Musings & Rants

Knitting Pattern

2009-12-16T22:19:00.004-05:00

Well I know I've not updated in a long old time, but life has been happening and taking my mind away from this blog.

I have now produced a pattern which I'm publishing through ravelry which will be available for purchase as soon as I get things set up properly.

Here's a picture of the House Hippo.

My next update will have full details for the pattern and where to buy.

Long time no write....

2009-04-24T18:44:00.004-04:00

So its been a while since I last blogged, last year in fact, right after the Obama presidential victory.

What's happened since then? Quite a lot but not all stuff I wanted to write about.

I lost a lot of impetus when it came to the blogging and I wasn't too bothered to carry on.

Now before you ask, nothing terrible happened, apart from the death of our dear sweet dog Blackie (whom I've written about many times before). This personal tragedy has been written about quite eloquently by my darling Kata here and there's not a lot I need to add to it other than I'm glad we were both with him when he died and that he didn't suffer in his last days (it would have been much harder to watch our darling lil puppy get older and grumpier and start to suffer from old age).

As to my personal situation; things are in the same approximate limbo as before. We're still not married (still no date set), we're still living together (and extremely happy) and I still love Canada (although the winter we just went through was one hell of a how do you do compared to my first winter here). I'll be heading back to the UK some time next month (tentatively set at 15th May) and I'll be back to take care of a bunch more stuff on the UK side that will hopefully let me cut the final non-familial/friend ties with the "mother country". Here's hoping things go smoothly while I'm over and the weather isn't terrible (mid spring in Scotland is way worse than mid spring in southern Canada) so that my time there will be half decent.

That last paragraph was a bit rambling but that goes with my current frame of mind I guess. Money has been tight recently as we're living off Kata's wages alone (my savings were spent ages ago) and without her job we'd be screwed (by western standards anyway), so finances have been tight, but we've managed. But I will say, apart from our Bubby's death, we're the happiest we've ever been and our lives can only get better once all our crap is sorted out and I can get to earning in Canada.

I'll try and start writing more regularly but I won't promise anything (not that anyone is really clamouring to read my writings) and I may be really preoccupied over the next month what with travelling to the UK and back, so we'll see.

In any case, for anyone who does read this, hey there, I'm still alive and still happy with my darling Kata in wonderful Canada, minus one adorable fluffy lil puppy named Blackie (Andre Jefferson Blackwell the Thurst as we decided one happy day to call him for no good reason).

A new day, a new hope, a great decision

2008-11-05T00:01:00.003-05:00

or the first time in my life I watched live coverage of the US Presidential election. It started slowly, McCain was ahead 8 votes to 3 for a long time, then, slowly the eastern states started to project their results. From 8pm EST to 11pm EST I was glued to the CNN election center website, waiting for updates of the most important election in a generation. Slowly but surely the eastern states were voting for Obama, the southern states were voting for McCain (no surprise) and as the evening drew on the western states voted for Obama and took Barack Obama over the top by an enormous amount.

Landslide would be the best way to describe this election. At this minute the results for all 3 elections run yesterday are;

Presidential Election Result - Barack Obama 338 votes, John McCain 163 votes.
Senatorial Election Result - Democrats 56 senators, Republicans 40 senators.
House of Representatives Result - Democrats 251 reps, Republicans 173 reps.

Put simply, the Democrats overwhelmingly control the US government. They have a mandate from the American people to change their country. The American people have made their voices heard after 8 years of Bushite Republican rule and they are saying "Enough is enough".

Kata and I rejoiced when we knew it was over (projected), we rejoiced for the American people and for the rest of the world who held their breath hoping (and many praying) for a Democratic victory.

The choice of Barack Obama shows the world that the American nation has finally grown up, the Majority have decided that a fresh, young, vital and yes "black" man should lead their nation forward out of one of the worst periods in World history outside of a World War. They chose an eloquent, highly educated man who brings great hope to a nation desperate for a bright future.

We still have more than 2 months to wait for the Obama presidency to start (thanks to the absurdity of the Presidential electoral system) but there's nothing that the Bush presidency can do to ruin the world any further thanks to the massive shift to the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

The question now is, will the Democratic congress push for Impeachment of George W Bush and his presidency, for crimes against humanity, for that's what his Presidency committed. I highly doubt it, as I don't believe that the American people want to air laundry that dirty in the global public eye, so let's just hope that the soon to be ex President George W Bush skulks off the world stage and hides for the rest of his life, ashamed for that his presidency did. I doubt it, but it would be fitting.

Finally, thank you America, thank you for voting for the only candidate who brought hope and sanity to a beleaguered world. Thank you so much.

US Presidential Election 2008

2008-11-04T19:54:00.004-05:00

Not being a US citizen I can't affect this election directly, however as a World citizen the result will affect me greatly.

I'm a very liberal person, with that in mind the last 8 years of Republican presidential rule in the USA has been a terrible period. I disliked George W Bush from the outset. He stole the presidency (FACT) and he lead the world into a hideous war (at least the aftermath). More recently his party's policies led the US banking system into ruin and with them the rest of the world (almost) into banking ruin too.

So today is the election, there are 2 candidates (worth talking about), Barack Obama and John McCain.

You can guess who I want to win (Obama) and I feel this way for many reasons;

1) He's a fresh face to run the USA, it almost feels like the 60s when J.F. Kennedy won the presidency, a fresh face for a new challenge (the cold war in full swing)

2) He's not a Republican (personal preference of course)

3) He's not an old white guy

4) Sarah Palin isn't his running mate (what the hell were the GOP thinking?)

So now we have to wait (as of now 8:22pm EST Obama is leading) and see if the American people care about their futures or want the same old tragedy to continue.

I hope, for their sake and the sake of the rest of the world that they choose wisely (and by that I mean Obama).

Canadian Thanksgiving

2008-10-16T09:54:00.005-04:00

So its been almost 2 weeks since my last past and that's not a good thing, but its been pretty busy since I came back from my trip to the UK (post to come eventually), we spent a few days being a couple again and then we took a trip to Ottawa for Canadian Thanksgiving.

This was my 2nd Canadian Thanksgiving, last year some 30 or so friends from the Keith and the Girl and Team Drunk Ottawa communities made their way to Ottawa to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and to have an excuse for drunken revelry. Last year I drove in Canada for the first time, took 6 other people with me (Kata and 5 friends, 2 from the USA) and after 13 hours in one direction and 11 hours in the other direction, we had accomplished a Thanksgiving to remember (for mostly good reasons).

This year Kata and I packed our belongings and our dog Blackie into our rental car and made our way to Ottawa on Saturday. The drive out took approx. 8 hours (we left around 9 and arrived just after 5) and was relatively uneventful. We were staying at a pet friendly hotel in downtown Ottawa (the Comfort Inn just off junction 115 of the 417 highway) and settled in for a couple of hours before we headed out for an evening with our friends at the Heart and Crown pub. The year before we had gone to the same pub and taken up 3 large tables, this year we all fit on one large table and we had a great time with our friends catching up and enjoying the food (really good for pub grub). We hung out for close to 4 hours and then headed back to our hotel to rest up for the next day.

The next morning we awoke relatively early and joined the other residents of the hotel for our complimentary continental breakfast (always a good thing). The selection was decent, mostly baked goods (bagel, english muffin, muffin, waffles, bread) some cereals, fruit, coffee, tea, etc. After breakfast we headed out to visit Kata's uncle George and her parents who were in Ottawa to have thanksgiving with her uncle. We only visited for an hour as her parents had a lot planned to do that day (the day before they had visited a tractor museum, Kata's step-dad is a tractor "nut" who has his own show tractor and plowing tractor which he competes in plowing matches with) so we headed back to our hotel to relax a while before heading out to a friend's house for the thanksgiving meal.

We picked up a couple of our friends from the Ottawa Jail Hostel (a number of our friends had stayed there the year before also) and we headed out on the 417 highway into the wilds of the Ottawa countryside. The drive was around 30 minutes and we ended up at our friend's house where we were to have our Thanksgiving meal. It was a pot luck and people were bringing all kinds of food (mostly desert). We brought a Tofurky with us (for the vegetarians amongst us) and our gracious hosts (the McDonalds, Dr Bri and Juanita) took care of the turkey and most of the fixings, vegetarian stuffing, potatoes, all manner of vegetables and other delicious, if not vegetarian, savoury foods (a beef roast was also brought by one of our friends (Mr Rhi)).

All manner of deserts were laid out after the main course, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheese cake, an apple pie (can't remember the exact type but it was delicious), blueberry muffins (from scratch), McCain frozen cake (a Canadian classic) and peanut butter pie (one of our friend's speciality pies, thanks as always Rickeh). I'm sure there were some other deserts but my mind has been clouded by the sugar overload (wink).

After all the wonderful food we all relaxed, talked and made merry. After an hour or so, a chorus of "happy birthday" began, I was bemused, no one had told me it was someones birthday, then it dawned on me my friends were singing for me, my birthday isn't until the 20th, but coincidentally thanksgiving was the 1st anniversary of my living in Canada, so they had sprung a double surprise on me. Our friend Amy had arranged with my darling Kata and our friend Rhi to get me a cake, with purple icing (one of my favourite colours of late) and celebrate my time in Canada so far. It was really adorable, the cake had "happy birthday dev" on it (my nickname of course) and they had a "1" candle for me to blow out. The candle managed to blow itself out thanks to the breeze from the aircon (or from the open window) and then I cut the cake whilst Kata took pictures. Everyone was already stuffed so not much cake was eaten (I took a slice) but the thought and execution totally counted.

The evening continued with a viewing of the previous week's Family Guy (I dream of Jesus) and later a game of Scene It on Xbox 360 (my team came 3rd the first game and 2nd (after leading for much of the game) in the 2nd game). By the time we were finished playing things were winding down, people were starting to get tired so we headed back to the city, dropping off a couple of friends at their respective hotels and then returned to our hotel to take care of Blackie and head to sleep ourselves.

The final day, Thanksgiving day itself, we had breakfast again, packed up and checked out of our hotel. We then headed over to Rhi's apartment where we planned to leave Blackie for a few hours as we were heading out to the Elgin Street Diner for our 2nd annual Thanksgiving farewell brunch. Many of our friends had the Poutine, for which the diner is most famous and after the repast we said our farewells and headed back to collect Blackie.

The drive home was relatively uneventful, although traffic was quite dense in a number of places (near Oshawa and Cobourg and some near Milton). Despite the traffic, the drive home took around 9 and a half hours and we rolled into our apartment's parking lot around 11pm, tired but glad to be home after another great Thanksgiving weekend.

p.s. here's a link to pictures Kata took over the Thanksgiving weekend

Going "Home" part 1

2008-10-03T20:40:00.005-04:00

Foreword: This is late, very late, but whatever, I'm gonna post it now and part 2 later once I get it all written.

Well I went back to the UK for a week as I said in my last "filler" post and a number of things happened; I spent time with my mother, I spent most of 24 hours travelling, I slept on a couch for 6 days and I managed to turn half my back into a mess of pain.

I guess a little explanation is needed, so here we go; I needed to cross the Atlantic for a couple of reasons, for one my visitor's visa was about to expire (although to be honest Canada isn't that worried so long as you're not trying to work or claim for anything), and I still had to tell my mother the plans that Kata and I had with regards to marriage and our future.

I booked my flights with about 6 days warning, which caused no little amount of anguish to my darling Kata (and to me naturally) and I sorted out my other travel requirements (Airbus to Toronto airport and back) and then spent my last few days before travelling with Kata trying not to think about 7 days away from her and our life.

The day of my trip came on Wednesday 24th September and after a last afternoon of passion and affection, I left our apartment and started my trek to London, England. The first leg of the trip is always pretty easy, get into the airbus and wait for 100 to 120 minutes for the driver to head along the 401 highway to YYZ (Toronto Pearson).

This journey there were 3 other passengers and another driver being taken to Pearson to pickup a vehicle. The driver and one of the passengers were both of American origin, although the driver also has Canadian citizenship and in very little time talk turned to politics. Frustration at the American banks which were collapsing with alarming frequency, disgust at the banks' directors who were bring given "golden parachute" payments from the banks despite their clear ineptitude, anger at the politicians who had allowed such things to befall the nation due to lack of regulation and wonder at whom would be capable, if any, to restore the nation and more so the world's finances back to a steady ship as opposed to the sinking ravaged hulk that we were being shown every day.

Debate did run over the presidential candidates and their running mates; concern over the very notion that the GOP candidate would win and very real concern that if somehow he did win, he could very well die before the end of his term and leave his woefully inadequate running mate in charge of the world's most powerful democracy. The consensus however was that Obama would win the election but not if voters were complacent "every vote counts" was certainly mentioned, although as I've mentioned previously, truly every vote doesn't really count, or at least doesn't count for as much thanks to the vagueries (british spelling) of the electoral college system used in the presidential election (swing vote is a fantasy movie, not based in reality in the slightest, although I must admit I've not seen the movie for fear or wishing ill on Kevin Costner, nah not really, it just looks terrible).

So in any case, after listening for a while to the conversation I sat back and relaxed listening to music on my Creative Zen media player and I drifted off for a while. When we arrived at the airport I was the first to leave the bus since terminal 3 is first on the drop off route (International travel is for the most part handled by terminal 3 of Pearson). I headed in, picked up my ticket (as I'd booked less than 2 weeks before travel I had to get my ticket at the travel desk) and then I checked in for my flight. I took a short wander around the shopping area, not that there's a huge amount of it in terminal 3, and then I headed for security. Now at the risk of being misunderstood, the following is without prejudice or overstating, every time I've travelled out of Toronto, and I've done it 4 times now, I've noted that the vast majority of the security staff and store workers on the departure side of the terminal are of Indian descent (India the Asian country as opposed to the native American peoples), mostly 1st generation immigrants. The Tim Hortons (a bastion of Canadian coffee shops) is entirely operated by Indians (I assume the franchise is owned by an Indian family and they have brought relatives to Canada to work with/for them), the other food emporia and stores also have a high percentage of Indian staff. Its kinda weird but I take it as part of the rich Canadian culture of immigration which enriches the nation (I for one know that immigration is a positive activity after all I'm technically an immigrant about to emigrate once more).

