowering, so the left-over seeds that I planted this year just in case something would grow have done quite well!

The mint is getting a bit more bushy as well, but it hasn't taken over the pot and I do have flowers, so this is actually working quite well. I hope to report a surge in the mint so I can make some mint tea in the near future, I will wait and see.

Is this a MacBook I see before me?

2008-07-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

Why, yes, it is. I have acquired a new toy! After working since 1982 almost exclusively with Microsoft's Windows operating system (with a few blissful years on IBM's OS/2 and a foray into Sun's Unix, Red Hat Linux and then Suse Linux, and VM and MVS just to hit the high spots) I have purchased my first Mac.

I have worked with Macs before, in the 1980s. ( Yes, I'm old, thus this blog exploring questions in my 42nd year on the planet.) Back then I found Macs extremely aggravating. It wasn't the boxy shape, it wasn't the funky clicking of the keyboard, but it was the most annoying little icon of a smiling computer that smiled out at me every time I went to the computer lab at my University that turned me off Macs. That may seem odd - it does to me - but the touchy-feely, "don't be afraid", kid-gloves approach was just too condescending for me to live with.

So now I'm exploring this new Mac - I've had it for 2 days now and no smiley faces yet, so we're doing well. Some interesting mental shifts have had to be made. Instead of picking a file and then right-mouse-button clicking to "open with" whatever program I felt like using at the time as I did on Windows I've decided to give all the native Mac applications a go. I've found I was actually getting quite manic about choosing which program to open on Windose - I was flipping back and forth between Opera and Firefox - Excel and Open Office Calc - MSWord and Open Office Writer and Notepad - it was all getting quite focussed on the application rather than what I wanted to do with it.

So I'm using TextEdit to write up a draft of this post - I didn't feel like using the blogger editing tool today. TextEdit seems to be a step up from Notepad, it does flag a word that it thinks is spelt wrong, but I don't think it has a correction facility - nope, I can't find one.

I just found out the Mac comes with a dictionary - with Canadian spellings for me Yay! (even though TextEdit thinks humour is spelt wrong, silly thing, and the dictionary gives the definition of humor for the word humour, it does still have humour there) - and it also has a thesaurus and a link to Wikipedia in the dictionary application. Now that was good thinking on someone's part! It's a giant leap from MSWord that guesses about your spelling and often "corrects" misspelling by using the wrong word - homonyms are deadly for MSWord. I like having a dictionary an easy click away, rather than a program doing guessing at which word I meant to use!

So far, so good. I like this Mac. It's not smiling, but I am, that's good. Now I'm off to explore some more applications...

Why would anyone import pie?

2008-07-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

It used to be that we could get some locally grown or packaged food at Capers Community Market in Vancouver. Now that it has been taken over by Whole Foods, an American chain store, it has mostly American, Chinese or Argentinian food. So much for the local food movement.

But they have gone too far now. Last weekend we were looking around their baked goods area, and we were dumbstruck. Apple Pie IMPORTED from the US. We swung around slightly to view the kitchen in Capers on Robson. On a second floor in the Northwest corner they have a full industrial kitchen. Steps away. So close you could spit on it, and we almost felt like it.

Oranges and lemons don't grow in B.C., so they need to be imported. Vanilla and coffee don't grow in B.C., so they need to be imported. Apples DO grow in B.C. so you can get them locally. Pies DO taste better when baked fresh, not when they've been baked, packaged in non-biodegradable plastic, shipped across the border using way too much fuel, and sitting on a shelf waiting for some sap to buy it.

There is no way a pie crust will get better with age and shipping. Even if the apples were superior to the local ones – which they are not – why would anyone buy, and why are these idiots trying to sell, imported pies?

We have greatly reduced the amount of food we buy at Capers now, and are seriously considering giving it a pass altogether. It doesn't make sense anymore. They are mentioned in the book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating but the food they stock now has nothing to do with eating locally. They are going out of their way to import food with no good reason.

Did anyone press the button?

2008-07-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

In Vancouver, and indeed in many places on the planet, we have pedestrian controlled cross-walks. This means a pedestrian can press a button on a post at a corner, and when the timing is appropriate for the greater traffic flow, the motorized traffic will get a red light and the pedestrian is then mostly safe to cross the street without too much fear of being hit by a motorized vehicle. (Note the caveats “mostly” and “too much” are from my advanced years of experience that make me not automatically trust any human in control of a motorized vehicle, you still have to look before you cross.)

