Get it out of the way

I was reading through a back issue of Psychology Today recently and in the advice section I cam across the tried and true “letter” from a teen fussing about losing her virginity. What caught my attention was the witty use of language. The supposed letter writer wanted to “lose her virginity” to “get it out of the way”.

I should probably take a moment to explain my skepticism about the letter and response. Does anyone actually write letters about this stuff to advice columnists anymore? Did they ever? Is there someone out there who reads advice columns but has yet to come across several of these responses?

Anyway in this particular response what attracted my attention was the attack on the language used. First the columnist asked why virginity had to be gotten out of the way? What exactly is it in the way of that it needs to be gotten out? And lose it? Something which you will only ever have one of you shouldn’t want to lose, you should want to know exactly what you did with it. If only for future reference.

While the word play was what caught my attention I particularly like the message and I think it applies to a lot more than losing one’s virginity. The essential message is one of being deliberate in one’s actions. Know what you are going to do and why you are going to do it.

Winter's here

The solstice has passed and the days have begun to lengthen. Yet to look around one could be excused if they were getting ready for Halloween.

I bought a new to me winter coat this year, something less action jackson more grown up man-like but I haven't had the chance to wear it. Now I'm wondering if that was $12 wasted?

Yes, I am trying to invoke Murphy's law because I like winter. And I would rather my snowshoes wear out than rust out. Not to mention the PTO snowblower!

Winterization

Another trip up to the and, this time with the keys, and we have completed the winterization. Beatrice and her smaller brethren have had the fuel stabilizers added, the tanks are filled and things are cleaned up, more or less.

A backside windbreak was erected for the hives that leaves working space to continue feeding them throughout the winter. One hive in particular is already on extra rations as they ate pretty much all the syrup we gave them last week (yikes!). The last of the bee stuff has been moved from the tool shed to the bee shed.

I even put the snowblower on Beatrice although so far it's looking like I might have another month of potential bush hogging but i figure it's better to be safe than sorry. If there is a dump of snow I'm ready! Of course since the town dug out our unauthorized entrance across the ditch there is no much need to be blowing snow around this winter.

All but done

Last weekend with some help from the Grandmaster J the bunkie has been made habitable. Although the Boss feels we need to spend more money on the ceiling. so without further ado here is out little, and I do mean little, home away from the big stink:

It's cozy but it's got room enough for two and warm is not a problem. Here is an inside look:

It's actually roomier than it looks.

The walls apparently didn't get to cure completely before the cool weather moved in. When the stove gets it warmed up the last two walls we built sweat quite a bit.But I didn't get a photo of that. Hopefully it won't cause a lasting problem but if it does that's something else we'll have learned!

'tis the season

One positive of the 'Saug is that Christmas is much less disgusting here. December is almost here and, unlike when I lived in Ottawa, I'm not yet sick to death of Christmas lights and Christmas music and Christmas food and Christmas decor and Christmas "deals". There are hints of Christmas, a few houses with lights, the occasional wrapped tree on a car or snippet of music but it's not oppressive.

The Santa Claus parade, now featuring Mrs. Claus (how long before Santa's just the goofy figurehead and she's the dominant figure who makes things happen?), is this weekend so I expect the Christmas push will pick up speed after that but that's fine. I have no problem with a Christmasy December. It's the October creep and day after Halloween blitz that bothers me. Two months of all out Christmas a year is just too much. It's like claiming to be a vegematarian because you only eat meat one day a week.

I guess it's because a lot of the people who live here aren't Christians even only nominally and so they don't feel the pressure to partake in the orgy of consumption that celebrate's the saviour's birth. They have their own observances to make and luckily there is now enough of this diversity in the 'Saug that I don't have to suffer Christmas overload.

Who knows in 10 or 15 years I might want to put up a tree in my own home again?

First of the first!

Yesterday the boss and I bought some gourmet chocolate covered rasins. But we were not just any customer buying any gourmet chocolate covered raisin. These were the first raisins ever produced in Canada from Canadian grapes and we were the first ever customers. They took our picture. Take that Neil Armstrong!

You might be asking where and how we accomplished this monumental leap in human evolution, how two regular folk from eastern Canada managed to advance human progress so far? Well we were on a whirlwind wine tour in the Niagara Region, 4 wineries in 3 hours! The raisins are at Reif Estates if you are interested, also home of the best icewine I've veer tasted. Disclaimer: I'm not an icewine fan as I find them too sweet but this one was good enough to bring home two bottles. http://www.reifwinery.com/wines/Vidal_Icewine_200ml

Found few other wines we really liked, mostly at Caroline Cellars. The wines are only sold at the winery so we had to by them there. Worth the visit if you are ever in the region IMO.

http://www.carolinecellars.com/

We also poked around Niagara-onthe-Lake, a favourite of the Boss, and a few minutes at Fort George. I think I'd like to go back to the fort in the shoulder season, maybe while the Boss is boutiquing. Or maybe that would be too expensive? Anyway the Fort left me with a big question I'm hoping someone can help me with: what do the feng shui people think about having a canon pointed directly at your front entrance?

BTW the gourmet chocolate covered raisins were the best I've ever eaten.

Doing without

For many a long year now I've thought of my microwave as essential. Of the many things I thought I could do without the microwave oven was not one of them. Just too much convenience to go back. And this from someone who eschews those frozen "instant meals" as too little nutrition per dollar spent.