One thing I suck at is waiting for things to happen, in this case I get pretty bored and antsy waiting for the flight to board and ultimately take off. My frame of mind is that until I get on the plane and the doors close I'm still responsible for what happens. After the doors close, its out of my hands and things are down to the flight crew, only then do I relax, or at least try to relax.

Anyway, as I was saying, because of the way things are these days, you have to wait around for 2 to 3 hours before your flight takes off and of course you need to keep entertained, fortunately I'm used to trying to keep myself entertained and I always take way too much stuff with me, so I settled down, stuck a DVD into my portable DVD player and started watching. I only managed 20 minutes before boarding started. Since I had asked for a seat near the back and on the aisle (leg room and proximity to the emergency exit in case of disaster) I was in the first major group to be boarded. I reached my seat (28D) and got myself set for the journey ahead, magazine, creative zen, bottle of water, hoodie, then I waited to see if I would be lucky enough to get an empty row or at least a seat between me and 28F (the other aisle seat on the central section of the airbus A310). Unfortunately the entire row and in fact the entire aircraft filled up and the passenger to my immediate right (28E) was an above average width adult male (less wide than me but still wider than say Kate Moss).

I have never been able to sleep properly on a plane. Trans-Atlantic flights are moderately long, 7 to 8 hours, and west to east are "best" done over night so that you can sleep on the flight and be fresh in the morning when you land. Unfortunately for me that doesn't work, the planes are uncomfortable and busy. I'm a big man and although I fit relatively well into the seats, my shoulder width means I get bumped almost constantly when people walk past me. The length of my legs mean I have to leave one leg in the aisle if I want to improve my comfort level, which again causes problems. Also thanks to my shoulder width my head is mode forward than most in the seat, which means for comfort reasons I need to have a pillow behind my head for any length of flight.

OK moaning aside, the flight was pretty normal, the movies were meh (Indiana Jones 4 which sucked and Vantage Point which I'd seen with Kata in the Cinema. Although I did watch Indiana Jones 4 to see how badly they had destroyed the Indiana Jones franchise. To my mind the recent South Park episode said it better than I ever can), the food was fine (it was President's Choice Indian food) and after 8 hours of passing out for 20 minutes every hour or so, we were finally landing at Gatwick airport. I made my way from the airport to Fulham Broadway underground station where I met my mother and we made our way to Hendon where she lives.

To be continued...

Off to the UK for a week

2008-09-24T16:09:00.002-04:00

I'm flying off to the UK today, for a week, visiting my mum for the first time in over a year.

I don't want to go but I kinda have to, I'm adamant this is the last time I'm doing it before Kata and I get married.

The last week or so has been pretty crappy, both of us dreading today's arrival, but here it is. I'm waiting for the first part of my journey to begin, air bus to Toronto Pearson airport, from there its a direct flight to London Gatwick airport and from there a couple of train journeys until I get to my mum's place.

By the time I get there I'll most likely be utterly exhausted and utterly depressed, I was last time I went back to the UK and left Kata behind, though that time it was for 2 weeks.

Anyway, just a short post to say what's happening and once I'm back I'll try and get back into writing regular posts.

Filler 3

2008-09-14T01:29:00.002-04:00

I've been ill the last few days, so has Kata, not that its a good excuse, but I've not been in the right frame of mind to blog, although I have been in the right frame of mind to play Spore (which is a time sink and a half).

I have a few things on my mind, going back to the UK for a short period, looking for work, having to most likely get married sooner than we both considered...

So I'm gonna try and get back on the blog horse, but no promises.

Work

2008-09-09T12:15:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to find a job, really I am. Its hard though when you're trying to find work in another country. Well it is when you go from the EU to anywhere else. The EU has an open borders and open work policy (for the most part) within the original EU countries (about 12). If you are from one of those countries you can move around amongst them, live and work there, no problems, no questions asked. Its a nice system but its one I never had to take advantage of.

I'm in Canada now and the situation is this, I want to live here, most likely for the rest of my life, I want to work here, pay my taxes to this nation and partake in all it offers whilst taking back as little as necessary (the way the government want it).

I have skills, I have a diploma in Stained Glass Production Techniques (a level 2 skilled job on the NOC list) and I speak English fluently (naturally) and I have basic French (from high school). I've never been in trouble with the Police in any country, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I drink responsibly and infrequently and I'm healthy.

I've absolutely fallen in love with this country and its people and all I want is the chance to give of myself to this nation. If I'd decided on this and thought about it properly I'd have applied for some kind of work visa or the skilled worker immigration, but I didn't, I was thinking only about how much I loved my new life with my darling Kata and what the future would hold.

I've applied to a number of glass companies in Ontario now, waiting to hear from most of them with regards to any interest (one did reply saying they don't do anything with stained glass, although my skill cover everything they are looking for to fill the job). I think the real reason they weren't interested is they don't want to go through the hassle of proving that the job they are trying to fill couldn't be done by a Canadian worker.

Its a bit of a catch 22 for an employer, I'm looking for someone to work for me, I can't find anyone easily and there's a foreigner wanting to do the job, but technically in Canada somewhere there's someone who can do the job. I know that's probably not the way it goes, but still, it make my side of things harder.

There is one relatively simple way for us (Kata and I) to fix things, get married. We had planned to marry next year, in June of 2009, but it looks like we may well have to bring that forward, which causes problems with getting people to come for the festivities etc, but we'll see.

So if you believe in crossing your fingers or some other superstition (prayer, stinky socks etc), do them for me getting a job some time really soon, thanks (I won't though, I'm not superstitious).

Politics

2008-09-04T00:50:00.005-04:00

I'll start by giving and outline of my political viewpoint, how it has changed and where current leanings are.

When I was young (before voting age) I didn't care about politics, most people don't I feel. Politics and political policy are hard to grasp when you are young, you don't really care who's in charge as it never really affects you directly.

If the ruling party changes income tax, you don't get a % of your allowance taken off or added on in line with taxation (maybe parents should in order to prepare their children for the real world more).

The only time that politics actually affected me directly before voting age was when the teachers went on strike because the government weren't going to meed their pay demands, which gave us time off school, something we liked when we were young but something we dreaded as we reached exam age and a strike in the wrong place could ruin your future, or at least put a dent in your exam results.

When I started university I still wasn't of voting age, although not for long. University (or college) is a starting point for many a political career, or just a first foray into the tangled web that is politics. On the first week at university no fewer than 5 political groups were trying to persuade the fresh new faces to join their political group. If I remember correctly (it was almost 18 years ago now) the Conservatives, Labour Party, Scottish National Party, the SDP, Socialist Worker Party (oxymoron), the Communists and possibly the Green Party. I even think the Official Monster Raving Loony Party were there too, but I'm probably making that up for comic effect.

As you can imagine being thrown into this kind of political mire at a young(ish) age can do one of 2 things, turn you on or turn you off to politics. In my case it kinda turned me off and left me feeling that it didn't make much of a difference to me who was in charge as long as they left me alone. These were the days when the Westminster Parliament still ruled the entire UK without question, devolved power to the Home Nations didn't come to fruition until the mid 1990s when New Labour swept to power after the fall of John Major's government.

I did flirt with Nationalism for a while, being brought up Scottish, you tend to feel that the English shouldn't be allowed to run your life (as they pretty much did until the Scottish Parliament was reinstalled) and that independence from the United Kingdom wasn't a bad idea. I also flirted with Conservatism for a brief and lamentable period, although no more than to vote for them in 1 general election and later rue that I had ever done something so silly.

So let's push forward to today. There isn't really a political party for me, I'm Liberal in my political leanings, but at the same time I'm environmentally concerned and I tend to like government to keep out of much of my business, but I also don't think the "free market" should be allowed to have its own way either. So basically, I'm a Liberal, Libertarian, Socialist Green, and of course I'm an atheist, so nope, no one political party for me.

Now I don't find that this attitude has caused me any problems, I can find my way through life with these attitudes without having to subscribe to any one party. Sure I have to hope that my fellow citizens don't mess things up by voting a radical party into power, which for the most part they don't, but sometimes even the centrist parties (as most of them have become) can have some idiotic policies that they wish to push.

Therein lies the problem, no matter how I feel, my 1 vote carries no weight, not even in a proportional representation system will my single vote carry any sway, at least not in a realistic government, one with more than 2 parties you can vote for (I'll come back to this point later). In a PR system even if the 2 main parties are 1 vote apart, that 1 vote will make no difference as they will both still receive the same amount of seats in the parliament and an inevitable coalition government will be formed (see the Israeli Knesset for proof, only once in all its years did they almost have a majority party in power).

Let me return to my comment on a realist government. In most of the democratic world, the members of parliament and the political parties of the country are numerous, they usually number more than 5 parties, of which 3 are relatively powerful and the rest are lesser parties with often very specific agendas. The main exception is in the USA where basically 2 parties rule the country, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Now technically speaking if the elections were held using PR, then every single vote would count without a doubt, especially in the Presidential election, but the system is a complete mess. In the USA they use the Electoral College system, which is an extremely poor way to elect the single most powerful person in the country, but hey, they think it works, so whatever...

The Presidential election is almost upon us, as is the Canadian general election. I know I should care about who will rule over Canada, but to be perfectly honest, the Canadian Premiere is far less important than the next President of the USA even in Canada. I guess one day I'll pay attention to the political situation here, but not yet.

With regards to the US Presidential choices, I find it hard not to choose one candidate that I'd wish with all my being to become President, no surprises for guessing that its Barak Obama. I'll give you a few reasons; 1, he's young and seems to be highly principled and highly motivated to try and change the USA for better, both domestically and Globally, 2, he's not George Bush (the single worst President in living memory for US foreign relations and domestic prosperity) 3, he's not 71 years old unlike John McCain, 4. his Vice Presidential nominee isn't some nut job from Alaska, and finally 5, he's a really well educated and intelligent man who genuinely appears to give a damn about someone other than himself (unlike Bush and McCain).

I am currently living in hope that the American people as a whole won't make another hideous mistake and that they elect Barak Obama to the Presidency, because I've no idea what will happen to the world if they elect a Republican demagogue like McCain after 8 years of the demagogue buffoon George W Bush.

Here's hoping come January 20th (stupid date to swear in a President) its Barak Obama and Joe Biden who are on the dais and not John McCain and Sarah Palin....

Filler 2

2008-09-03T19:15:00.003-04:00

I'm going to post tonight. but I wanted to make a comment.

I know I said I was going to try and post every day, but sometimes you just aren't feeling creative, or your head is in the wrong place or something along those lines.

You may have noticed I've kept my blog "clean" which isn't a chore, but its different to the way I speak in daily life to some extent. I'm a swearer, a good old fashioned swearer of the old school, mostly for emphasis, rarely for conflict. I bring this up as if my mind is in the wrong place I'll spend too much time editing my expletives and get frustrated at my lack of progress in the subject matter.

I also don't want to blog fade or repeat myself on a weekly basis, unless I find a topic that can be made into a weekly issue, but until then, I'm trying to stay fresh and be relevant, or at least as relevant as I can be.

Thanks for your patience and I'll be back later to talk about something or other.

William

Cycling in London Ontario

2008-08-31T18:45:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I got a junker bike to use as a runaround in London, so in the last few days I've been using it and starting to build up my cycle fitness again.

So the basics, its a mountain bike, was a front suspension but the suspension is seized solid, which is fine as my last bike in the UK was a full rigid mountain bike. It has 21 gears (7 on the wheel and 3 on the pedals) but I'm the kind of cyclist who never uses the pedal cogs other than the largest (my legs are a testament to the power I put into my cycling). I also generally never go lower than the 3rd gear on the wheel and will cruise on 4th or 5th gear (about 42 to 24 for 3rd and 42 to 18 for 5th).

Back in the UK I used to ride to college 3 or 4 days a week, each day would be around 24 miles round trip, the journey mostly took me through town and city streets and some small part was on a cycle path along the river Clyde. The trip would take me about 1 hour each way, depending on weather conditions and traffic (some days its pretty ridiculous). Many of my friends said I was stupid to do it and some days I had to agree with them (gale force winds, driving rain, blown and shredded tyre, abandoning bike over night and walking 1/2 mile carrying both wheels) but I enjoyed the cycle, loved the exercise and saw the benefit it made in my health.

The last time I cycled any great amount was in February of 2008 when I was back in the UK for a couple of weeks. I haven't owned a car for a long time (more than 4 years) and the bike was my every day vehicle. If I needed something from the store I'd hop on my bike and head out.

As I mentioned previously, I've "had" a bike in Canada since November last year, but due to laziness and the winter that came along, I never sorted out the 10 speed racing bike. When the opportunity of a cheap bike to run around town on came about (see previous post) I jumped on the chance. For the first few days I used the bike just to pop down to the local Valu-mart or the post office, rides of not more than 2km, however on Friday we needed more things than I could easily get at Valu-mart (Tofurkey for one) and I decided to take a ride out to the Masonville mall area of the city.

I mapped the route on Google (although I already knew it from the bus rides and the car drives we've taken out there) more to see how far it was than to actually get directions. The route works out to 4.8km each way, so I got my gear on (so far its just riding gloves here) and filled up my water bottle.

The day was warm, around 26C, there was almost no breeze and the sun was blazing, as it seems to do all summer over here. The bike is far from perfect for me, the saddle is a little too low, the frame is a standard 18" (back in the UK I rode a 21" with the saddle way up) and back in the UK I had bike shoes with clip pedals.

The ride to Masonville is relatively uneventful, there are a few hills and train tracks to cross but nothing major. I set off and managed to arrive at the train crossing just as an East to West CN cargo train was rolling through the city as they appear to do many times a day. I was waiting for a good 5 minutes as the massive freight train rolled by but once it cleared I set off once again.

I remembered just in time that I had to stop off at the Post Office to send off a package and took a short break there while I dealt with things. Heading back out I got myself back onto the road so that I could head back out on my journey. The first hill came along pretty quickly and while its not a hard hill, it took me by surprise a little and it taxed me for the first time in a while. As I mentioned earlier I never drop below 3rd gear even when climbing (unless its a monster climb) and I had to work pretty hard, the low saddle position making me have to use more energy than I normally would. The hill drops off after a short while and the road levels off for a km or so, but then there's more climbing, its gentle and relatively easy, but its pretty constant.