Also, we have elevators which are summoned by pressing a button usually found on a panel on the wall beside the elevator doors.

So when do you press the buttons? When you want the light to turn red and the pedestrian sign to light up, or the elevator to come to your floor and the door to open.

That's why it's so much fun to sit and watch people.

I admit I am assuming that everyone is familiar with this button pressing action. But it is so much fun to be sitting at a bus stop watching as people slowly congregate at the corner of a cross roads, waiting for a red light that none of them have requested by pressing the button. It's not just one person who may never have pressed a button and doesn't know about it, but it's 4 corners full of people of various ages, backgrounds, and group sizes, next to 4 different buttons, one on each corner.

Surely one of them must know about pressing the button!

Oh finally, someone presses the button! The light changes and people start moving. Oh relief! I thought they'd all be stuck forever!

So why are people so reluctant to press a button? I think it's from experiences with overly hostile elevator riders.

I have seen people get downright pissed off at strangers because they have come up and pressed the button for the elevator when it has already been pressed. They take it as a personal affront, as if the strangers either didn't acknowledge their existence, or saw them and assumed they were too stupid to press the button themselves. These angry people can then go on and on about the assumed affront for half an hour after they get off the elevator.

Message to the angry people: You know, it's not always about you.

Sometimes people are in the midst of their own thoughts, and just haven't noticed you, you're not Elvis. Sometimes it's hard to see if the light around the button is glowing, or people have vision problems. Sometimes people who are talking are in mid-sentence and the pressing is a tangible note to punctuate something they are saying. But sadly, sometimes people are just like you and need to hit something, the only socially acceptable thing to hit is that little button with the glowing light.

If you walk around downtown Vancouver, or likely in the downtown core of many other cities, you will see homeless people, angry homeless people. These people will curse bad drivers in traffic with a variety of racial slurs, gender-specific insults, and general swears and spitting. They will curse other people who are walking down the same street. They will curse the government, health-care workers, squirrels, anything on the planet actually. But if you look closely, they aren't that much different than the business-suite attired elevator riders who are cursing the people who hit the elevator button. They may smell worse, and are in more danger of falling over their own feet, but the cloud of rage that surrounds them is just like the one around the angry elevator rider.

So relax. It's just a button. Press it if you want to. Don't worry if someone has already pressed it. Don't take it personally if someone else presses it too. You all want the same thing anyway.

And if that's not enough, just remember that you may be providing some very humorous viewing for strangers at the bus stop!

Battle Plant Update: Mushrooms!

2008-07-07T23:26:00.001-07:00

On Friday we found new univited guests in our battle plant pot! Mushrooms!

By Saturday they had, well, mushroomed!

This was an unexpected learning experience... so that's what the term "mushrooming" means. I always though it meant blowing up like a nuclear explosion that resembled a mushroom in shape. Now I see it means growing and poofing at an incredible rate like a mushroom plant - we could almost see them get bigger!

And the next day, they were shriveled and gone, so I removed the carcasses... but they have left a fine dust on the pot and soil which will likely grow into more mushrooms. This could be a problem. I have other plants in other pots that I don't want to be part of this experiment... will I be fighting battle mushroom for the rest of the summer???

Mint vs. Bachelor Buttons: Update!

2008-06-23T10:58:00.001-07:00

In our last look in on Battle Plant, our intrepid plants had been overrun by mold. But being the sturdy - some say weed-like - plants that they are they have survived for another installment of who will take over the pot?

At this point, I can tell that the little plants are the mint, and the tall skinny plants are the bachelor buttons.

In terms of numbers, the mint seems to be winning. In terms of how much room it has taken over in the pot, the bachelor button seems to be winning.

I think the mint will eventually prevail, but will the bachelor button plants flower before they loose the battle? Stay tuned for more Battle Plant installments!

Why is it always the rudest people you meet who complain that everyone is so rude?

2008-06-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

While waiting for a bus a couple of days ago I was in a small crowd at a bus stop. I was trying to pay attention to everything going on in the street and on the sidewalk – more for personal safety than anything else – and I was staying back from people who were walking down the sidewalk as a common-sense courtesy to give them room to move.

A man who was walking down the sidewalk had to push his way a little bit through the crowd a few steps up from where I was because there was no room for him to get by on the sidewalk. One of the people who was in his way and needed a bit of a shove got really annoyed and started saying “That was rude!” and remarking to anyone who looked even remotely like they were listening to her that society was getting really rude – but she waited until he was a block away before starting her speech.