This summer we moved from a too huge house to a human sized house which just served to further illustrate that we have way too much stuff. Way too much. One of the temporary sacrifices I made was to not set up the microwave. The kitchen is full of kitchen stuff. Over full. The dining room is full of boxes, mostly books. The living room is full of furniture and boxes of miscellaneous. In the end there was no surface on which to put our 1984 era microwave so it's just sitting in the garage. I assumed this would be temporary as what kind of freak could survive in 2011 without a microwave? The unibomber maybe? The Amish?

Well it turns out that I haven't missed the microwave enough in the last four months to bother setting it up. Weird. Really weird.

But I guess it shouldn't be. One of the things I learned on the bike tour was that stuff, especially convenience stuff is not something I really missed when it was not around. The one thing that comes to mind as a thing I've missed when it's not available is a BBQ.

You'll just have to trust me

I forgot my camera at home so there are no photos yo upload at the moment but the bunkie is coming along nicely. The roof is on and the windows are almost in. I should have the windows finished and the door hung before I leave tomorrow and maybe even a temporary install of the wood stove. So all is well as the remainder of what I want to do is interior work .

Te Boss discovered a bee supply shop in Tweed so I went over there to day to buy some bottles and had a good chat with the owner operator. He has twelve hives himself and said my winter preparations sound good but recommended I keep feeding them sugar syrup all winter.

The unpredictability of recent winters has caused a lot of problems for the beekeepers. Sometimes winter goes on too long but the worst are the unseasonably warm spells. Apparently when it gets warmish the bees like to get out and stretch their wings etc. and this means they eat a lot more than when it's just continuous bitter cold.

Good to know anyway, I'll bring up some fresh syrup next visit for sure. After all, a man's gotta take of his girls.

OH the bee supplier's link for anyone interested:

http://www.busybeebeekeepingsupplies.ca/

PS: I'm totally jealous of his work shed, which smells like warm beeswax.

Just another, log in the wall

We managed to finish the cordwood walls. With the colder temperatures the curing is going very slowly so I'm just going to hope it doesn't cause problems down the river. The photos don't really show the progress though. Maybe when I take down the frame and tarp to put the roof on. That should be my next visit if it isn't raining. Roof, windows and hang the door.

Once it's all closed in I'll be able to sleep there and hopefully by Christmas I'll have everything finished so we can spend some nice winter nights there. All that will be left is the floor, insulate the ceiling and install the wood stove. The woodstove might be a bit tricky as when we had it going to warm up the worksite it was very smoky, the stove didn't draw well. It seems to produce a lot of soot and the chimney cap as very clogged. I've cleaned it but I'd rather not have to do that every time we go up.

Here is one photo that might give you an impression about what it looks like now:

Ill fares the land

Tony Judt was a bonafide intellectual, an author a university professor from a big time school, a first class international education. So as read another of his books, Ill fares the land I find it interesting that while he identifies the same problems and causes in the world today that I do, he views the solution as almost the opposite of me.

Like many others, the late Mr. Judt was enamoured with Social Democracy in particular with that form practiced in Scandinavia. And it's easy to see why, the Scandinavian countries rank high in all the positive categories when ranking countries. However, on the very first page of this book he states the reason why I do not think this is a realistic option in North America; "For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose." North Americans are a not a society linked by common history, religion or even language like the overwhelming majority of inhabitants in the Scandinavian countries.

With the exception of a few (and largely very poor - coincidence?) groups, North Americans are linked by one common trait - we or our relatively recent ancestors came to this land to get rich or die tryin'. We are not really a “we” in any sense beyond this one sorry excuse for commonality. If all you have to hold your society together is the pursuit of material self-interest how do you reconcile that with high taxes to benefit of strangers?

The “occupy” series of protests even reflects this. The protestors have one common fiscal complaint but that seems to be all there is to it. There seems to be some vague notion that the governments of the world should do something about people accumulating too much wealth. What exactly is too much wealth and what should be done are hardly agreed upon facts? Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that the wealth disparity in the world is atrocious.

Here’s what I’d like to see as a start: I’d like to see the government butt out of big business. The idea that wealthy people need tax breaks to encourage them to become “job creators” is stupid. If someone is so wealthy that a hihgh tax rate makes it not worth it for them to create more personal wealth then that’s just fine. Someone else will provide the services/production that isn’t worth their effort. Even if this other person does it less efficiently it will spread the wealth around and that is good for society. The idea that companies owned by multi-millionaires should get R&D grants from tax dollars is stupid. And companies, all companies should be allowed to fail. Unions should be allowed to negotiate/strike their members out of a job by killing the company. If the role of any company is so important that it cannot be allowed fail then that role should be a function of government and not the private sector.

Yes, I’m aware that there would be a period of economic contraction but I honestly think that would be a good thing for the 99%.

Oh, and for the working class I’d like to see a change in EI benefits to allow an unemployed person to take their benefits in a lump sum as a grant to start a small business. I’d like to see more self employed people making a decent living for themselves from a small business and I’d like to see fewer “wage slaves” making millions for corporate fat cats filling the same roles.

So why won’t I ever see this? It is the nature of government to control, sometimes called govern, and in a country of millions of people it’s easier to deal with a few mega corporations than thousands of small producers. But when the mega corporations become too big to fail in the eyes of the government who is really in charge?

A little more each time

We were back up for a couple of more days between the rain and we managed to finish off two more walls. It’s starting to look pretty closed in so I’m fairly confident now that we’ll have the bunkie finished for this winter.