By no account was the ride hard, but the weather and the return to cycling was making me dehydrate quicker than normal. By the time I reached my destination I'd already gone through 2/3 of my water. I took care of my shopping and headed back out onto the road for the mostly downhill return home.

On the way home a couple of college kids in a car did what stupid kids do in cars to cyclists all over, they shouted as they passed, to which I returned a couple of expletives (as usual). The only other issue I had was to deal with the "right turn on a red light" issue whereby instead of hugging the side of the road as in the UK, I had to keep out of turning lanes and avoid cars going round me to turn.

In general the drivers were more well behaved than UK drivers and the cycle, although tiring, was really good fun and a nice introduction to local riding.

Saturday morning I had to pop to the pharmacy to get some anti-biotics for Kata (she has an infected piercing) so I took my bike to save time and get some more saddle time in. After the pharmacy I headed down to the Tim Horton's near Kata's work to get her a Timmies breakfast (she started work at 7am) and then meet her for her lunch break. After lunch I headed back home again, another few km under my belt.

Sunday morning, Kata was craving a McGridle breakfast, so I took my bike again and headed for the nearest McDonald's, which is in the heart of downtown's most ghetto crossing, Dundas and Richmond. As I waited to enter the establishment, 5 ghetto "gangstas" were leaving, I held the door for them and waited for them to leave, no thanks were rendered, but I didn't expect any. This branch of McDonald's has a walk up window, just so you know, but I had no intention of using it, hence why I walked in. Once I had my order I headed back out to make my way to Kata's work and she had her breakfast/lunch. While we were talking I was thinking I had nothing to do that afternoon and I wanted to take a cycle, this time I thought I'd head out the other side of the city and make my way to the White Oaks area and the White Oaks mall.

The ride to White Oaks is further, about 6.4km and there's far more climbing involved, riding along Wellington Road, from around Grand Ave almost to Bradley Ave where the mall starts, its a steady climb, harder than the climb to Masonville and much longer, the temperature was in the mid 20s again and the sun was blazing, so once again my water wasn't lasting. I kept going, because I rarely give up and I made it to White Oaks before long and headed into the mall for a wander around.

I didn't do much more than wander, although I did visit the WalMart to use the bathroom, then I wandered around again until I was bored and headed out. I decided to visit Canadian Tire for the first time and was quite impressed by the place, I didn't buy anything and headed out again.

My water was almost empty and I decided to stop on the way back home at the A&P supermarket to pick up some water, or in this case, a can of Arizona Iced Tea (honey and ginseng flavour). I picked up a couple of other things and headed back out again, refreshed and raring to go. The rest of the ride home was uneventful and I got back, hot and sweaty, but certainly happy.

I'm planning a lot more cycles around the city now. There are a bunch of cycle paths through the parks along the Thames which I'm considering taking (although the mosquitoes and black fly may make them less enjoyable), but I am planning a big cycle around the outskirts of the city, which should be around a 35km circuit, something that I'll build up to in a couple of weeks I'm pretty sure.

So I'm finally back on my bike, building up my bike fitness and enjoying myself in the nice weather. I best make the most of it before the snows come again.

Filler

2008-08-30T22:28:00.002-04:00

Sorry, been busy/tired/passed out the last few days and also I lacked inspiration for a new post, but I'll get something done tomorrow, 31st August.

Religion

2008-08-26T20:26:00.006-04:00

Let me start with another preface; In my About me post, I mentioned that I was born in Israel and brought up in Scotland, with that in mind, I was born Jewish (circumcised ritually and had a bar mitzvah) and brought up in a multicultural but most Christian society (the UK).

As I've said, I was born into a Judeo-Christian world (at least my part of it) and of course I learned about the culture of the Abrahamic religions.

Judaism thinks of itself as the first monotheistic religion, but that's not the case, the first was Atenism which was a short lived religious experiment in Pharonic Egypt which until that point and 20 years after, was a pantheistic religious nation. That's not to say that Judaism isn't old, it IS the oldest continuous monotheistic religion and its less than 100 years younger than Atenism. With a globally estimated population of 13.2 million, 41% of whom live in Israel, it is the smallest of the Abrahamic religions.

Christianity is the younger cousin of Judaism, based in part on the Old Testament of Judaism and the New Testament which purport to relay the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene "son of god" (you can tell what I think about this "story" already). It is also the largest of the Abrahamic religions with between 1.5 and 2.1 billion followers.

With this background in my life I had first hand knowledge of almost all the Abrahamic religions and my knowledge of the 3rd was provided to me by the religious education teachings of the Scottish education system (one of the best in the world).

Islam is the final of the Abrahamic religions and it bases itself on the Old and New testaments, but also adds the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Despite being the newest of the Abrahamic religions it fast became the 2nd largest of them with between 1 and 1.8 billion followers, close behind Christianity and at current rates, fast to overtake it as the biggest.

"With age comes wisdom", someone said that, though I don't know who, however its not always true. All of the Abrahamic religions have gone through schisms. The greatest of the schisming religions is Christianity, not even 200 years into the religion and already 4 schisms, not really surprising when you realise that the religion itself was formed after the purported death of Christ and long after the original disciples were already themselves dead.

These early schisms notwithstanding the Roman Catholic church is the oldest of the Christian factions and the Papacy has held the majority of Christian power for many centuries. It wasn't until the rise of Martin Luther in the 16th century that people began to turn with force against Papal power. The reasoning simple, that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority, not some human given absolute power over the lives of men. This lead to the formation of Protestantism which itself has split into many factions.

Islam and Judaism have also suffered schisms, in the case of Islams, there are the Sunni and Shia factions and in the case of Judaism, there are the Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist factions.

With all these splits in mind, its hard to agree that "with age comes wisdom" in the case of Abrahamic religions, if anything with ages comes conflict and animosity.

The other big religions of the world, in particular Hinduism and Buddhism are no better. It appears that no matter the religion, someone, usually a powerful religions leader, decides that he knows better than those who came before him. It may be true but it really ruins the idea that religion is an all knowing and infallible set of rules by which to live your life.

I don't think I have to mention that many global wars have been fought over religious beliefs and very little else. The crusades in the middle ages were fought over control of Jerusalem and the Holy land. Put simply, the papacy wanted the Holy land back from the Muslims who had taken control of the region in the 7th century. The Pope, held by the belief that he held absolute power on earth, sent thousands of christian crusaders to the holy land to slaughter the heretic Muslim.

Religious persecution has long been a part of religion, in particular Jews have been a major target for religious persecution culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust in World War Two.

I have to give Islam some credit as they allow Christians and Muslims who live under Islamic rule protection as Dhimmis originally only for People of the Book but later extended to any religion that Islam encountered in its spread across the globe. However the rise of fundamentalist Islamic groups around the world has clearly made this protection seem less realistic.

In my opinion, which I am finally getting to, there is but one path to follow in life, Atheism. I came to the conclusion there was no "God" a long time ago, long before I reached bar mitzvah, in fact I don't remember a time in my life when I did believe in an all powerful being who ruled over us all (I even worked out there was no Santa when I was barely 6).

Atheism "apparently" comes in a few flavours, but I'm of the explicit strong atheistic variety, which puts me in line with Richard Dawkins and many other scholarly thinkers. Its a simple "religion" to follow. There is no God, this is the one life you get, be the best human you can be while you're around and to borrow from the Golden Rule "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Simple huh? I like to think so...

Vehicle Culture

2008-08-25T22:05:00.004-04:00

Many people wish to make the car (automobile) the scapegoat for all our problems; global climate change, air pollution, accidental death, traffic congestion, almost anything you can think of people like to blame the car.

I would like to put forward a different point of view, its not the car that's the problem, its the vehicle culture that humanity developed.

The earliest transport "vehicles" were drawn sleds, dragged along the ground by oxen, but they were and still are inefficient unless you can drag them along snow/ice. Around 7000 years ago man invented the wheel and man began to domesticate the horse around 6500 years ago. When these two items were combined man was able to move large quantities of assorted stuff longer distances in less time than anyone could on foot or by sled over land. The world was becoming "smaller", goods and people were being moved further and faster than ever before. It wasn't until the development of these technologies and seagoing vessels, that kingdoms and later empires developed.

With the development of wheeled vehicles came the development of paved roads, after all a horse can ride comfortably across open land, but a cart rides more easily over a paved road. The first roads were cobble stone or wood and they were very expensive to produce with regards to man hours needed.

The Persians were amongst the first to produce an extensive road network around 500BC, but it was the Romans who took this to a new level, they built roads over their entire Empire, Europe, Africa and even to the borders of Asia. These roads were the arteries of trade, diplomacy and war.

Fast forward to the present day and we are still using the same methods for moving goods, diplomacy and war around with the addition of trains and air craft. The car is only one of the vehicles that we are dependent upon. Cars, trucks, trains, ships, planes, they are all vehicles that have changed our world and changed our lives. We need them to keep the lives that we are accustomed to flowing.

Our culture is inextricably tied to vehicles of all forms, the people who want us to stop using them are living in a fantasy land. The option is for us to find and develop new fuel sources that will not destroy the environment we live in and that we should maintain.

With that in mind, 1st generation biofuels, those produced by using food crops, are not the solution. They take away from human food supplies and are not sustainable if we intend to feed all of humanity while still running our vehicles. The hope is that the 2nd and even 3rd generation of bio fuels will fill our needs, they will be made from "waste" organic matter i.e. cellulose, others will be produced directly from algae.

While we wait for this to happen, lets make some changes, try and use your vehicles less, or if you are buying a new vehicle, get one that's more fuel efficient. When you drive, drive more economically, be less aggressive, drive more smoothly and make sure your tyre pressures are correct (yes its true, it makes a huge difference). Try and walk more, or cycle (if you can), take public transport if possible (depending on where you live naturally), it all makes a difference.

Body Modifications

2008-08-24T18:09:00.003-04:00

Preface; I have a piercing and two tattoos, my fiancee Kata has lots of piercings and tattoos.

Back in the UK people with tattoos generally were of a certain type, mostly the "working" class. At least that's the perception for most of them. Some of the people with tattoos are of the extreme sports type, so they have their tattoos as a form of uniform. In any case tattoos in the UK for the majority of people are looked down upon as a low class thing to have done to your body. Its a strange attitude but that's the way it is.

Piercings are another matter. They have become very common all over the western world, ears. lips, noses, eyebrows, navels especially, then there's the ones you can't see...

I got my tattoos for my own reasons, not to be cool, but for significant reasons. My wolf tattoo is a tribute to my father (I designed it myself) and my KATG tattoo is a tribute to the podcast that I love and led me to meet my darling Kata, she has a similar tattoo (we designed them together). The fact that they are unique makes them more important to me and I've not regretted having them in any way. With that in mind I don't know why anyone would get a tattoo that they don't design themselves, or why you would ever regret a tattoo that you put on yourself.

Now I understand that some people do things without thinking, you know, when drunk, or just being a reactionary idiot, but honestly if you're going to do anything to your body that you can't reverse easily and you're not 100% certain you want it for the rest of your life, DON'T DO IT.

Body modification is an interesting issue. Its a practice that's been around as long as human culture, but its only become popular (again) in the western world in the last 50 to 100 years.

The most obvious form is ear piercing, nothing unusual there, but there are extreme forms of ear modification, not only piercing every part of the ear but also shaping the ear to some other form, from lobe stretching to take larger items e.g. huge hollow plugs to amputating parts of the ear to shape them into elfin/vulcan forms. Why? I've no idea, some people are just, well, crazy...

Tattooing which I've already covered is a form of body mod, a very ancient form that's been around for thousands of years, although in recent decades. Many people will go through the process of covering their entire body in tattoos (something that is very common among the criminal underclasses of Japan).

The list of body mods are huge and growing, one of the more recent is scarification, the process where scaring is made purposefully on the skin by removal of tissue to produce a desired image. Now I say its new, but only in the western world really, its a practice that's been around for many generations in African culture and other parts of the world.

I had a point when I started this post and I guess I'll get to it around now. In the UK I could see people with certain forms of body mod, mostly tattoos and piercings, not much more than that. When I came to Canada I started to notice a greater range and variety of body mods on show in the "wild" so to speak. Rarely a day goes by when I don't see someone with big plugs in their lobes, or multiple facial piercings (a seeming favourite is two lower labial facial piercings on either side of the chin), people with tattoos are extremely common, from all facets of society.

Granted there are a large number of tattoo and piercing parlors in London (15 by Google's count of tattoo businesses in London Ontario) which suggests that there's a market for them. The question I ask myself is, are they a factor of the society's acceptance of what was an underground art form, or are they driving the market by their existence?

I'm of the opinion that people make their own choices in life and that its hard to force someone to do something they are against, however its clear that peer pressure can be a strong driving force in many people's lives.

What I'm getting at is if you are going to carry out any form of body modification upon yourself, think of the long term ramifications before you take any action. Most importantly, DO NOT piece the ears of a child that isn't even out of nappies (diapers) as they don't for one second have the ability to know what the hell you have done, nor why you did it, you vain idiot (I have seen it with my own eyes and wished the child could be taken to a safer life).

Road trips

2008-08-22T08:38:00.018-04:00

Kata's work schedule conspired to give her 6 consecutive days off so we decided to hire a car for a couple of days. Rather than take a weekend hire (something we've often done) we decided to take the car from Wednesday to Friday and take a couple of road trips.

On Wednesday we decided to head out East and ultimately take a trip to Ikea in Burlington, I've been to Ikea in Scotland, but Kata had never been before. Ikea only have 11 stores in the whole of Canada, 4 in Ontario and the closest to us is in Burlington, more than 140km away. Now you may think this is a long way to travel just to look at and buy inexpensive Swedish designed goods, but in Canada 140km isn't much in the way of travel, its a factor of scale in this massive country.

Our first stop on the way to Ikea was a yarn store in Burlington called Spun, a cute little place in a "strip mall" situated next door to a sewing machine store and a "bar and grill", pretty typical for a strip mall. Kata was looking for some yarn for a project and when we take trips she likes to visit yarn stores. We spent about 10 minutes in the store and Kata bought the yarn she needed, as well as some yarn she didn't but really wanted.