There were about 3 people with canes, and 2 older people waiting to get on the bus. The complaining woman was not one of them, but she got on first.

There are signs on buses saying the seats up front are for handicapped and elderly people. She sat in one of these seats. She was middle aged and had no visible physical handicap.

There were some obviously mentally challenged people getting on the bus. One of them showed the bus driver the wrong pass, and had to dig for the proper bus pass, blocking the way for everyone else getting on. The annoyed woman was telling him that there were people behind him that he was holding up. This did not help his already flustered search for the bus pass, which he showed when he found it – he wasn't trying to fool the bus driver, he just had the wrong card at first – an easy mistake anyone could make.

As the bus trundled down its route almost everyone who got on or off the bus was disdained by the woman who felt the world was getting very rude. It was almost amusing to watch, but it wasn't doing her any good, and she may actually have not been middle-aged, but maybe just old before her time, due to the negative aura that she kept feeding with spite for any other human she saw.

Is it a secret that you can't control other people, you can only control yourself? And that includes your reactions to others and your own outlook on life. If you truly want to be miserable, no one will stop you, but do you really want to take the actions of strangers personally? Did that woman really think it was everyone else who was being rude, and not mostly just her?

Why does no one ask me which way is North?

2008-06-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

I have some nifty hiking sticks, which I use regularly. They help me balance, and they are a great way to start a conversation with strangers. One has a compass in it, but no one ever asks me where North is – or any other compass direction either.

I don't actively start conversations with strangers - I would feel odd doing that - but many people see the hiking sticks and start up a conversation about them with me. It's an odd thing, I rarely go a day without someone starting “the stick conversation” with me.

So have people given up on the age-old path-finding method of always knowing where North is? Or do people already know, and don't need to ask? Or has the proliferation of man-made objects in our world made knowing the basic compass directions unnecessary?

I always have a good idea where North is, but when it's cloudy it's sometimes hard to tell, so I've actually used my compass in urban Vancouver.

I'm curious enough that I may actually ask people about this when they start “the stick conversation” with me. Strangers be warned, I will ask questions back now if you start one with me! :)

Why use air conditioning in your automobile?

2008-06-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, OK, I used to live in Toronto and I know how hot it gets there, so I can understand why everyone in Toronto drives around with their windows up and their air conditioning on. But now I live in Vancouver, where the weather is more moderate, and the air is typically between -5 and +25 degrees Celsius. Never really too cold, and not often too hot.

So why, after about 8 months of rain – constant, daily, day-long, month-long rain – on the first warm sunny day in the spring, were people driving around with their windows up and their air conditioning on???

We were driving on a short vacation on Vancouver Island between Victoria and Parksville (which is just North of Nanaimo) in the middle of May. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we had the windows down, and if we were dogs, we'd have had our heads out the windows. It was fabulous to have a truly warm day. Many of the other automobiles around us had the windows down and smiling people inside, just like us.

But there were other vehicles with the windows rolled up and the regular determined, grumpy looking people inside. It was warm enough they had to have air conditioning on to survive inside the vehicle if the windows were closed. But why? Why didn't they roll down the windows and enjoy the day?

Yes, the Hummer that passed us with rolled-up windows was not a surprise, if you hate the environment enough to drive one of those, why bother to roll down the window, save some gas, and enjoy the day?

But it looked like a lot of people were heading out for a weekend of camping, with their windows rolled up and air-conditioning on. Do they enjoy the sudden rush of fresh air when they arrive at their camp-ground and open their car door that much that they didn't want to contaminate that moment with some fresh air before it on the way up?

Some people looked like they were driving home from work, with their windows rolled up and air-conditioning on. Did they enjoy the climate-controlled - recycled, hasn't been fresh since the building went up - air inside their offices so much they didn't want to spoil that feeling with fresh air on the way home?

It is truly mystifying why humans will put themselves in uncomfortable environments when the alternative is so easy. Roll down the window, take in some fresh air, and enjoy life!

Where is the Vancouver Seawall?

2008-06-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

I live in Vancouver and Vancouver is a tourist spot, and it is now “tourist time” so I'm used to being asked for directions frequently, but today was the first time I was asked where the seawall is. I was on Granville Island so I actually wasn't sure. There is a path around the outside of Granville Island, but it has buildings and a cement factory on one edge which you need to go around. I thought this may be a part of the seawall route, but I wasn't sure.