This is the corner we finished, the two dark spots are Lug tread bottles we have stuck in the wall for fun. We don’t plan on doing that to the house but the bunkie is a fun little building.

From this next angle you get the idea that it’s closing in pretty well. Next time we head up we’ll either work on those last two wall panels in the weather is good or we’ll put in the windows and door and put on the roof. I figure that with three sides and a roof done and the frame to tarp in the fourth side a little fire in the wood stove should allow us to lay up mortar even when it gets colder.

Speaking of getting colder I winterized the bee hives. Last week Grandmaster J helped me put the hive boxes in a tighter area and this week I wrapped them in builder’s paper, insulted the roofs and put up a wall of hay bales to help block the cold wind that blows in from Stoco Lake.

Here’s an awesome shot of the Ranger looking very much like a farm truck. (note the awesome bead seat covers!)

And the winterized hives.

I will probably put up some other wind barrier on the back side before winter but right now I want to be able to access to the feeders so that on warm days they can come out and get some sugar syrup rather than eating their winter’s store of honey.

Occupy Airports

A lot of people seem to be selfish, short sighted and stupid. I am thinking about the terrifying popularity of the Government of Canada's announcement that they will not allow Air Canada's flight attendants to exercise their right to collective bargaining by removing their leverage. Apparently flight attendants are an essential cog in our society. Despite the existence of competing airlines not going on strike. Really? Flight attendants are such essential workers that not even a portion of them can stop working? I wonder if this will still apply when the next round of layoffs are coming? And let's face it, air travel is an industry in contraction so layoffs are coming. But I digress. What I meant to be talking about is the future of working Canadians not the walking corpse that is Air Canada.

I don't see the recent position on the flight attendants as an isolated incident. I tie it together with the back to work legislation pushed on the Postal workers. Legislation that punished working class Canadians by imposing a lower wage than that offered by their employer.

A lot of people would say these jobs don't require a lot of education or skill and so the people doing these jobs are overpaid already. I see this as a dangerous game to get into. Who is to say you aren't overpaid too? Your rare skills are your job security? Well I was recently listening to a radio show on robotics that I thought was very interesting. The essential point I took from the show was that it's no coincidence that every job that is currently being done by computers or robots was once a job believed to be too complex for a machine to do.

It's basically a story of economics. It's only worth it to R&D machines to replace highly paid humans. Why make a really good sanitation robot when you can hire a human to do the same work for peanuts? But replacing a highly paid surgeon with a tireless robot who can do more surgeries, that's worth the price of admission. That's why right now, somewhere, someone is making progress on that very robot. And healthcare wait times means they probably have government funding.

So I guess there is a silver lining for the posties and flight attendants, if their pay gets low enough it'll be that much longer before automation has them looking for new careers.

Construction proceeds

We had some help in the forms of beautiful weather, Grandmaster J. and Sir C. Thanks guys! this Thanksgiving weekend and I’m now feeling pretty good that the bunkie might get done before winter.

This is where we are now:

My hope is to finish the wall with the door in it and maybe the back wall. If I can get that done I can put a tarp on the frame by the just started wall and light the wood stove and extend the building season.

The bad news is one of my window boxes went out of square while we were building so it’s going to be tough to get that window in. i’m going to have the brace the remaining window boxes better.

This is the offending box (and a close up look at what the walls look like) :

And I forgot to post a picture of Shed Bee:

Pretty good eh, almost looks store bought!

Will Feral Cat

Some of you may have heard tales of the elusive Will Feral Cat. At long last your correspondent has obtained photographic evidence of his existence. And here it is:

I’m assuming Will is feral because he has no tag and is very skittish, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to him.

We’ve also started work on the cordwood bunkie / practice building. We are trying out three different mortar mixes and are now thinking to do a test patch of poplar wood. The experts say it’s good for cordwood building but the wood itself is rather unimpressive to us.

Here’s a shot of the worksite:

And another from later on in the process:

It has become a race against the frost as most of the week we had taken off work to work on the bunkie was raining. the humidity of many days of rain made it impossible to do mortar work even though the worksite is covered. Stay tuned.

It’s a lot more fun than even the best office job. Even with the chill and the damp.

That said, this is this year’s squash harvest:

So I won’t be quitting that office job just yet.

Of stars and grasses

The other night I stepped out the trailer. It was clear and I could see lots of stars, a hint of the milky way and the lights of an airplane far above and I wondered, can I see the flicker of light from the dual star system that supposedly has a Tatooine like planet in their orbit?

Then I thought, “this is crazy”. I know enough to wonder about a distant planet but not enough to identify the plants at my feet. It’s kind of strange when you think about it. We know so much that we know almost nothing.

In contrast, for most of human existence my counterpart would have had no idea of a Tatooine-like planet but would have know most every plant at his feet and what uses it has. His wonder and amazement at the beauty of the night sky would have been truly complete and in stark contrast to the in depth knowledge of his everyday world.

I’m jealous of that contrast.

Ethnographical studies have shown that a hunter-gather society will know every plant and animal in their range and what it can be used for, if anything. They live in a world they truly know and understand through common knowledge. I think this must be very grounding for the individual, the combination of of a sense of belonging but also the confidence that comes with knowing what you are dealing with on a day to day basis.