The next stop on our trip to Ikea was Booster Juice, a smoothie company we'd discovered on a trip we made to the Toronto Zoo. Kata had directions for the entire trip printed out for us (thank you Google maps) and we were travelling along the same street that Spun was on and we spotted a Licks burger restaurant. We were both hungry and we had eaten Lick's Nature Burgers before that we'd bought from the store (the nature burger line is Lick's vegetarian burger, for which they are famous), but I'd never eaten at a proper Lick's restaurant so I pulled in and we headed in. We ordered nature burgers, nature coney fries (fries with vegetarian chili and cheese) and cherry cokes. The food was freshly prepared, the burgers topped to our specification (something I love about Harvey's and Lick's) and we tucked in happily.

We finished our food and headed onto the road once more. The Booster Juice (for we weren't going to give up on our smoothies) was about 5km away and on the way to the Ikea (Kata had planned wisely). The Booster Juice was also in a strip mall. It shared part of a health club's building and was next door to a "glow in the dark" mini golf. We both ordered the Mango Hurricane, mine with a protein booster and Kata's with a fusion booster (thus the name Booster Juice I guess). With smoothies in hand, we headed off to Ikea, another 5km away.

Ikea was pretty much the same as the Ikea I'd experienced in the UK, lots of nice, not overly expensive, relatively stylish products on display to purchase either as is or in flat pack boxes. We bought some candles, candle dishes (to burn the candles on), a pizza cutter (we didn't have one), a cast iron skillet, a messenger bag, some chocolate and lingonberry jelly, none of which was particularly expensive and most of which was pretty good quality. Kata enjoyed herself and admitted that we could have spent hundreds of dollars in there if we had a house to put stuff in.

We left Burlington around 5 and headed back for London along the 400 series highway, the traffic wasn't too bad and we headed to the Wal*Mart in the White Oaks area of London as we needed a couple of things, stuff for my bike and food for Blackie. The Wal*Mart was really busy and finding parking was a chore, but we took care of what we needed and headed home.

For Thursday we planned a day trip to Port Stanley on Lake Erie to visit another great lake (I've been to 3 now, Ontario, Huron and Erie) and on the way we planned to visit St. Thomas, Sparta and ultimately Port Stanley. The weather was fantastic, around 28C, clear skies, a gentle cool breeze and we headed out around 11am. We had planned our trip away from any highway, so we knew we'd be travelling past lots of farms and we knew we'd pass at least a couple of roadside farm stalls.

Not long out of London we happened upon a farm store selling fresh fruit and corn and we bought 14 of the most amazingly fresh and huge corn, we would have bought more but I managed not to bring any cash with me (apart from $7 in change) so we didn't get to buy anything else, but it all looked spectacular. We headed back on the road and passed km after km of farm land, either covered in soy (first pic), corn (second pic) or hay. Its quite a sight and it makes me happy to see how productive the land is around here. There are orchards and vineyards, all manner of fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs & spices grown in Ontario, granted nothing that needs tropical climes, although there are a huge number of hot houses around the country too.

After a short while, we arrived in St Thomas, its not far from London, only 26km by Google directions avoiding the 401 highway. We started to look for Parkspin (another yarn store) which was closing down (the reason to go there, a little bargain hunting), but there was an Iron Horse event on in the town which blocked the street we were trying to drive down, we had to take a few detours to get to our destination, who'd have thought such a small town would have a one way system? We went in, didn't find much that we were interested in until we found a button bin where a bag, a decent sized bag, of buttons were $1+tax. Kata saw some cute plastic buttons that she wanted to get and we dug in hunting them out. After maybe 15 minutes we had collected what turned out to be over 1400 buttons, quite a haul. We paid and petted the shop owner's dog and headed off on the next leg of our trip to Sparta.

Our first destination was planned to be Sparta Candles' store in Sparta. We reached the cute, tiny town after about 30 mins of driving through the countryside. We reached the point where our directions told us to take a left turn and drive 1km. I noticed a store called "Anything Used" and thought "that looks nice, maybe we'll stop in for a look later". So we continued to drive along this small road in Sparta (it's the Sparta Line), and we went past the 1km mark with no sign of what we assumed would be a well signposted store/house, we did see a sign for a lavender farm (Lavender Blue) but we decided to keep driving since the day was so lovely. As we continued to drive we saw many pretty houses and many trees covered in what looked like webs (see the pic), we were so amazed by this we had to slow down and take some photographs. We continued driving and we decided there was no way we were going to find the candle store on that road, but we decided to stop at the Lavender farm and check it out, we were so glad we had.

The Lavender farm, at least the part we could see, was an area of lavender bushes, hoards of butterflies and other insects, crickets chirping loudly, a pretty farm house with a patio and the pathway leading to the store. The store inside is minimal, but nicely presented, all the products are on display and the proprietor had samples of her lavender honey and lavender jelly for customers to sample, along with other samples to test of the cosmetic products. We bought some soaps, some lavender jelly and some lavender chocolate. I asked about the trees with the webs on and we were told that it was caused by the tent caterpillar on birch trees. We also asked about Sparta Country Candles and we were told that it was back the way we came 3km (about what we'd travelled) in the Anything Used store (well that fixed the prospect of us stopping in for a look around).

We headed back into "town" and stopped to visit Anything Used, its a typical gift store with all kinds of garden nick knacks, candles (naturally), books, fudge and all manner of other things. There were another 6 rooms of items upstairs (we only looked through 4 rooms downstairs) but we'd seen and found as much as we wanted to buy in the store (a candle and a resin frog for Kata's mother), so we paid up and headed out to visit another store in the Sparta area called Winter Wheat which Kata's mother had suggested we visit (one of her favourites in that area).

Winter Wheat was only 2 km down the Quaker Road from "downtown" Sparta and is set off the road in a shady wooded area. The building looks like an old farm house, there's also a little tea house, the residence of the owners and a goat house in the clearing. The store sells all manner of "folksy" items, furniture, prints, garden ornaments and all manner of other cutesy stuff. The store offers free tea, coffee and cookies (with a donation to charity greatly appreciated) and Kata bought a few cards to use on her pen pal letters. As I was waiting for her to finish paying, I noticed a hanging bird feeder out the window and to my surprise, some humming birds were flitting in and out feeding from the feeder. It was my first time seeing them in the flesh, a wondrous sight. We tried to get a picture or 2 of the birds, but people were milling around and they didn't return to our field of view before we left.

From Winter Wheat its 15km to Port Stanley, so we headed off and made our way there. One of the primary reasons for going to Port Stanley was to visit the beach there and for me to get a look at another Great Lake (my first visit to a Great Lake was to Lake Huron at Grand Bend in the Spring, the weather was warm but the lake was cold and the town itself wasn't open for the influx of guests that flock there in the summer. We walked on the beach, dipped our feet in the freezing water and headed on our way). Getting to the beach required a little "off our map" navigation but we got to the parking area (free unlike Grand Bend) and we parked close to the beach and headed out for the shore.

The weather was idyllic, air temperature around 28C, the sand a lovely golden colour by the parking lot, I was so excited, I took my sandals off (de rigeur for summer in Canada) and walked to the shore bare foot. The sand was hot, almost too hot, but it was wonderful to feel it under my feet. As we neared the shore we saw multiple life guard stations (not like Baywatch, the tower type that 2 guards sit on under a parasol) and on the back of the one nearest us was information on the weather, lake temperature, sun UV index and other factors I didn't bother reading. The lake was 20C and the sun was "fry you in minutes" strong, at least for North Americans and Northern Europeans, there were hundreds of people at the beach despite it being a Thursday afternoon and many were sun bathing or playing with their kids and generally having a great time. We walked down the shore for 10 or 15 minutes, we paddled in the water (cold compared to the sand but warm), we took some picture, did some cute stuff (drew a heart in the sand with our feet) and then decided to head off to Starthroy to spend some time with Kata's mother and step father. We got lost a little leaving Port Stanley, but we worked things out and headed off cross country (again avoiding the 400 series highway) for Strathroy.

We drove for about 24km on paved roads and then we reached the area around Munce y. A sign stated the paved road would end and we entered into the reservation of Oneida. It was all rough track for about 3km and at one point a collie dog was laying in the road and chased at us as we drove past (we were both pretty shook up worrying that we could have hit the dog had it not pulled out of the chase). We passed out of the reservation and back onto paved roads through Muncey, it was my first time in a Native reservation and Kata told me that it was one of the places that Mixed Martial Arts fights take place in Ontario as the Ontario athletic commission won't sanction MMA fights (the reservations being sovereign territory). I've since learned that the area around Muncey has 3 reservations (Chippewas of the Thames, Munsee-Delaware and Oneida).

We made our way to Strathroy and we went to Kata's parent's house and we learned that her parents had a BBQ to go to that evening (they have a very busy social calendar) so we stayed until it was time for them to leave and we left them 6 corn to enjoy, then headed home to London.

It was a wonderful day out, the best I've had so far in Canada, the weather was wonderful, the people were adorable, the drive was fun and everything went smoothly (more or less).

p.s. If you want to see more pics from the Thursday trip, here's Kata's flickr set.

Local Business

2008-08-19T20:42:00.005-04:00

The idea of buying locally was once the only option and by that I don't just mean the store that you bought your groceries from. All products were once only locally produced or they were imported at great cost by land or water.

Europe is a perfect example. From the earliest days of European civilisation people of different regions would trade between neighbouring tribes for whatever they couldn't find easily in their daily lives (or they'd fight with them and take the stuff they needed). As the technology improved, as people started to travel farther and as nations formed, trade increased over the known world. By the height of the Roman Empire goods were being traded from all over Europe, Africa and Asia, it is even hinted (although not proven) that trade from the Americas took place also (the Egyptian Pharaohs were purported to have acquired some cocaine which is only found in South America).

When mass transportation started to take hold in the world, for the most part the Steam Engine powered trains of the Industrial Revolution (something that Great Britain gave to the world) were the method of taking goods cross country in days rather than weeks. The steam ship made inter-continental trade quicker also, allowing goods from the colonies of the European nations to reach the home lands sooner. This process of "shrinking the world" reached its peak with the advent of the air plane which allows goods and people naturally to cross the globe in hours rather than weeks (as compared to ship travel).

Now don't think I'm just going to rail against the modern globalised world, it would be pointless to do so as the benefits to humanity are too great and the power of the massive corporations which take advantage of the modern methods of transporting goods are far too strong for one man to fight alone. Also I like a bargain as much as the next person, the rise of China as a global manufacturing power has made life much cheaper and easier for us in the rich western world. Realistically though, without the quick, comfortable (mostly) and reliable transportation system that is the Jet airliner, there's almost no way I'd be alive today, let alone in the country I am today with the woman I'm in love with.

So where am I going with this? Well here's the deal. Its better, for the most part, to try and support local business. By that I mean local companies owned by local people, not specifically Mom and Pop stores, but the stores that do their best to take care of your needs with local produce (where possible) and local people (if possible).

Am I saying don't shop at a supermarket, or a franchise store? No. But if you do, try and be a responsible consumer. Look to see where the goods you buy are from. Do you really need those limes from Mexico? How about those dwarf beans from Kenya (not that rare in the UK)? Do you have to have that ebony table?

Packaging is almost as important. Plastic is a great material, but its made from petroleum and that's becoming an increasingly rare resource. Can you buy the same item in a glass container or can you re-use your containers? Do you need those plastic bags they pack your groceries in (you might if you have a pet like we do)? Its all about recycling, reducing and reusing (a slogan from back home).

Recycle, it makes you feel good and it makes work for people. Reduce, use less stuff (pretty simple), by stuff I mean anything that you don't NEED to use, do you need all that food that goes to waste, those new clothes that aren't replacing anything old, that new car that you don't need as your old car is still in great condition. Reuse, don't throw that plastic container away, clean it and use it for your leftovers, or to store nails, how about those glass jars, you can store lots of things in those, old newspapers can make great fire lighters, those trousers with stains or rips below the knee could be turned into shorts, or pillows, or sails (OK I'm reaching there but cloth is pretty good for reusing).

I'm not asking or demanding that people change their lives entirely, that's unrealistic and rather fascistic. I'd rather that people make little changes that they hardly notice that add up over the world's population into massive gains.

I'll just add as a post script that it amazes me just how many still serviceable items people in this city and for that part this culture (Western capitalist culture) people with throw out rather than repair, sell or donate. Oh and with that in mind, I bought a junker bike that a local person had put together from bikes that people had dumped around the neighbourhood. It only cost me $30 but its perfectly serviceable and will do me fine for a decent amount of time.

Trees

2008-08-18T21:17:00.004-04:00

This post is going to be very London centric (the Ontario London of course), but I'll try and make it more global, at least where possible.

As I've mentioned before London Ontario is nicknamed the Forest City and a tree is the London city logo. There's a good reason for this, London is covered in trees. I'm not exaggerating, there are a crazy number of trees, almost every street is lined with trees. In the older parts of the city they are massive ancient trees, OK maybe not ancient but a good couple of centuries old.

Its not as if they are the stereotypical pine or spruce trees that I'm sure people imagine are in Canada, there's a wide variety of trees. Lots of maple sure, Canada is blessed with lots of maple trees, from the sugar maple, to red maple (after which the Canadian flag is based) and many others in between.

There are a lot of ornamental trees too, this picture shows an ornamental apple tree, with tiny red apples. I've not tried eating one of the apples, but I have eaten an apple from another ornamental tree with apples that were a little smaller than a cox's orange pippin (it wasn't terrible).

Victoria Park in central London is chock full of trees of many different species, maples, horse chestnut, oak, pine and spruce, I even found a Ginko Biloba tree one day. The problem with the trees in the park are they are old, really old, they are close together and they are suffering from disease and competition from the other trees. Its a shame, but the park services will have to do something about it eventually.

Speaking of disease. This picture is of a tree close to our apartment building (that's it in the background) and you can clearly see that there's a diseased growth on the side of the tree. Its not unusual around the city in the more mature trees. Some of it is down to the age of the plants, some is down to earlier management of the trees that left them unprotected from parasite incursion. This has led to a lot of trees dieing and having to be cut down. There's a city truck that carries around a wood chipper throughout the non snowy season, that takes care of the dangerous trees that need to be cut down. Its a good system but is does show how badly many of the trees are suffering around here.