In actual fact, after a bit of googling, I've now found out that the seawall passes just south of Granville Island and doesn't go into it or around the edge of it!

The seawall in Vancouver is now 22 km long, the newest stretch beside the Olympic Village is now open so there is no longer a break in the middle. The Olympic Village is currently a heavy construction zone with a dozen building cranes working madly at building the village for the year 2010, but most of Vancouver is a construction zone, so it fits in quite well with the surrounding area. I've found a map of the seawall:

Vancouver Seawall Map

And now I know where to direct people to the seawall from Granville Island. I should really carry maps, most summers I do actually. I've found maps useful when giving directions, it's amazing how many people visit a new area without having a map.

How do you make a conference worth the time?

2008-06-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

The typical multi-session, multi-day, yearly conference that I've been to (I've been to about 30 different ones now, on a variety of topics) has about 20% good content, and the rest is marginal sessions, unhappy speakers (or mumblers), and an excuse to drink with salesmen (as if they needed one). But I've just been to a conference that I found much more valuable than average!

So how do you make going to a conference valuable?

The question that really needs to be answered is: Realizing that the sessions of a conference alone are not typically worth the price of admission, what else is there?

The answer is a lot, if you join in and volunteer to help. There are many things that need to be done for a conference, starting with planning and promotion, including registration desk manning, photo capturing, note taking, evaluation collection and ending with clean up. The more of this you do, the more people you will be in contact with. The more people you get to know, the more valuable the experience will be.

I'm not beating a drum from the top of a soap box here, encouraging altruistic actions and giving the road map for world peace, I'm just stating that I've found the answer to something that has bothered me for years. At the conference I just attended I decided to go all out. I put in hours and hours of promotion effort into the conference over a couple of months before it started, and I got so much more out of the conference than I typically do!

The key to meeting people, which is the key to a good conference, is to have a good reason to meet them and have something useful to talk about. And if you must use a buzzword, you are actually “networking” when you do this. Volunteering to help is the best way to make your conference time worth the effort to attend it.

Oh these gems of knowledge you gather as you get older...

So where am I now?

2008-05-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

This is the question I asked myself several times today as I wandered through the SFU Burnaby campus. I think I went through several buildings, but the all looked the same. They WERE all the same. They were all the same 1960s, Cold War, we're expecting a nuclear bomb to explode overhead at any time now, concrete bomb-shelter bunkers.

Someone kindly pointed out a triangle on the wall inside one building that specified N. There are apparently also E, S, and W. Compass points! I thought it was a warning of some chemicals being stored, although I couldn't remember which chemical N was.

And all of the floor tiles were coming loose. And all the displayed art was monochromatic. And I only saw 2 places to get coffee, and they were from the same company (not Starbucks, oddly).

And the millions of stairs!! This campus is openly hostile to people with handicaps who can't do stairs.

Oh how I longed for my old UofA campus. Where you could give people directions by saying “It's the red brick building” or “It's the building with the ornate pillars” or “It's the building that looks like a turtle” or “It's the big yellow building”. You didn't get lost in a sea of gray concrete and stairs at the UofA, every building has it's own character and charm. (And it helps if you're stumbling home after a few drinks to know where you are by the different buildings. Yep, my place is just a few more steps, around the corner from the blue building... so much easier.)

The SFU Burnaby campus is used by a lot of science fiction TV and Movie shows. Those futuristic places where everyone wears gray, no one wears any colour, and even the most far flung places in the universe have millions of damned STAIRS!

I've heard people will either love or hate the SFU Burnaby campus, no neutral positions are taken. I will go with the latter position.

Wouldn't a map of coffee shops on the SFU campus make sense?

2008-05-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm studying a map of the SFU Burnaby map because I will be at a conference there next week – yep, on top of a mountain in the middle of... air, lots of air... we wouldn't want to be distracted by anything interesting now would we?

So I'm looking for a place on campus to sit and have some coffee.

I will be doing a trial run of the route tomorrow morning and, after a long bus ride, I'm going to want some coffee. So I'm looking at various maps from the SFU website – mostly pretty maps, not much useful detail here. I have one map up that has icons for all of the... phones... on campus. Uhuh, I can see students needing phones, those students who don't have cell phones anyway... all 2 of them.