We live in a world of selective knowledge where there is so much known the individual has to pick and choose what they will know and most of us don’t seem to, we get lost in the array of choice. We end up knowing very little about a lot of subjects and maybe enough to fake expertise in a few areas. Thanks to a few real experts we all benefit but most of us seem spend our whole lives adrift in a sea choice and questioning? The right partner? Right career? Right shoes? A world where even what is real is unsure and ultimately unknowable. (A solid table is actually mostly empty space and little bits flying about? Really?)

For most people the benefits of our world are hard to question, who wouldn’t want to complete a three day journey in an hour? (Forget the wider consequences) We’ve made survival easy but there seems to be an undefined cost we’ve yet to figure out.

The truckness of the truck

“Because the last thing you need is a truck that doesn’t have the stones to get the job done.”

Marketing can be funny, and evil. These commercials do not target people who need a truck. They are going to buy a truck anyway. And use it like a truck. To do stuff the Sierra Club wouldn’t approve of.

These commercials are for the posers. They used to drive SUVs to feel like a big man (yes even the womyn) but now that the mini-van crowd has been shamed into a new class of vehicle (the SUV) the posers have moved to the truck market. (Yeah, in my reality driving a luxury SUV is an embarrassing display of self loathing). I do appreciate the commercial with the two mountain bikers trying to revive the mini van as practical not dorky dad but it isn't enough.

The ultimate thing I’ve been seeing lately around the GTA are these weird abominations where someone buys a giant pick-up truck, like an F350 or a Ram 3500 and then rices it up to look like a miniature transport truck. The killer is that these things are ALWAYS pristine. No dirt, no scratches. The only appropriate aftermarket modes on your pick up are scratches, dents and dirt. A winch if you actually use it.

In cottage country I see a lot of pick-ups with huge tires and risers and giant stickers proclaiming their badassedness and 4x4ness. These are sad too but not as sad, at least they are usually dirty.

I say the last thing a truck needs is an owner who doesn’t have the stones to do the job. A truck needs an owner who will live the truckness of the truck.

Response to anonymous

You are making an assumption that a lower birth mortality rate is a good thing. In the short and medium term its an easy sell, parents don't want their child to die in the short term (thanks in art to contraception and abortion) and anyone currently making their living/fortune off an excess of cheap labour loves the medium term outlook of extra babies. But long term there is a reason why all animals have a high mortality rate in their juvenile stage. I guess one could argue that soon we'll be genetically engineering super babies to make even that point moot but realistically that will only be available to the wealthy and wealthy people don't have a lot of kids. So rather than stay strong our gene pool will continue to be watered down with defective genes for lack of a better word.

Secondly I would argue that a life expectancy of 45 is an artificial number. A life expectancy of 45 is achieved in one of two ways - Dickensian slums (represented today by third world tin shack slums) or by adding all he dead babies into the average. For example Amish people have the same life expectancy as the rest of the United States without the need for global markets and industrialized consumption.

At the end of the day homo sapiens is just another animal and no amount of science will change that. We will learn to live in harmony with our environment and all the incumbent horrors, sacrifices and limitations it imposes or we will lose.

Is bigger better?

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'” - Ronald Reagan

I wonder if this still holds true along the East coast this week? Hurricane Irene killed 44 people and caused massive flooding. The United States has suffered $55,000,000,000 in damages from natural disasters this year.

I suspect the victims of these disasters won’t be on Fox news complaining that the government did too much to help them. I expect they’ll just complain that what help they recived wasn’t the help that they needed. The positive stories won’t be about FEMA coming to the rescue it will be about neighbors helping neighbors.

They always are.

The issue at work here is that government has become too big, too impersonal. Our populations are too big. No one can efficiently manage the needs of 30 million diverse people (much less 300 million) in diverse situations. No one can even understand the needs of most of the people in a group that size in so many different situations. While some praise the economy of scale for it’s efficiencies those efficiencies don’t seem to apply when diversity is involved.

It's the same type of problems created with mega farms. Mega farms give us cheap food but at a price not measured in dollars. That price is the natural security provided by biological diversity - the system that has allowed life to flourish on earth for about 2 billion years. Monoculture creates it's own problems. Most of which we try to solve with science but those "solutions" just create new problems. I suppose if you are one of the few who make your living profiting from these "solutions" to the inefficiency of nature that's great. But what about the rest of us?

For most of us the short term costs associated with smaller, more local, everything are more than likely worth the long term benefits. Unfortunately we live in a system that focuses on the short term (4-5 years) and the grand scale (national) and the people running it don't seem keen on change. The Alpha's want the Deltas to just eat their corn and like it.

Small and local can work, it did for a long time. It's only real enemy is greed.

I'm shaking my head

I went to the drive-in last night to catch the double feature of Conan the Barbarian and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Apes was good but far from great and did a decent job of reducing the suspension of disbelief required for near term science fiction.

But Conan left me shaking my head. At first I was worried from the promotional posters that the guy playing Conan was not going to get the job done but he wasn't bad al things considered and given a chance probably could have made for a good Conan the Cimmerian. Production vales even weren't terrible, certainly no worse than something like "The Scorpion King". Not that a comparison to "The Scorpion King" should be interpreted as a ringing endorsement.

Here's what's killing me: Conan the Barbarian, the character developed by Robert E. Howard is a greta character, hence his enduring popularity since his creation in the 1930's. Many of the original REH Conan stories would make Awesome films in the age of CGI as exhibited in the Apes movie. Awesome. So why, oh why, return to that pathetic storyline of revenge for dear old dead village that made the first attempt at a Conan the Barbarian movie so insipid?