Here's one last picture. Around London's downtown there are a collection of metal trees painted in gaudy colours and "planted" in areas that are a little less tree covered. Apparently these sculptures caused a real stink when they were commissioned by the London District Business Association. They're not terrible to look at, but honestly, what was the point, its not like London lacks real trees. Still, its art I guess.

I really do like the fact that London is covered in trees, it makes things a lot more pleasant (except when the trees rain or snow on you, or when they hit you with masses of seeds, or the pollen makes you sneeze), they provide much needed shade in the summer and help block out some of the noises of the city (especially in the myriad parks in the city) and they provide a nice home for the local black squirrel population and of course the local birds. They even help to reduce the overall temperature in the city (thanks to transpiration).

Excuse me, I think its time to go out and find a tree to hug, one that's not overly diseased anyway.

Assuming you are so inclined I have a bunch more pictures on my Flickr account.

Weather

2008-08-16T21:00:00.004-04:00

Its said that the British have an obsession with weather, its true, we do. There's a good reason for it, the British weather is incredibly varied. In Scotland its often said, if you don't like the weather, wait around a while.

When I was growing up, when the summer holiday came round we hoped with all our might for a good summer. A good summer constituted a week or more of good weather where there would be sunshine for at least 5 days in a row and a temperature of around 20C. It didn't happen often, most weeks would have rain showers or whole days of rain. If you were really lucky the temperature might hit 25C.

After the poor summer, the wet and windy autumn would always follow, rain for days at a time, winds growing to 80 or 90mph in gale force storms (relatively common in Scotland), months of this weather would roll by and eventually winter would set in.

In Scotland you'd expect winter to be a cold snowy affair, really low temperatures and ice storms, hah we wish. Winter in Scotland tends to be a let down if you like the cold weather, Christmas time is almost never snowy, which ruins every child's holidays. When it does snow, which some years is almost never, the snow is pretty light and when its heavy enough to settle and accumulate, it barely gets to more than a couple of inches deep. Then the snow might last a few days, a week at most, then it'll rain and bye bye snow.

There's a scientific reason for all this, its called the Gulf Stream in particular the North Atlantic part. This is a current of warm water that flows from North Africa, via the Caribbean region of the Atlantic Ocean, it splits into the North Atlantic Drift and the rest recirculates to Africa. This warm water current has a huge effect on the British Isles raising the winter temperatures by a sizeable amount, e.g. the average low temperature in Moscow for the month of January is -10.5C, in Glasgow its 1C (I use these 2 cities because in latitude they are almost identical, 55 45 N for Moscow and 55 50N for Glasgow). This also effects summer temperatures, in July its 23.4C average for Moscow and 18C for Glasgow. The reason the temperature is lower in summer is thanks to the warm water, more clouds are formed and consequently more rain, that ever present rain.

The Gulf Stream does effect more than the British Isles, it actually keeps most of the western coast of Northern Europe warmer than it should be and if the Gulf Stream was ever to shut down, North Western Europe would descend into a mini ice age, or less dramatically, it would become a hell of a lot colder, more like the rest of Northern Europe in winter, like the Baltic for example.

Also thanks to how far North the British Isles are, we are affected by the Arctic. Especially in winter, Arctic winds come down over Europe dropping the region into a deep freeze, causing chaos in the warmer countries. These rare hard freezes can give us snow but mostly ice and cause problems on the roads.

With this in mind, at least you now understand where I came from in terms of changeable, hard to predict weather that will constantly spoil your day and once in a while play nice and give you a happy surprise.

The weather in Canada was a real surprise to me. My first time over was in July 2007. It wasn't the warmest of summers and the average temperature was around 25C. It hardly rained and there wasn't much in the way of wind either. It was pretty damn idyllic for me, especially compared to the weather I'd left behind in the UK, temperatures barely hitting 20C and rain every other day. I was over for 3 weeks and had a great time and went home with a bit of a tan (compared to the usual). I came back in October and the weather was once again much better than the UK. I'd left rain, cold, wind and storms behind and come to average temperatures in the high teens, shorts and t-shirt weather.

As the months went on, the weather started to cool down, by December the temperature had dropped to -5C or so and there was a hint of snow in the air. My first experience of Canadian snow was on the way to Ottawa for a friend's birthday on December 2nd. We were driving up the 401 to Toronto to pick up a friend and the first of the snow for that winter, in South West Ontario, had started to fall. As we headed out of Toronto the snow kept falling, but it wasn't overly worrying, still quite light, however a couple of hours later, around the time we were nearing Kingston the snow was falling steadily, the roads were becoming covered and the plows were out in force. For the most part on the 401 we managed to avoid the plows and enjoy the fruits of their labour i.e. clear roads, but when we left the 401 to take the 416 that all changed.

The snow was getting deep, very deep by my personal experience. The plows were working extra hard and we were caught behind them a couple of times following at 40km/h for 5km or so at a time until the plows peeled off to head back down the highway to clear the other side. It took us an extra couple of hours on the 416 than usual and we saw 5 or 6 cars abandoned by the side of the highway and even a couple of trucks. One in particular had jackknifed and blocked the other side of the highway causing a tailback for a good 5 km. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) had done a good job redirecting traffic though so that they avoided that area of the highway bu I'm sure a few people's days were ruined. We got to Ottawa safely and although the snow was deep it was well tended by the authorities.

On the way home, the snow had started to melt and this caused some problems too, our car's windscreen washer fluid level was low (not that we knew at the time) and for a good 50km as we neared Toronto I was driving with an almost ice covered screen with barely a slit of clear glass to watch the road. We did manage to find some fluid at a service stop but it was the 4th place we'd tried, turns out hundreds of other drivers had suffered the same fate. However by the time we reach Toronto the weather had warmed significantly, enough that it was raining and the snow was cleared from most of the land.

By mid December the snow had returned, a little to start with but still a good amount. This froze after a couple of days, making walking difficult in places where the snow hadn't been cleared properly but I managed not to fall at least. As the winter went on we went through a few fluctuations, for most of December and January there were periods of snow, freeze and thaw, at one point it was even 8 or 9C. Late in January however and through February and March the snow started to hang around, getting deep and freezing hard. It was the most snow I'd experienced for a long period of time and it took a little getting used to. Walking Blackie at -32C (the coldest of the year) was pretty interesting and we both agreed to make it short. Walking at -20C wasn't so bad and his fur, which is crazy warm, kept him pretty happy, although he did manage to tear a claw during one walk which made him pretty sore and grumpy for a week until he gnawed the claw off.

Winter was pretty fantastic for me, I'd not had that kind of winter experience in my life and its something we Brits tend to love.

I'll talk about Summer in a later post as we're still in the middle of my first full summer in Canada, however I'll tell you this, its so much better than the UK summer, hot days, strong sunshine, very little in the way of rain or inclement weather apart from a few storms.

Vegetarianism

2008-08-15T20:46:00.005-04:00

I thought I should probably elaborate on something I mentioned in my first post, vegetarianism.

When I was 17, I reached the conclusion that I didn't want to eat meat any more. Its something that comes to many of us who purport to love animals, or at least believe that animals have a right to a decent quality of life before they are slaughtered for human consumption. It was the late 80s, there was very little care for animals being shown and the quality of factory farmed animal products was dropping rapidly, animals were being pumped full of steroids, being fed animal proteins and being transported and slaughtered in terrible conditions with very little regard for their well being.

So as I was saying, I had not long turned 17, I may even have been 16 at the time, but that makes no difference. I had made my mind up, I was going to stop eating meat, all meat, but not fish. It was in my mind that fish were a wild caught animal, the fishing practices were the same as they'd always been and fish was actually good for human development as opposed to meat which humans really don't need (how naive I was about fish, I'll get back to that later).

I didn't need to do any research for the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, but I still did. The Internet was still young and hard to get onto, so I resorted to the wikipedia of the last generation, books, in particular encyclopedias. Many millions of people throughout the world live a life-long vegetarian lifestyle, the best example are the Jains originally of India, who never take the life of another creature. Some Buddhists also follow a strict vegetarian diet for the same reason as the Jains, but not all.

The facts are pretty simple, a well balanced vegetarian diet is better for you. It can reduce the number of free radicals that are wandering around your body by virtue of the fact that fruit and vegetables are high in anti-oxidants (that's why they want everyone to eat 5 portions of fruit or veg per day), this also helps reduce the incidence of some cancers (especially those caused by sunlight and direct inhalation of smoke). The diet is higher in fibre (helps to reduce incidence of colorectal cancer), generally lower in saturated fats (unless you eat a lot of milk by-products) and higher in poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated fats, which are particularly good at lowering LDL cholesterol levels and raising HDL cholesterol levels.

Oh that's enough about the diet being good, because realistically anyone eating a healthy balanced diet will reduce all of those factors, if you only eat meat once a week and you don't char it or smother it in creamy sauces, chances are you're going to be fine and live as long a life as an average vegetarian, so don't think I'm going to preach the lifestyle based on health alone. Actually I won't "preach" the lifestyle at all, but I will give my reasoning later why its a better choice.

So back to my vegetarian experience. When I started in the late 80s it wasn't all roses for vegetarians in west central Scotland, we weren't a new thing, but there were only a small number of us around and most of us were of the younger generation just making our way in the world. I met many vegetarians in University where you tend to meet people of "alternative lifestyles". Its also where I met my first lesbians and homosexuals, at least the kind that were out about it.

In the 80s the practice in Europe of feeding animals with animal derived protein supplements was endemic, mostly due to the difficulty of cultivating soy in the cooler European climate. This animal protein turned out to be a problem in cattle production as it apparently lead to the arrival of B.S.E. into the bovine population. Now B.S.E. is a brain disease not dissimilar to Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease which causes the brain to form spongy lesions that destroy brain function, mobility and invariably leads to death. This all came to a head in the late 80s when the British (mostly English) cattle farmers were having to deal with a rash of cows that were suffering from severe neurological problems.

It took a while, but by 1989 after the world had banned British beef imports, the British government changed its cattle rearing regulations, their feed was not allowed to contain animal by-products and other draconian restrictions on the processing of meat were introduced. B.S.E. it was found could, if the meat was contaminated with brain matter from infected cattle, cause humans to develop (new) variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

It appears my decision to stop eating meat towards the end of the 80s and the fact that most Scottish meat was produced without the high protein feed, meant that I had reduced my chances of infection.

When people back then asked why I was a vegetarian, B.S.E. was a good reason to give them, but since then as people's memories faded, I fell back to giving them my original reason, conscience and health.

My mother for many years though it was a phase. Its not that I forced her to cook special meals for me or anything like that, I had been taking care of my own food since I decided to turn veggie, but she, being a Jewish mother, was very concerned that I wasn't eating properly and would suffer from malnutrition (something I most certainly have not). She was so concerned she spoke to her doctor about it... Suffice to say even her guilt trips didn't make me change my mind.

After a year or 2 the smell of meat cooking started to repulse me, its worse now than then, the worst tend to be chicken because its a fatty meat and the fat make the smell linger more. Bacon has never made me want to eat meat, its smell also reviles me.

It took me close to 8 years to decide that I didn't want to eat fish (I'm finally back to fish) and it was a 2 part reason; 1. Fishing practices were far from sustainable, in fact they were catching so much fish that the usual prized fish like Cod and Haddock were in short supply, the catch was smaller and the individual fish were smaller too. To make up for the shortfall the more unpopular fish were and still are being caught, things like Pollock, Hake, Coley and others (all of the same family as the Cod but not the same mild flavour). Even more exotic fish are being caught from deeper in the oceans, fish that take many decades to reach maturity. The sea is being pillaged and especially in the temperate, sub arctic and Arctic waters, the fish stocks are crashing, if it continues, there will be no fish left, or at least so few as to require centuries for their numbers to bounce back. Oh and 2. the smell of cooking fish, especially my family's favourite the salmon (farmed naturally, its way cheaper) was making me sick (my mother's absolute favourite fish is the Mackerel and its one of the smelliest fish when cooked).

OK I think the reasons I stopped eating meats have been covered. So time for the conclusion and my "preachy" bit.

I'm not an evangelist for vegetarianism. I believe in people's rights to choose what they want to do with their lives. But if we're going to feed the world, we can't continue the level of meat production that's going on in the world right now, even worse, we can't allow the increase in meat production that's forecast as the Asian population becomes more wealthy and craves the meat their meager monies couldn't buy before.

Meat production is the most wasteful and the most polluting per tonne, even soy beans, which are amongst the most demanding crops need less than a quarter the amount of water per tonne for production than beef cattle do. Its not just the water, the cattle need fodder. In most of the world grasses can only be relied upon seasonally, outwith that the animals need to be fed, mostly with grain, grain that needs transporting to the animals, grain that could be feeding humans. Its ridiculously wasteful.

The way I look at things now is I'm an environmental vegetarian, by not eating meat I'm reducing my environmental footprint. Its one of my little actions which add up to, over the course of my life, a considerable amount. The more of us humans in the 1st world and latterly the rapidly improving 2nd world (Asia in particular) who turn to vegetarianism, the better it will be for all of us, the more people around the world who can be fed, the lower the burden on health providers.

There is one issue I'd like to touch on as a final aside, the idea of in vitro meat production. I think its a good idea. The meat that would be produced would be free of animal suffering, use massively less resources to produce and despite it not being in any way "good" to eat, in the way a steak is "good" to eat, it will still be highly usable in processed foods like burgers, sausages and other meat products. Its a long way off, it may never be accepted, but it may be the only way to provide the meat that people seem to want.

We'll see I guess...

Parasites (the insect kind)

2008-08-14T17:57:00.004-04:00

I'll preface this post with my current situation, on Tuesday I went with Kata to a friend's house/business called The Bloomin Bog in the outskirts of London Ontario. Kata is an avid knitter and is part of the Knit London group on Ravelry (I'm a member too, but I'm not a knit knut ;) ) and Tuesday was a yarn dyeing and going away party with a pot luck. One of the members, Jenny is leaving London for Montreal, hopefully not for long, but at least for a year. Anyway approx 12 of us were there, I was the only male, and we were dyeing yarn using Kool Aid and some Jaquard Acid dyes, Kata died 4 skeins of yarn and I assisted ably.