So a useful place on all University campuses to sit and consume coffee while taking in the view is the Student's Union Building (SUB). From a quick search on “Students Union Building” on the SFU website... they don't have one.?!? They are debating whether they need one. Answer: Yes, you do, build one now, join all the other Universities, be normal! So I have to look elsewhere for coffee.

In – or near – a city like Vancouver, wouldn't it make sense to have a map of campus with all of the coffee shops on it? Yes, I am assuming there are such things on the SFU campus. I can't imagine getting a degree without coffee for fuel, I drank mountains of it when I was getting my degree at the UofA.

Instead of the little phone icons, couldn't they replace them with coffee bean icons for all the coffee shops? Wouldn't that be useful?

So I will cross my fingers and go up the mountain tomorrow to see if they have any coffee. Not an expedition I expected to make...

Will Crows chase any bird?

2008-05-24T17:19:00.001-07:00

While we were in Parksville (on the East coast of Vancouver Island) a couple of weeks ago I witnessed a great display of bird flight while sitting on a bench by the beach. A Bald Eagle was being chased by a Crow.

The fight was not that involved – there was no contact between the birds. The Bald Eagle looked a bit bored. The Crow seemed to be having fun. But when they came within a few feet of where I was sitting the sheer size of the Bald Eagle - and those amazing talons!!! - was awesome! This may be one of those fish stories where the fish gets bigger with each telling of the story, but I swear that bird was as big as me!

I didn't get my camera out in time to take a picture, and I'm still kicking myself for that. My spouse has some good pictures of the Bald Eagles we saw on our trip on his Flickr website.

So a couple of days ago I was sitting in a park in downtown Vancouver, close to home, when I saw a miniature version of the same in-flight battle: a Crow was chasing a Seagull. Neither of them were awesome or huge, and again the Crow seemed to be pestering and playing with the Seagull.

So will Crows chase any bird just for the fun of it?

I thought that the Crow in Parksville was trying to scare the Bald Eagle away from the Crow's nest. Bald Eagles are willing to eat anything, including small birds, so it may have been trying to eat Crow. (No, not admitting humiliation, not that kind of eating crow! Eating the little baby birds.)

But maybe not. Maybe the Crow was just pestering the Bald Eagle for exercise. Just chasing another bird because it likes chasing other birds!

Maybe us monkeys, err, sorry, people, make too much of animal behaviour. It may not be all life-and-death struggles. The other animals on this planet may have a sense of play as well.

What would you do with 100 traffic cones?

2008-05-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

You've seen them everywhere. Bright orange traffic cones placed in areas that someone doesn't want you to drive or walk in. Do you ever wish you had your own set of traffic cones?

You could put them in a parking space you particularly like as you left it, so you could get the same spot the next day.

You could put them in your neighbor's parking space because they do such a bad job at parking, you just want to be rid of them for a while.

You could put them in the open field of a local park in a strange circular pattern and claim it was crop-circle aliens annoyed that there were no crops to play with, so they collected traffic cones and brought them to the field.

Or if you were really adventurous, you could block off one lane of the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver, all the way from the South end to just over the hump in the middle of the bridge. And then you could have lunch, on the road, on the hump of the bridge where the view is the best. I swear this is what a group of road workers were doing a couple of days ago. They had at least 100 traffic cones lined up, and at the end of the line of cones were two road-work trucks, and between them: guys having a break, enjoying the view. Traffic was minimal, so it wasn't a big deal, it was just something that made you wonder: Should you be annoyed, or jealous?

What is the difference between a Crow and a Raven?

2008-05-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Two all-black birds, both inhabiting the West coast of North America – the common crow inhabiting all of North America – how can you tell which species you are looking at?

I just stumbled across the answer to that question last weekend!

I was walking in a park in downtown Vancouver about 3 weeks ago and I heard what I thought was someone talking excitedly in a language I didn't recognize. I looked around to see who it was, but there were no people close to me in the park! I followed the voice to a light post. Sitting on top of the light post was a black bird. I stared at the bird, and yes, it was the bird talking! It was all black, so it wasn't a parrot. It had a puffed up throat, which looked odd for a crow. I wondered if it had swallowed something odd that was making the noise, but it seemed to be a happy bird. It was doing quite a good impression of a laughing human actually!

Then last weekend I was reading a book on birds of BC, and I found the answer: I saw a Raven! In downtown Vancouver!

This bird is often found on first-nation totem poles, and it has a long history along the Pacific coast. It is known as the “trickster” bird because it does mimic human speech. And I saw one! I'm jazzed!