I disgusts me that whomever owns the rights to the Conan the Barbarian copyrights lets them be so abused by the B-movie industry. The lust for money can truly be an evil thing. This movie would have been much better had they used the Deathstalker name instead of besmirching Conan.

In closing, don't go see it. Invest the money in one of the recent reprints of the original REH stories. The vivid imagery of the greatest sword and sorcery writer, maybe just plain writer, of all time is far superior to the movie visuals. And the stories and characters are beyond compare. Note: The Lin Carter, L. Sprauge de Camp or Robert Jordan stuff is not in the same league as REH so don't be fooled.

Johnny Got his Gun

I just finished reading Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. you may be familiar with it without knowing as it was the inspiration behind the Metallica song - One. The book is muich better. In fact, this book should be a standard part of the high school curriculum in any democracy but I guess we'll have to accept the small mercy that it hasn't been banned. Yet.

The Control Goup

1 in 6 couples in Canada have fertility issues, which is to say trouble making babies, and that is just those couples trying to have babies not a reflection of us selfish folk who just choose not to have children.

Fertility rates in Canada hit their peak in the 1970's and have been on the decline ever since. Interestingly recent immigrants have a higher fertility rate but over time fertility rates of immigrants decline to resemble the fertility rates of the general population.
 
This seems to imply that the infertility in Canada is a result of environmental factors strong enough to overcome our supposed food surplus. Many of these factors will be listed on any website talking about women's fertility issues but one I find conspicuously absent is genetically modified food. A typical dismissal of this environmental factor is: “scientists are still studying the relationship between GM foods and the increase in low birth weight human babies, fertility problems, and other health problems affecting the human population." They have figured out that GM feed does seem to cause these problems for rats but they are rats not humans.
 
Whats my point? My point is that there is a really big experiment going on, not just with GM food but also new chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, drugs, etc.) and micro-radiation. (Well really a bunch of massive, population wide experiments going on at the same time - which, conveniently enough, make it impossible to assign blame to things like low birth weights and infertility on one specific culprit.) So those modern “back to the landers” are not the freaky hippies you like to think of them as. Well, OK, a lot of them are but a lot of others are just people who have decided that if we are going to be part of a huge environmental experiment, like it or not, they are at least going to try to be part of the control group of guinea pigs. And lets face it, there are signs that it might not turn out well for the test group.

Gas is cheap believe it or not

My current source of cash is being one tiny cog in the giant machine that is international commerce. More specifically I push the paper that allows food to more across borders and every shift at work I’m brought face to face with the contradiction of fuel prices.

When I’m at the pump feeding the Subaru I’m horrified by the cost- $1.31 a litre! It’s highway robbery! But then I go to work and process dozens of truckloads of cheap food stuffs that have travelled literally thousands of miles just to get to the border and I think, man, is gas really so cheap? How is it that it’s a good business policy to ship trucklods of potatoes thousands of kilometers rather than find local producers?

The truth is that yes, gas is that cheap.

Looking at what a few dollars worth of diesel fuel in the tractor can accomplish in a morning - easily several weeks worth of bush clearing if done by hand - normally we just don’t realize how much waste gas has allowed us to get away with.

I don’t even want to think about how much energy is wasted in any large city every day just by the commute. Probably enough to build a pyramid. Crazy.

The drive-in movie theatre

The drive in is apparently alive and well. Last night (and early this morning) the Boss and I decided to try out the drive-in theatre that is just down the road from the house. Last night was he confluence of factors that made it a logical decision - $5 Tuesday, perfect weather and neither of us had to crawl out of bed for anything this morning.

The 5 Drive-in has three screens each showing a double feature we elected for comedy night - Crazy, Stupid Love and then Horrible Bosses. Both movies had some laughs but Crazy, Stupid Love was definitely the funnier movie. Steve Carrel is a funny guy.

The Drive-in does play off the “50’s nostalgia with the snack bar, interlude music and pre-movie adds but surprisingly (to me anyway) the vast majority of the customers were young people. Like late teens early 20’s. and a lot of pick-ups. Backed into their spots with air mattresses in the truck bed, a cool idea for our next visit.

The place was pretty busy, not packed but more than half full. More full by percentage than a regular indoor theatre in my experience. Pretty good considering the movies weren’t blockbusters and the shows ran from (1:30 PM to 1:30 AM on a school night. Yeah I know school is out for summer - and that might explain the high percentage of youths too. The awesome is that in the cab of the truck I don’t have to worry about the youths annoying me with their enthusiastic self absorption.

In all the drive-in gets my wholehearted recommendation.

Lazy day of summer

Got a bit of a rest today which was good since I needed it. went back to bed after breakfast, cleaned the stove and then spent the afternoon in the hammock. That wasn’t the original plan but I’ll take a day like this when I can get it.

The plan was to be at the land working away but it didn’t work out quite that way. Yesterday I went outto the Skycroft Campground to oversee the delivery of our free (!) new to us (!) camper trailer. That went reasonably well, a bit of an extra wait for the hauling company as they has to fix their equipment before they could come out. This meant by the time I got the trailer dropped off and hauled roughly into place it was getting late and I didn’t have time before dark to really get the trailer set into place leveled up on blocks to spend the night.

Now that’s a pretty weak excuse I know and really I would have slept in it but for the major issue of the day. I forgot the cooler. With all my food in it. and I had already drank 2/3 of the water I brought. Sure I could have went to bed hungry and headed into town for food in the morning but with no sign of bear damage I figured the work can wait until next week.