Since it was outdoors and The Bloomin Bog is a water plant nursery with a large number of outdoor ponds, there's a huge amount of insects at any given time, dragonflies, mayflies and unfortunately close to and at dusk, lots and lots of mosquitoes. Well at the time I thought I was doing fine, not really being bitten, but later that night after we got home and I'd passed out (see 2 posts ago), I realised I'd been bitten quite a lot, at least 10 welts were forming on my legs and one on my left arm. I put some cortisone cream onto my bites and went to sleep thinking nothing of the situation.

The next morning my bites had started to react a lot more, the skin was, as you can imagine, very itchy but I managed not to scratch for the most part and used more cortisone cream to take care of most of the itch. As the day wore on though, things got worse, more and more the skin around the bites became inflamed, hot, sore and itchy, by last night no matter what I did the skin was hot and sore. When I took Blackie for a walk, my legs were on fire, the more I walked the more itchy the skin felt, the heat of my own muscle activity working against me.

I had been a real grumpy bastard much of the day thanks to the pain and irritation, but by last night I was pretty fed up and extra grumpy. I put lots more cream on the bites and hoped that I'd be fine over night. No such luck though, I had a hard time sleeping, I woke up around 4:40 with my legs on fire, itchier than I've ever felt and I couldn't take it. I got out of bed and tried using more cream, but nothing, I had been scratching in my sleep, or at least half wakefulness, and my left calf muscle was swollen quite badly around a bite.

Now by this time I was starting to get concerned, but since I'm relatively cool in those situations and I know first aid, I went to the freezer and grabbed out a cooler ice pack, applied it to the site (wrapped in cloth) and held it there for a good 5 minutes to bring the swelling down and reduce the itch and fire in my skin.

The ice pack was only partially working and since both my legs were bad, I went to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of dish cloths and soaked them in cold water and applied them to my skin. Finally some relief. I kept doing this for the next 45 minutes, re-wetting the cloths as my body heat warmed up and dried out the water.

By that time it was approaching 6 and I was really tired, but there was no way I could go back to bed. So I put on my Creative Zen and continued listening to Lewis Black's "Me of Little Faith" audio book (I'll blog about the topic of religion and faith another time, but his book is a good listen and most likely also a good read) and fell asleep for an hour or so. I've carried on using the wet cloth application all day, apart from when I took Blackie out for a walk this morning (another pain filled journey) and its helped a lot, the swelling is gone, much of the irritation has reduced and I'm certainly hoping my body will have taken care of itself by tomorrow.

So, now that I've been through all that, I'll get back to the topic of parasites. The mosquitoes were just doing what they've evolved to do. Suck blood from any handy mammal (bird etc) that's nearby so as to provide itself with the energy and nutrients to reproduce. Its only the females that suck blood, they use a host of chemicals in their saliva to prevent the host from noticing them until they've taken their fill, the saliva contains chemicals that prevent clotting, and increase blood flow. The problem is these chemicals can cause an immune reaction, just as in my case. For some people this can lead to anaphylaxis which is often fatal, thankfully that didn't happen to me.

Fortunately Canada doesn't have much in the way of Mosquito borne diseases although West Nile virus has been confirmed, however its still rare, so I'm probably good... There are other parasites in Canada of course, there are ticks, which often carry Lyme disease, there's the black fly which carries Onchocerciasis but these only live near fast flowing rivers so they're not that common in the city except near the Thames river (I've been bitten by a few black flies. Kata and I visited Harris park a couple of weeks ago and we were harassed by black flies, fortunately I didn't have any reaction to their bites, Kata however had some inflammation).

Well I guess I should get to my point, I've been writing long enough. Parasites suck, literally, but its hard to get rid of them, apart from spraying their habitats with insecticides or introducing predators, there's not a huge amount you can do, certainly not in a massive country like Canada. I'm sure if the level of disease spread by these parasites rises, as is possible due to the increase in global temperature that global climate change predicts, there will be a concerted effort by the government to wipe out these parasites.

Until then I guess I'll have to "suck it up" and take precautions to protect myself, bug spray, citronella candles, that kinda stuff...

Politeness and manners

2008-08-13T12:53:00.005-04:00

I was going to post this blog yesterday (the 12th) but as I mentioned in today's other post, I ran out of time and ability not to pass out. In any case here it is...

As you all probably know I was raised in Scotland, part of the United Kingdom and home of all the books on manners from almost all eras. The British pride themselves on their manners and general politeness and for some people the greatest crime is to be rude or impolite.

When I was younger its true that people were friendlier and more courteous to strangers, Scotland still is a very friendly place, but the overall level is dropping. In part I suppose it mat be a break down of the class boundaries, the increase in casual culture, the rise of the Chav/Ned in "popular" culture, or its just an ennui with the norms of our forefathers, or all of the above. In any case its a shame that its happening.

Before I came to Canada I knew that the people were meant to be friendly. The world view of Canada tends to be that its the smaller cousin of the USA where people are generally nicer and don't kill each other as much (travellers from the USA will often pretend to be Canadians abroad). They also think its snowy all year, that polar bears roam widely and there are igloos all over the place (here's a compilation of questions people have asked about Canada).

Anyway I was almost digressing, in my time here in Canada I've found that in general the Canadian people, whatever their creed or colour, are extremely polite (apart from the odd idiot naturally, especially of the ghetto variety), they are genuinely pleased to make your acquaintance (or at least pretend they are much better than most other people I've met).

In the USA when someone tells you to "have a nice day" most of the time you feel like they really wish you'd die on the way home and never bother them again, its almost used as a cudgel of nicety, "HAVE *bash* A NICE *thud* DAY!!!! *smash*, but in Canada, they use it the way its intended, "have a nice day (nice person who didn't ruin my day)". Its really sweet and makes me feel warm inside.

I have always been a friendly and polite person, although with age I'm finding it harder to "suffer fools gladly", but that's just world weariness creeping in. That said I feel more at home here. When I walk the streets, either with or without Blackie, people are more likely to say hello to me as I approach, quick to smile and enquire about your well being. Sure that's not everyone, I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but the majority of people I've met randomly have been really nice. In social situations the people I've met have been generally nicer too.

Most of my experience comes from friends and family of my fiancee Kata, which certainly speaks of her character (friends) and upbringing (family). There is an underlying trend in Canadians though. In the cities, even Toronto, people live a faster pace of life (although apart from Toronto its glacial compared to the UK) but the people are still really nice. In the towns life is even more sedate and seemingly the people are even nicer, although my experience on that part is limited to Ontario and for all I know the people in Manitoba could be horrendous, but from the few Manitobans I've known, they've been nice too.

All in all, I'm saying Canadians are a sweet nation of people.

Ghetto People

2008-08-13T10:46:00.003-04:00

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, although I don't think anyone is clamouring for my writings yet, still, it was a busy day, I was up at 5am and didn't get much time to do any writing and passed out around 11pm. So on with the show...

Today I want to talk about Ghetto people, to use a term much used in North America.

A little background from the UK is needed first. The UK has its class groups as I've mentioned before, the upper class (mostly aristocrats and old money families), the middle class (everyone who has a decent education and a decent job) and the lower/working class (those who had poor or little education and work the most menial jobs). The working class have for the most part become middle class as their skills and ability to excel at the jobs most people can't do e.g. electrical work, plumbing, carpentry, gas working, telephony/cable installs/maintenance.

In the UK the "Ghetto people" have a few names, Neds in Scotland (purportedly it was a police term standing for Non Educated Delinquents), in England and Wales its the Chav and in Ireland its spides or skangers (wikipedia is a wonderful resource, page is here). They are, for the most part, anti-social, disrespectful, uneducated, aggressive and often violent, generally racist, basically the kind of people most would prefer to avoid at all costs. Crime is a constant companion, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs are used frequently if not constantly. Their clothing tends to be a shell suit with added Burberry items and a large amount of gaudy jewellery that only a Magpie would love, a favourite is the Sovereign Ring but any amount of rubbish in various shapes, sizes and names will suffice, so long as its shiny.

There are people of this ilk all over the world and they are the bane of our cultures.

In North America the ghetto person tends to associate themselves with the Rap culture, almost every one I've seen in Canada is of white European descent, has worn some kind of trouser (pants) pulled way down their hips, with a baseball cap or bandanna on their head, a wife beater shirt, or basketball vest (the team doesn't matter really). They generally talk in an inner city American dialect, pimp walk, wear gaudy jewellery, use alcohol, cigarettes and drugs (frequently if not constantly), are anti-social, disrespectful, etc etc. They are the same wherever you go, just the style of dress changes and the levels of violence.

The violence levels change based on the availability of weapons and the strength of the drugs used. In the UK the violence has increased in recent years, the knife is the favoured weapon as fire arms are hard to come by, in the USA pistols are the favourite weapon, in Canada I'm not sure, despite there being many ghetto people, most of them on crack or meth amphetamine, I've not felt worried by their existence. People in Canada, even the lowest dregs of society appear to be more peaceful. Granted on a regular basis (5 to 10 times a day) I hear police vehicles racing across the city for one reason or other, but in the area I live, its not a particular problem.

On a purely London Ontario note, the highest concentration of Ghetto people on a constant basis can be found at the corners of Dundas and Richmond Streets. The center of the downtown area, where the majority of bus routes cross. They are a rag tag motley crew of all forms of humanity, mostly dirty, mostly stoned/drunk, mostly lost in some way or other. Its a real shame as downtown London used to be a beautiful place, but economic factors moved the middle classes out to the malls in the outskirts and skill do. Its not all gloom and doom though, the city council is trying, slowly, to improve things, sure its mostly cosmetic so far, but make the environment nicer and nicer people might start to go there.

We can hope...

Sales tax

2008-08-11T19:41:00.004-04:00

Here's something that still riles me, its the way sales tax is handled in Canada and the rest of North America (least I think they do the same in Mexico...)

In the UK, where I grew up, we have something called VAT or Value Added Tax, its the same as sales tax and its applied to any luxury items of groceries and pretty much everything else. So far so the same. In the UK though, its an invisible tax. How so? Well the tax is included into the price of the goods you buy. If something costs £1 that's what you pay, you don't get to the cashier and get hit with paying £1.18 (VAT is 17.5%). The only time you ever have to deal with VAT is at a wholesale store when the people buying there tend to be businesses who can claim VAT against their taxes.

The first time in North America, I didn't bother with prices, I was in New York City for a Keith and the Girl meet up and I was hanging out with friends, getting drunk, having crazy fun and not paying attention to the price of things.

When I came back to North America, I was visiting Canada, staying with Kata, having fun, hanging out, we went to Toronto to hang out with Keith and the Girl friends once again and once again, not bothering about prices.

A few months later, I came back to Canada, this time to stay long term. Then I started to pay attention. You go to the store and you buy something, the tag on the shelf says $2, you get to the cashier and you're asked to hand over $2.26. My mind goes "huh?" OK that's an easy example because my mental arithmetic skills are pretty good, but if you go grocery shopping, you can't just take the price of what you are buying, add it all up and add 13% (in Ontario the sales tax is 8% PST (provincial sales tax) and 5% GST (goods and services tax which goes to the federal government)) because not all goods in a grocery store have PST and GST applied.

Sure I know this isn't really a big deal, but in the UK I used to pride myself on working out exactly what I had to pay before the checkout operator was done ringing up my sale, I'd have the exact change ready for them and give them that little extra surprise to make their day a little less of a drudgery.

Oh and of course when I go into a store like Best Buy or Future Shop to buy something big and pricey, like an iPod, or an Xbox, or a TV, I'd like to just pay the ticket price, not have to remember that whatever I'm buying is actually 13% more expensive, if it says $499, why can't I pay $499? Is it so hard to price items with tax? At least on a province by province or state by state basis, please?

I'm pissing in the wind here, I know it won't change, not so long as each state or province has its own tax values and people are used to the idea of paying more than the ticket price... woe is me, all on my own, maybe...

Fitness

2008-08-10T19:46:00.004-04:00

In yesterday's post I talked about how I've been a cyclist for most of my life and how I used it as a form of commuting and for general fitness. Well since I've been in Canada I've not cycled, a fact of which I'm not proud, but then again I've kept fit without the bike for the most part.

As I live downtown with Kata in London, Ontario, we for the most part can walk wherever we need to go. Kata's work is about 15 minutes slow walk from here, the nearest supermarket is another 5 further. The nearest mall is about 15 in the opposite direction from her work and the nearest Starbucks is about 10 minutes away. This is a benefit of living in a well served downtown area.

For the occasions when we need to travel further out of the city center, there's the LT Bus system (London Transit), cabs (not that expensive compared to the UK) or friends' cars when we can wrangle a lift (our friends are sweet but we don't take advantage of them). Sometimes we'll hire a car for the times when we need to travel really long distances, its not that pricey ($40 to $60 per day) and it works out cheaper than the train (super expensive) or the greyhound (not really in price terms but greatly in convenience terms). Visiting Kata's parents in Strathroy, her brother in Kingston, her uncle and our friends in Ottawa would all be impossible or extremely expensive without a car. Its an extra expense but it works out on the odd occasion we need it.

So back to fitness, despite not having a bike (or at least a working bike) I manage to keep fit. I walk our dog twice a day, about 30 mins in the morning and 10 mins at night, I walk to meet Kata for lunch and then to get her home from work at the end of her day. I walk to the grocery store and carry the groceries home rather than take a cab as many people would do. On top of that I take the stairs in our building (unless I'm carrying heavy bags). Every little helps.

A while ago I bought a set of Perfect Pushup handles and I've used them almost every other day for months and its worked pretty well, my chest, arms and abs are stronger than they were before and it gives me an extra something to do to keep myself in check physically.

I really need to get my bike sorted out, I bought a second hand Miele 10 speed road bike back in November, but it needs some work, tyres and tubes replaced, some other minor stuff to take care of too. I've been remiss and I really should get it sorted, it'll soon be the wrong weather to ride round here, winter with a road bike is not the best mix.

Its one thing I miss from the UK, round the year cycling is pretty easy there, what with the weather being pretty moderate most of the year round, apart from the gale force winds. Scotland has 3 seasons, cold wet season, warm wet season and wind season. Wind has always been my most hated weather condition for riding, but round here it'll be the cold. So I guess I'll get my bike fixed up asap and get some riding in before its too late for this year.