So here’s the camper trailer in place but not set up and the intact bee yard:

First Sting

The good news is that neither the Boss or I appear to be allergic to the bee stings. We both got stung yesterday trying to evict a few bees from our shed.



They are building honeycomb in there and don't seem to want to move. Which is doubly bad in that my tools are in there and I don't want to have to suit up for bees overtime I want a tool and that the bear wants the honey. That being the only stuff still outside the electric fence Mr. Bear tore the corner off the shed.

At least I've got Beatrice back with a working clutch but man if you think getting your car fixed is expensive don't buy a tractor. I'm almost to thinking the big ATV with powered implements might be the way to go. Nah, there's still something exhilarating about driving the tractor that an ATV just doesn't have. On the tractor you really feel like you're working even when you're just driving somewhere. I mean you're driving a tractor, obviously there's some serious work about to be done!

Sexima

So I'm driving down the road on this fine Canada Day, a holiday for most but defending the food you eat is an endless job so I'm coming home from work and what do I see in front of me? An Altima? A Maxima? No, a Sexima. Yes you read that right, a Sexima. This dude in front of me has gone though the trouble to actually physically change the letters on the back of his maxima to Sexima. Yeah, I was speechless.

Happy Canada Day

The Evil PC

Most people, some secretly some not, seem to want to be thought of as
an interesting person - or at least not boring. But have you ever told
someone they are interesting? I have and I always find the hesitant
reaction part curious and part sad.

Interesting is one of those words that Political Correctness has
ruined. Not quite as extreme a case as “special” but
“interesting” has still become a loaded word open to positive
or negative interpretation by the audience. I think this is both
unfortunate and illustrative.

The idea of Political Correctness was to make the use of negative words
shameful and therefore inhibit the spread of negative opinions. While
I’m sure the idea still has its adherents I think it has mostly
descended to a target of scorn. People have negative thoughts about
other people. If I have to call someone “interesting” instead of
“weird” all this does is cause confusion when I actual think
someone/something is interesting.

People are hard enough to understand without adding a layer of polite
(?) obfuscation to the language.

The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt

I liked this collection of essays a lot. It’s divided into three
sections. The first section deals with context. It explains where the
author is coming from and I think that it is important as it gives the
reader some idea of the author’s perspective on the rest of the ideas
in the book.

The second section is more oriented to biography with reflection on
specific experiences of the author and is also interesting but it is the
third section that makes the book. And more importantly it accomplishes
this without the usual egotism of an autobiography.

The essays of the third section deal with broader society and ideas.
The ideas expressed are made more powerful by the first two sections not
because the author has established his intellectual credentials but
because he has established his life credentials.

I’m not going to claim that there are great revelations or anything
exceptionally controversial in the essays but for anyone who is
curious about what other people think, this book is a wise way to pass
226 pages.

Of bears and bees

It didn't take long for the bee experiment to take a turn for the worse. The sweet delicious smell of hunny has attracted a bear. We haven't actually seen the bear but something big enough to cary off a 60 pound box of brood and tough enough to sit there and eat it among a swarm of bees has destroyed one of our hives.

We reported it to the government but they didn't deem very interested so now we're electric fence shopping. I assume that in the old pioneer days I would have just got a rifle and killed the bear carving out another little piece of wilderness for humanity but today we must learn to live with our predators. The joys of the 21st century.

Now I'm not for the wholesale slaughter of animals or pro-extinction but from all accounts Ontario is maggoty with black bears. I guess it's like the seal problem and we need to find a commercial use for their carcasses to appease the people living downtown who will never see a sign of either one outside of a trip to the zoo?

On the land

I was working at the garden yesterday and I'll be back at it day. Digging in the muddy ground alternating between rain showers and blazing hot sun. You know when the transition is coming because the mosquitoes and black flies fight through the bath of toxic chemicals to swarm you.

Later today I'll head back to the Big Smoke, my hands will be a bit raw and my back a bit achy. I'll be itchy with fly bites and so dirty and smelly I'll hardly be able to sit in the cab with myself.

The crazy thing is the oppressive dread will hit me by Scarborough. The elation of physical work and the high of mother nature will be replaced by the dread of the sterile, lifeless world I'll be descending back into - the city. Parks don't cut it and a back yard garden is only half an escape. It's still a world of noise and angles, where instead of the earth you just have dirt. No place for a human.

The comedian I heard on CBC's the debaters the other day gave me a chuckle with his opening . The debate was should canadians love or abandon the cottage life and his opening gambit about summed it up: "I have to convince Canadians to abandon the cottage? This is stupid. After the show I'll be in the parking lot telling you all to give up hockey and donuts."

To finish on another quote: "It's funny because it's true."

One speed? What speed? Full speed!

Here she is in her new slimmed down glory. All heart but no mercy:



















Lost a few pounds and feeling rejuvenated. Now I guess it’s my turn :)

And here is my newest bike graciously donated to the collection by my neighbours Tony and Maria:



















With 83 years of experience behind him Tony decided (with Mari’s help) that it was time to move on to new experiences this summer and seeing my working on the Bee bike for the Boss he gave me this sweet ride so we could cruise the mean streets of Mississauga together. She’s a pretty nice ride, everything in good working order and a comfy posture for short hauls in nice weather. Might even take her to work later in the year. Thanks Tony!

The Tao of Steve II

Went up to the land yesterday. We got a free load of dirt from some friends so I decided to use it to improve the temporary entrance and then spend the rest of the day working on the sun shade for weeders. The entrance is much improved but I want to see it again after a good hard rain. It is temporary but hopefully not too temporary. The sun shade is up but I'm not happy with it so I'll work on it again next time I get up.

The surprise of this trip was the flies. May 9th and the black flies were out in cruel mouth filling, eyeball walking, flesh eating swarms. Other than that it was a lovely day. If I had suspected insect swarms and brought some dope I might have gotten the sun shade more to my liking but by evening I had to get out of there.

On the way home we stopped at an Enroute to get me some coffee at the Tim's. I knew I'd need some black gold to keep me between the lines on the drive. anyway the dude behind the counter was living the Tao of Steve - it doesn't matter what you do, just be excellent at it. The man knows his product lines and he knows customer service. And to top it off his name was Steve, not Stephen, Steve. Take note Mr. Harper.

Lots of news

The almanac appears to have been correct in predicting a cold wet spring. At least there is some news to provide a distraction. We started out with an election that became interesting and now the results give us much to ponder. And also slipped in there was the death of Osama Bin Laden. Also something worth pondering.

Justice or revenge? Does it really matter? Bin Laden is dead and americans feel better. Will there be really any impact beyond this? I guess there are the possibility of retaliation attacks from Bin Laden's followers but I think the recent revolutions in the middle east provide a more accurate picture of Bin Laden's global stature.

Now on to the real news. A conservative Majority with an NDP opposition. This is interesting. And a little scary. The Bloc appears to be dead and that is probably more than anything else the cause of the ascendancy of the NDP. With Quebec deciding to re-enter national politics due to the ineffectiveness of regionalism but still disgusted with the old guard parties, it's like people all over Canada got wind of this idea that it's not an either/or choice between Conservative and Liberal. And the Greens won a seat. Maybe next time we'll see a Marxist-Leninist?

The Conservative majority? This could be scary if we continue to see the mean spiritedness of the government of the last five years. Hopefully from a majority position they will focus more on good governance and less on attacking their rivals? We could finally see the end of the long-gun registry and the promised reform of the senate as promised but not delivered. I'm not going to hold my breath on the senate reform though. Now that the Tories have the majority in that house that would be an act of altruism that I think is beyond any political party.

Oh and yesterday, one of my neighbours gave me a cruiser! I'll post a pic once I get it cleaned up.

The Power of the Egg

Recently I had a touch of a cold. Just one day. Just the day after the day I didn't eat a Cadbury Creme Egg.

I should explain that although it may not be obvious if you've witnessed my girth of late but I don't normally eat a Cadbury Creme Egg everyday but in the run up to Easter I've been finding the eggs in my cookie jar (freecycled!).

Now the science priests say that refined sugar of the sort found in these delectable treats put a lot of strain on one's immune system. If you believe the science priests eating one of these eggs should eliminate my resistance to all the cold germs around me. The boss had a cold, most of the people at my work have colds, my dentist has a cold and even when I tried to escape the germs in Ottawa I found them to be well entrenched among the community there. Instead the one day I didn't eat the sugar was the day I got stuffed up. Fortunately a Lindt egg quickly cured me. In a nanosecond.

How did I defy the teachings of the science priests you ask? It was easy, 95% of the universe is undetectable "dark matter".

A good few days

We got off to a good start this week. Three days where good weather and time off work coincided. We picked out the spots for the bee hives and cleared out the brush so that we can actually drive them in there. Now to get some cinder blocks and we'll be in a position to actually go collect the hives!

Next up was to get started on the wattle fence. We drove in some poles and then the Boss got started weaving the cross sticks. We were glad to do this now. We've got almost one wall done of the four we need and we learned a lot about what makes a good post and what makes a good switch. From now on the plan will be to cut switches in the morning and wee them in the afternoon before they have a chance to dry out much. For anyone looking to come out and get a day of fresh air and not too hard labour helping with the wattle fence is a great opportunity.



















On a sad note we found a dead porcupine. Looks like it probably got it crossing the road and could only crawl another 50 yards before expiring. so I buried it.

I also knocked down some more poplars and I'm at the stage where I'd like to get them hauled out and get an idea of just how much wood I've got. Next up for me is to improve the temporary entrance so we can get started on the bunkie.

Traffic Calming or Soul Killing?

The GTA is often ranked low in Canada on livability. Even when ranked somewhat high it is continually dragged down by one major factor of urban life – getting around. GTA residents suffer not only have the longest commute in Canada but their metropolitan area is also dead last among 19 major cities surveyed - worse than New York or Los Angeles.

They say it’s due to under funding of the transit infrastructure but I have another theory.

It’s policy. “The man’s” way of daily reminding us of his boot heel firmly entrenched on the back of our necks. I'll use my commute for an example, much improved over my former job but still hardly the 15 minute promised by google maps. Not that it couldn't be but “the man” can’t handle that. “The man” needs to assert his power.

I work shifts so I drive at off peak hours. Often on near deserted roads late at night so I know my drive could easily and safely be completed in 15 minutes. Instead, my drive consists of  28 minutes of stopping at a red light. Getting released from this red light just in time to watch the next light turn yellow then red. Over and Over. And Over and Over. Soul killing. Needless.

I could get home in 12 minutes if I was a rebel. If I was one of those carefree souls I sometimes see zooming along at 1.42 times the legally posted speed (thats what it takes to hit a steady stream of green lights). But instead I sit at an empty intersection and ask myself why does "the man" hate me so that he times the lights this way.