Fitness is important, its become harder through the generations for people to stay fit. The modern lifestyle, with the advent of machinery and technology people have become more sedentary. Add to this the increase in processed foods, high in sugar, carbohydrate and fat and you have a disaster waiting to happen. It has happened in the last 50 years, not that I'm telling you anything you don't already know, however its not as simple as eating too much.

Your life is ruled by genetics, but in recent years they are discovering epigenetic effects that take effect many years after the fact. For example, if your grandmother went through a time of famine, that can lead her children to be born with a propensity to obesity, not just that, her grandchildren have an increased chance to be obese. Its interesting to think who you are may be due to the living conditions of your grand parents, not just your genetics.

None of this is an excuse though, in general if you eat a healthy balanced diet, low in processed sugars and fats and take regular moderate exercise, no matter your body shape, you will be pretty damn healthy.

Cyclists

2008-08-09T16:17:00.003-04:00

This post comes from many years of personal experience and from my time here in Canada.

I've been a cyclist for most of my life. I first sat on a bicycle with training wheels when I was 4 and rode without when I was 6. I've fallen off more times than I can remember and I have a nice collection of scars to show for it, I have scars on my right knee when I wiped out on a corner I turned too fast, the index finger of my right hand is deformed thanks to a wipe out when I was trying to show off, my left shoulder has a pink patch where I crashed on a roundabout and slid along the road for 20 meters. I've even broken a bone cycling, well, I kinda broke it, the x-ray was inconclusive but it looked like I had a chip off one of the tarsals in my right foot. That one happened when I wasn't paying attention and tried to ride across a crossing when it wasn't my right of way and a slow moving car collided with me.

All told I've been cycling for more than 30 years and I'm pretty decent at it, on a mountain bike with road tyres I can manage 18mph average speed at a push, or a more leisurely 15mph average without pushing myself too hard.

With that told, I'd like to talk about cycling, cyclists and why its not the solution to our transport problems, at least not yet.

Cyclists fall into a number of categories;

Poor,
Fitness,
Recreational,
Environmental,
Childhood,
Professional.

For most of my cycling life I fell into the fitness category, most recently I've also entered into the environmental camp, as cycling, when used as a main mode of transport around an urban environment, is a very ecologically friendly way to commute.

For most people cycling is a childhood thing, you learn as a kid because its what you do, its a way for you to go visit your friends who live more than a short walk away, its a way to go to the store, to go someplace other than home when you don't have to carry much or have too far to go. Most kids grow out of this, especially in the western world, by the time they get a driver's license, or their parents decide its too dangerous for them to be out on the road without the protection of a car's steel/aluminium/carbon fibre shell.

For some, like myself, its a fitness issue, you cycle to keep fit, you can also use that aspect as a way to travel around, but in the fitness category you'll travel further than most on your cycle. I've ridden 70 miles in a day, just because. You'll also commute on your bike because it keeps you fit, saves you money and is ecologically sound. This group of people, like myself, will cycle most of the year and most of their lives.

Some people look upon their bicycles as a purely recreational tool, they'll strap their bikes onto the back of their SUVs or 4X4s and head off to the wilds where a cycle trail awaits them, they'll cycle around for a while, have some lunch, cycle some more, then strap the bikes back on the vehicles for the drive home. The bikes are then stowed again until the next time the whim takes them.

Professionals are a small extreme group, the cycle courier, the pro/am athlete (road racers, bmx riders, mountain bikers, bike trialists) and the rarity, a job that makes you cycle, e.g. police initiatives. People in this group are either forced into it (cops) or they are driven by the need to ride, live to ride, ride to live. It doesn't matter to them what the weather, what the time of day, they ride for riding's sake, some get paid, many don't.

Environmentalists cycle to prove a point, "look at me I'm saving the planet", sometimes this is true, when they eschew anything with an engine. They make a life choice to prove a point to the rest of the world. This works well in a city where you can travel short distances to find everything you need, but in rural areas, not so much, still, its a start I guess. Politicians have polluted this group of course, they show off their greenness by riding around the city, with 5 bodyguards, 3 cars with all their staff and documents, helicopter escort, you know the kind of thing, typical political hypocrisy masquerading as caring for anything but their own image.

Now I get to the poor. For much of the world, where annual wages are minuscule, where you can barely feed and clothe your family, where a motor vehicle is a lifetime's earnings, the bicycle can be (but not always) a life line, a way to transport goods to and from markets, to travel to and from work, to carry your family. Asia is the perfect example of the bicycle as mass transit. Its almost a unique situation which is slowly dying off as Asia's massive population gradually earns more, pulling themselves out of poverty and rising to moderate (by western terms) affluence.

In the western world however the poor who cycle tend to be those of a "ghetto" persuasion. Those who's lives have been "wasted" in crime, drugs, anti-social behaviour, or just never cared to better themselves in the lands of plenty. These people cycle their ghetto bikes, contravening any laws of the land, not caring about their personal safety, let alone the safety of others. They will ride at night, without lights or reflectors, on the streets or pavements (sidewalks) with total disregard for anyone or anything else. This is the group that above all else who give cyclists a bad name.

The problem for cycling as a solution for traffic emissions and congestion? Well there's the image problem for one, some see it as a childish pursuit that should be abandoned when you're capable of owning a vehicle and there's the "ghetto" types, who paint an extremely poor image of the cyclist. Add to this the fact that motorists feel entitled to the road, hate to share it with other vehicles, let alone human powered bicycles. As a cyclist I've many times been close to death thanks to a motorist who either didn't care to look out for me, or had no regard for my life whatsoever, only my own ability to protect myself on the road has kept me safe.

Until there's an overriding incentive for people to get out of their cars and onto bicycles in a safe(ish) environment, it won't happen, it may never happen if alternative fuels for vehicles actually turn out to be the solution that most of us hope they can be, but certainly not yet and not for 20 years possibly.

I hate to be negative, because I love cycling, but its a fact of life, a few people using a 140 year old technology won't change the world, unfortunately, but for the time being, I'll keep cycling and looking out for myself.

Multiculturalism and Mongrels

2008-08-07T16:57:00.006-04:00

I felt my other post today was a bit short. It was going to be a bit different, but I ended up with what I posted. So I thought I'd post another entry to make up for it...

In part this post comes out of my post about pets, more specifically mutts, also known as mongrels.

I grew up in the UK, a country influenced by its history of invasion, empire building and post war immigration. In London especially you can find people from all nations of the world (like pretty much every other major city in the western world) and this mix of cultures, creeds and colours has given the UK a wonderful mix of viewpoints, skin colours and culture.

I myself am a mix of 3 different nations (from my parents and many more from my grandparents and beyond), Scotland, Lithuania and Italy (via Israel). This doesn't make me anything unusual in terms of people of my generation born in Israel as there has been a massive influx of Jews from all over the globe to the country which led to a tumultuous mix of people united under one culture.

I grew up in Scotland, as I've mentioned before, and we were the only Jewish family in our neighbourhood for all of my formative years, we were also the only family who spoke a foreign language (Hebrew around the house and sometimes outside) and my mother was the only clearly foreign person for miles around (she still to this day speaks with a European accent even though she speaks fluent English).

Sometimes this wasn't such a great thing, I suffered some racial abuse (if you call Jews a race) and bullying, which wasn't helped by my being a fat kid for a long time (not super fat, but enough to get teased).

It took a long time before I realised that my family and my cultural mix made me more interesting than your average local who's family could trace generations of predecessors to the same insular area. I became proud to be a mongrel, rather than ashamed.

In the last 10 years, Scotland in particular has seen an influx of immigrants, certainly there were always Chinese and Pakistani populations while I was growing up (one thing that most bigots won't turn their noses at are the delicious foods that immigrants brought with them), Chinese and more recently Indo-Pakistani foods have been staples for most households, but now there's an even wider range of people and foods. Proper Mexican, Thai, Lebanese, Turkish, Ethiopian, Mongol, Caribbean, well you get my point.

As I've said, as far as multicultarlity (i hope that's a proper word) goes I'm nothing special, my parents and their parents all came from Europe, but considering the diverse cultures that developed in Europe, its still and interesting mix. What I'm trying to get at is I love multicultural societies and in Canada I've found a good one.

It took me a while to find this page and I hope it works, but just in case I'll summarise it briefly. In 2006 there were 31 million people in Canada, of that the majority are British and French, but after that most of the nations of the world are represented with a large skew to Europe, but there's more than 3 million of Asian origin and more than a million of African origin.

What can I say, I'm proud to be a mongrel and I'm proud to live in a multicultural society.

Songs

2008-08-07T16:05:00.009-04:00

I was a child in the 70s, a teenager in the 80s and in my supposed prime in the 90s. I've been through a whole host of changes in music, Disco in the 70s, Glam Rock in the 70s, Punk Rock in the mid 70s, the New Romantics of the early 80s, Brit pop in the 80s and 90s, Boy and Girl bands in the 80s and 90s, the rise of Hip Hop and Rap through the 80s, 90s and into the 21st century, European electronica from the 70s onwards. Its been quite a journey and being brought up in the UK I was privileged to experience a much of it.

I feel the British are uniquely placed to assimilate music from the cultures that surround us and that make up the British people and the greater commonwealth that makes up the once mighty British Empire (that World War 2 again). Pop, Rock, Jazz, African, Indo-Asian, Latin, Electronica, Rap and Hip-Hop, you name it we've produced it, consumed it, copied it or assimilated it.

With that said, my problem is for the most part with Pop music, especially bubble gum pop, its one of the reasons I don't listen to commercial radio or watch music television. There are times when I am abused by terrible music forced on me by circumstance, most recently, Katy Perry's masterpiece "I Kissed a Girl" (I was introduced to the song by the "So you think you can dance" show which Kata will watch on occasion). The lyrics are atrocious, I would rather not even think about them, but you know what, the annoying chorus won't get out of my head. I really truly want it to, but it keeps coming back to taunt me. The only way to get it out of there is to drown it out with something I like, either through my ears (playback) or through my brain (memory recall).

I know the song isn't aimed at me, and since I'm a liberal person, I have no issue with its existence. Artistic free expression and freedom of speech are quite dear to me and I'd never compromise them just because I don't like something. So for a little while I'll have to suffer as I've suffered many times before and wait out the half-life of bad songs in my memory (usually 2 to 4 weeks).

Until then, I've kissed a girl and I liked it...

Downtown Architecture

2008-08-06T14:39:00.006-04:00

Kata and I decided to go downtown today (the commercial part of downtown) as we had a package to pick up from the Galleria Tuck Shop post office... (1) and on the walk down it brought back to me the quaint nature of the architecture in some parts of London and the way that, due to its very nature, North America cherishes its "older" buildings.

Coming from the UK we have a strange mix of views on architecture, many love the modern buildings that show off the new thinking on style and functionality which attempts to make the smallest impact on the environment whilst still being spectacularly pretty or at the very least impressive. A good example of recent(ish) architecture is the London Gherkin as its fondly, or not so fondly called. It was designed by Sir Norman Foster and was built on the site of the old Baltic Exchange, which was destroyed by the IRA in 1992 (gotta love wikipedia). Its actual name is St Mary Axe, but its nickname shows off the human ability to lampoon any and everything with impunity. An older but still modern building is the Lloyds of London building which has most of what would be internal sturcture, pipework, ductwork and other such things, are on the outside.

Then there's people who hanker after the old. Being the "old world" of course there's lots of really REALLY old buildings hanging around, stuff dating to the Roman era, e.g. the Roman baths in Bath which date to the 1st century AD. There's umpteen stately homes, castles, places of worship, old houses and such, going through many centuries of architectural styles.

OK going a little of message here, but the point is we've lots of nice old stuff and lots of new stuff, much of the new stuff exists thanks to World War 2, when the Luftwaffe bombing campaign destroyed a huge amount of the UK's cities. After the war the government had to rebuild and rehouse millions of people (most of Europe had to do this of course) and in the 50s and 60s a lot of terrible prefabricated housing was constructed, with varying levels of disaster and loss of life.

In London Ontario , as its my main point of reference, in the downtown area there's a large number of businesses using converted town houses for their premises. Most are law firms or financial consultants, some are opticians and architects, there's even a hair salon ironically named "Brunner, Moore & Ross Hairisters" a pun on the other firms which neighbour it which are mostly law firms. Its interesting to see this being done and its due to the London Heritage Council who's job it is to look after the "historical buildings" in London.

I'm pretty sure there's one of these groups in most cities in North America over the age of 100, but its that very aspect that's the weird thing to me. Its the difference in magnitude of the age of the buildings. In the UK 100 years old is nothing for a building, its barely an adult, its had all its wrinkles worked out and its starting to settle in for middle age. In North America 100 years is ancient, its revered and cared for like a fragile treasure.

On Richmond, one of the main streets in London, in the northern part of downtown, there are many bars and restaurants, stores, spas and even a tattoo parlour all in converted town houses. Its sweet and a good use of a premises that long ago stopped being used as a single family home.

The obvious fly in the ointment however is the North American love affair with the Mall, especially strip malls, as they are called, boxy stores that are homogeneous from mall to mall, city to city, country to country (OK mostly the USA and Canada). I guess they're functional and since most of them are built on the outskirts of the city/town they don't need to fit into any pre-existing buildings or have a limited space to be built on (after all Canada and the USA have so much empty space to expand into).

I guess I'll get to see how things continue to develop in the future, if the strip malls continue to proliferate or if people turn against them, what with the inevitable increase in the price of petrol (gasoline).

(1) We are having a problem with the Canada Post parcel delivery side of things, the regular postal worker has the key to our apartment building and generally there's no problem delivering mail to our door when needed (for things that need to be signed for or are too big for the mail box that she'd be delivering). The delivery man who comes in the Canada Post truck however, well he's another story entirely. Now sure our intercom isn't well marked (it was written in ink but since the board is in direct sunlight on the south side of the building its long faded) but, the LCD display does say "enter # and the apartment number to contact residents". Many a cab driver has managed to work this magic out, as have food delivery drivers (for the few times we order out), but the Mail man, well, I don't get it. One day he does it right, but OK, we're out, he doesn't leave a message (its tied into the phone system so it will go to our voicemail) and then we get a delivery card the next day in our mail box. Fine. But then another day, yesterday for example, he didn't even try dialing our apartment, he decided there was no answer and went. In this case the order was one Kata had made with Knit Picks (she's an avid knitter) and they have full tracking on their deliveries, so we discovered that "supposedly" a delivery attempt had been made at 11:00am, which was far from the truth as we were both in the apartment, awake, hanging out waiting to go out for lunch with our friend John aka picard, aka Leschinski Design and we didn't leave until close to 12:30. Its just a galling issue but not a life ruiner.