Sometimes I muse it's for the corporate interests that bought him his job - the needless wear and tear on the car, the brakes, the extra gas consumed by the constant acceleration - deceleration, sometimes I think it' just sadism. But in the end I just need to go no further than my car to know for a fact that the powers that be hate the little guy.

Spring into action

Spring is a busy time of year. Especially this year. The old truck is no longer fit for the road so we've been looking for a new to us one and we've finally found it. We'll be upgrading a whole decade, from a '95 Ranger to a '05 Ranger.

Next up is a new chainsaw. My chainsaw died. Seized up. Not worth fixing says the guy I the store. Cheaper to replace it but better to replace it with an upgrade for the kind of work I've got planned. So 'm looking into what I'm going to need.

The god news is we found a good deal on some bee hives and colonies so at least there has been some progress this spring. As soon as we get the new truck we'll get to work relocating the hives. That will be the start of an ambitious summer. Fenced garden, bunkie and cutting and drying wood for the house.

Rags and bones

I pity that man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth shall starve in the process.
– Benjamin Harrison

We live in a strange society. Most of us are pitied by Benjamin Harrison because this is exactly what we want when it comes to the things we need - the lowest price possible.

What really makes it crazy though is why we want ultra low prices on the basics - to increase our discretionary income so that we can do things like pay exorbitant prices to make movie stars and professional athletes extremely wealthy.

What is it that makes us miserly on the basics but so extravagant in luxury? The old joke is what do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

I sometimes wonder if it isn’t time to change from lawyers to marketers? Awe heck, it’s a big ocean, I’m sure there would be room for both even if we had to stop dumping toxic waste in there :)

It’s a long one

I like to search out and read alternative news sites on the interweb from time to time and I’ve noticed that there is a credibility problem. Basically there are two viewpoints on the English interweb the mainstream media (MSM) and the alternative media (AM).

My problem with the official news is that it seems very one sided and agenda driven whenever I do take enough interest to dig deeper into a subject. Add in the influence of the corporations that buy the advertising and it makes it hard to take any of it seriously. Even meaningless celebrity scandals are apparently often just publicity ploys.

The problem with the alternative news sites is also myriad. They have a tendency to reference themselves as sources; quote people I’ve been told my whole life are crazy evil despots and too often an article trying to present an alternate viewpoint to some mainstream story might be found on the same page as a link to some ridiculous (and often anti-Semitic) conspiracy story. This makes it harder to give the alternate viewpoint story much truck no matter how plausible it seems.

I’m not going to count the almost omnipresent poor grammar because 1. a lot of MSM has bad English too and 2. the polish of a well written story could also imply a polished subject? And I’m not going to count the absence of credentials in the by-line because I’ve been to post-secondary school and I don’t suffer the illusion that a B.Com. grants integrity or honesty. Or even competency.

The MSM gets some credibility because they don’t seem to make much stuff up of make too many ludicrous claims. Their culpability is in their copious and selective omissions of fact that they justify with time and space constraints but that usually ensure the story follows the official line or at least doesn’t upset potential advertisers. Recently I’ve been bothered by how much new time is dedicated to the African protests and how little to the Wisconsin protests. As a Canadian I’m pretty confident that the events in Wisconsin will have more of an impact on my life than what happens in Libya.

Then I see a story about Raymond Davis and I come back to the AM. Specifically their tendency to quote evil despots like Fidel, Momar and Hugo in their ranting about CIA interference and assassination attempts and I’m left to wonder if they really are so crazy as I’ve been led to believe. Raymond Davis is a good case to look at. This is a U.S. diplomat arrested for murder in Pakistan who the U.S. secretary of State said should have diplomatic immunity but somehow this story is on CNN but can’t even make the front page of the World section. And now that the Pakistani government has refused to release him Mr. Davis has been downgraded to a CIA contractor.

The Raymond Davis story is easy to look up though as Pakistan has a good English language newspaper on-line that often presents a different view from the official Western media version. Sadly a lot of places and issues don’t have that voice. I guess there’s Al Jazeera but are they really any different than CNN?

So I guess that’s it. I’m left reading the good guy’s propaganda, the bad guy’s propaganda and sometimes the wing nuts in the peanut gallery to make up my own mind out of all the lies and half truths. Maybe that’s why my favourite on-line topic is the cut and dry NFL?

C’mon just split the billions and go back to wearing man-sized pads already!

Think before you speak

Some aspects of life on planet earth that have been long suppressed from public discussion are being brought out into the light with the idea that to confront these issues people need to be armed with knowledge. For the most part I wholeheartedly agree with this assertion and in many cases I would like to see more of it. Knowledge is power because in ignorance is fear. But at the same time people need to think about what they are saying before they say it. I'm talking to you Janet Jackson.

I recently read a story on Canoe in which Ms. Jackson talked about the food issues that have plagued her life since childhood and while her goal was admirable in that she wanted to warn people about the dangers associated with eating disorders and body image one part of the article really gave me pause.

I won't repeat her error in mentioning what she said but essentially it was an idea that I'd never considered but sounded really unhealthy. So I got to wondering how many young people who do have food issues read this article? And how many of them thought, "what a great idea I never thought of doing that to lose weight!" Not helping matter is that she attributed this idea to nameless "celebrities".

So its a good thing to talk about these sensitive subjects but think about what you are saying first.

Speak Mindfully.