Pets

2008-08-05T17:54:00.007-04:00

That's me, the one with less fluff, with our dog Blackie, whom we've taken to calling Andre Jefferson Blackwell the Thirst, for fun (seriously don't ask, we don't know why).

For most people owning a pet is a choice you make to have a small (usually) cuddly (mostly) animal that you wanna share a good few years of your life with. In the case of Blackie I got him by falling for Kata and moving in with her. He's a cute little fluff ball, a cockapoo (part cocker spaniel, part poodle, part stinky, all cute) and from the first day we met, he took to me. Kata got him when he was 6 years old and he'd either been abused or had serious problems with a previous owner. Anyway, he didn't like men when Kata got him and he didn't like it when people gesticulated (which reinforces the abuse aspect).

In the last 10 months, he's taken to me something crazy. He's turned from a mummy's boy to a total daddy's boy. He damn near follows me around any time I get up to do anything whatsoever, he's often right under my feet at just the right time to get kicked or punched entirely by accident. On one occasion as i was opening a flat pack furniture box, he was right beside me, interested to see what was in the box "is it for me daddy?" he was asking (in his own doggy way). He was also right there when the tape that i was pulling hard on snapped and my hand flew back to hit him on the head. He's been hit in the head by a Wii controller, which traumatised him for a few months (Kata's parents bought a Wii after visiting us after we got ours, we had left Blackie with them when we went to Ottawa for a friend's birthday and when we got back we were told that Blackie didn't like going in the basement. Kata asked, "when you go in the basement what do you guys do?" Her mother told her "oh we go down there and play Wii").

Before moving in with Kata, back in the old country, I'd not had a pet since I lived with my parents, we had a dog then and she was a sweet thing, relatively self sufficient and not too much of a hassle, but none of us much liked taking her for walks, not that dad could (disability) and mum would take her out at times, but technically when we got her she was "my dog" so you know, I guess I shirked my part of the deal. When she died (after her second run in with a car) we were all broken up about it, dad had been in hospital at the time and we broke the news to him not long before he was discharged as we didn't want to make him feel worse when he was recovering. We didn't get another pet and when I lived alone even though I'd considered getting a pet I didn't feel it was right to leave a pet alone in the house for hours at a time (I'm not judging those who do) and even when I was off work for a few years with a chronic knee injury, I still didn't think to get a pet, I'd become used to being alone (not that I was a recluse, but really the Internet doesn't count as "company").

Now I have a dog, who I care about and for, he's an ever present companion (see above) and more than that when I go to sit or lay on the couch, he almost always gets there first and is waiting for me to sit down (he's not furniture trained). I take him for about a 30 min walk in the morning and a 10min walk at night, I clean up after him, recycling the plastic bags we get in every day life (I've used everything from magazine postal bags to bread or cereal bags to clean up his poop) and I make sure he's fed and watered (as does Kata). The one compromise we made with him, is he has his own dog bed to sleep in and for the most part, he sleeps in it every night and when I wake up in the morning, there he is.

The point of this post wasn't just to go on about Blackie, rather I was going to talk about the Canadian and I presume North American penchant for hybrid dog, so I guess I should get onto that.

Blackie as I said is a cockapoo, a recognised hybrid dog, with a great personality, good with kids and hypo allergenic (in so much as a dog can be) since they don't shed and they have very little in the way of dander (dandruff if you're a human) or a particularly strong odour (although Blackie has a stinky mouth). What struck me though is the amount of bizarre cross breeds (hybrids) that there are these days. I assume that many of them are "happy little accidents", labradoodles (Labrador retriever with poodle), golden doodles (Golden retriever and poodle) and cockapoos aren't too much of a stretch, but seriously, who looked at a Yorkshire terrier and thought "now what if we crossed that with a poodle?". I kid you not, yorkipoos and the hilariously named schnoodles (Schnauzer and poodle). Poodle crosses all have the lack of shedding and the lack of dander, so they more or less make sense, also poodles are smart, though all the poodles I've seen look dumb, but still, the crosses seem sensible, cockapoos for example live something like 15 to 18 years making them a really long lived pet which is a bonus.

It gets worse though, how about a Jack Russell crossed with a Pug, know as a Jug, or a Boston terrier with a Pekingese, known as a Bostinese, how about a Chihuahua with a poodle, the chi-poo. If you want to see a load more of them here's a link, my favourite so far is the Bagle Hound, beagle crossed with a basset hound, mostly cos I can't read that without thinking its a small round dog with a hole in the middle.

The days of the mongrel are gone, sorry mutts but you are surplus to requirement. Not that mutts are being euthanised (British spelling and I'm not changing it for any spell checker!) in the streets, but nowadays they're all given names to make them appear legitimate and not just the result of casual canine copulation. I guess in this more label conscious era its just not cool to have a mutt any more...

Animals

2008-08-04T00:04:00.005-04:00

As I was taking our dog Blackie for a walk, I remembered a picture I took during our Saturday morning walkies. As we were on our way home I spotted a chipmunk clambering up a tree where it perched and looked at us.

This isn't much of a big deal in Canada, there's chipmunks all over the place, honest... but it always amazes Kata when I say "wow, we don't have those back in the UK".

The most you see in the UK tend to be the odd urban fox, or some squirrels if you're lucky, sometimes a glimpse of a deer as it peeks out from cover, but you never see chipmunks, nor do you ever have to worry about encountering a skunk while you walk your overly eager dog at night. So far we've managed not to corner a skunk or make it scared enough to spray and I certainly hope it stays that way as I've heard the tales of skunk spray and how near impossible it is to remove from clothing, skin and fur...

There's certainly more wild-life here in London, Ontario than I ever experienced back in the UK. I grew up (mostly) in a middle class suburb in the middle of the countryside surrounded by woods and fields and yet for most of my formative years the only wild animals I saw were the few foxes that lived in the woods nearby and only fleeting glimpses, although in the summer you can hear the vixens yelping for miles.

London, which is a decent sized and relatively urbanised city has a wealth of wild-life just outside your doorstep. Every morning the squirrels (large and mostly black) are out and about searching for the next meal, every park and damn near every garden has a fair number of squirrels in it. They're certainly helped out by the vast number of tress that London boasts, its nickname is the Forest City after all.

The downtown Victoria Park is a great home to the black squirrels where they forage all day hardly harassed, apart from the odd poorly controlled child, or hunting bird of prey. Harris Park, also downtown, has a large gaggle of Canada geese and in summer a large colony of black fly. The black fly were a new thing to me, they look like common house flies, however they're nothing of the sort, these little buggers will happily land on you and without warning stab you with their proboscis and suck away at your blood. Fortunately I'm not affected by black fly saliva, so I didn't have to deal with any reaction to the bites, but they're know to be a scourge in Canada anywhere there's fast running water.

Skunks were a real surprise to me, not that they existed, but that I'd never seen one in real life until I came here. They're so unassuming and docile looking, however you keep in mind they are wild animals and they don't take kindly to dogs running up to them for a closer look. I saw one crossing the road on Saturday night, it slowly loped across the street, working its way directly to where I stood with Blackie. I slowly moved away but watched as 2 cars which were coming up the road, slowed to allow the skunk to cross unmolested (or more realistically unsplattered on the car, which would have needed a hell of a lot of cleaning to deskunk it).

So what was my point? Oh yeah, there's lots of wild animals around here....

Career path...

2008-08-03T23:16:00.002-04:00

Its been a couple of days, not that you've missed much.

Kata and I had some time talking about our future and how to make it happen, so its time I got my finger out and actually did something to move towards that goal.

I'm sitting working out a resume, which is different to the classic CV we're taught to write in the UK. The resume is more of a "personal sales document" where I'm supposed to sell myself to a prospective employer rather than the CV where I'm being less subjective, rather I'm being more objective, showing off my qualifications and abilities in a less brash way.

It kinda goes against my character to push myself this way, I'm far more self deprecating and self effacing than this wants me to be. Some find it endearing (mostly north Americans who tend not to see it in everyday life) and some find it aggravating (Europeans mostly).

In the UK we're on the cusp of two societies. On the one hand there's the brash New World to which we're strongly allied, where long held class distinctions aren't considered as important, or in many places vilified entirely. On the other hand there's the Old World, mostly Europe, where class distinctions are almost everything, through generation after generation of lives lived apart from those considered better. or worse, than you and yours. Granted a lot of this changed after World War 2, as with much of society, but it still holds sway in much of our culture.

North America in particular like to believe it has a meritocratic society, for the most part based on a person's ability to make and spend money. This may have been true in the early years of the European colonial years, or for many countries, for the post European, post revolutionary years (see much of South America and the USA and Mexico in North America) but for the last couple of centuries (19th and 20th) an aristocracy has developed, based on a family's historic ability to make and hold on to money and hence power. Rockefeller, Hilton, Heinz, Guggenheim, Kennedy and many more I can't think of. For most of these families its the first or maybe 2nd generation who make and maintain the family's name through hard work and business acumen, but much past there and the family turns into the typical trust fund brigade of playboys and layabouts. No different to old world aristocratic families.

The new world has become much like the old world and the meritocracies have developed anew in the ex-communist countries (or in China's case, tacitly capitalist mostly communist country) but how long will this last? That depends on when or indeed IF Africa manages to pull its political and social systems out of the terrible situation they've been left with/descended into after generations of colonial and despotic rule. Also it depends on how the rest of the world's modern economies survive the coming changes that the slow but inevitable death of fossil fuels and the coming collapse in raw material supply that will force greater recycling and even mining of old land fill sites.

So what's my point? I guess I need to evolve myself into this different frame of mind required to sell myself in North America since its where I've decided to spend the rest of my life (if possible).

About me

2008-08-03T23:15:00.002-04:00

I was told that I should probably introduce myself for those of you whom I already said I hope won't know me. So here goes.

I was born in 1972 in Jaffa Israel to a half Scottish, half Lithuanian father and an Italian Jewish mother. The story which lead to my parents being in Israel prior to my birth is a nicely convoluted one which was mostly to do with World War 2. Not that uncommon for "baby boomers" to use a North American term.

On my father's side his story was due to the British Empire, as was prior to WW2. His father was an officer in the British Army (Scot's Guards) and his mother was a nurse in the British Army by way of the Empire troops. From what I know of their story they already had met and fallen in love before the war, but the war split them up for a number of years, as it did for many military couples, but after the was they got together, were married and my father was born in Glasgow in 1946. My grandfather died young, when my father was 13 and his mother decided to go to Israel to be with her family when he was 15, he stayed in Scotland until his schooling was complete and then he followed her to Israel where he fell into Israeli life. In the 60s my father went through life in the Army, like thousands of other Israelis every year to this day (Israel has a policy of National Service, every man/woman over the age of 18 apart from the orthodox Jews who don't even recognise Israel (look it up)) he also travelled around Europe and the USA, taking jobs as widespread as long distance truck driver, commercial scuba diver and latterly in Israel, BOAC travel agent.

On my mother's side her family's story is a little more clouded in mystery, however her family are from southern Italy, from the saffardic jewish community. Her father was a trader in goods from Libya and other parts of north Africa and her mother was a housewife. When the fascist dictator Benito Musolini came to power in Italy and later allied with Hitler's Nazis, the jews in Italy and Libya (then an Italian colony) fled the country and headed to other parts of the world, mostly europe, my mother's family headed to Israel via Libya. My mother was by all accounts born in a cave outside Tripoli in 1944 and her family reached Israel by 1946 where they went through the birth of the nation of Israel (previously known as Palestine). Her childhood was pretty normal for Israel at that time in history, her family first lived in a tent, then an iron shack and finally a house (far from uncommon). She also went through National Service and later became a legal secretary.

Their lives didn't cross until 1970 although both had been involved in the six day war in 1967, at the time my father was in the Paratroops and was part of the force that dropped into Jerusalem and captured the city for the Jewish state. My mother was an aide in a front line artillery unit. They first met when my father moved into the apartment above my mother's family and they developed a love that lasted until my father's death in 1999. They married on December 13th 1971 and I was born on October 20th 1972. Just before my first birthday, my father, like many other men and women in Israel was called to arms as the Yom Kippur war broke out on the 6th October 1973. He did not return for 8 months as his unit at the time, part of a tank army, was stationed on the west bank of the Suez Canal. When he returned, I had grown considerably and did not recognise my father (I've been told) partly due to time apart and partly due to his huge bushy red beard (something I inherited from him). This experience changed my father greatly, he was no longer a young man with no responsibilities as he had been for the six day war, he now had a wife and child whom he loved and cared for greatly so he suggested to my mother that they leave Israel and move to the UK, ultimately Scotland. She agreed and by 1976 we were in the UK (on side note, my father, not long before the yom kippur war, was approached by the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, to join, due to his appearance, accent and service record, but due to his new marriage and child, he declined).

From 1976 I lived in the UK with my parents, we lived in Linwood, Scotland, for 4 years and moved to Houston, Scotland, where my parents lived for the next 19 and 25 years respectively. I lived with my parents for 23 years and moved out to my own place in Paisley, Scotland, where I lived for 11 years before falling in love with a Canadian girl and deciding to make then move to south western Ontario to be with her.

In my time I've studied many things, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, computer science (all at university level), a number of languages, French (at high school), Spanish and German (at university) and i learned Hebrew as a child from my parents' talk (they spoke Hebrew and English in the UK almost 50/50). My most recent field of study was Stained Glass Production Techniques, which I studied in North Glasgow College in Scotland. Those were 3 of my most productive years (artistically) and I found I had a great aptitude for glasswork.

I still keep myself well versed in modern science, I subscribe to New Scientist magazine, and I listen to a couple of science and tech podcasts (from Guardian Newspapers).

I guess that's most of what went on in my life, I guess I glossed over a few things, like my father's long term illness and other things around his later years of life, but those are for another time I feel.

The first post (a trip to Spageddy Eddy's)

2008-08-03T23:08:00.003-04:00

So here's my first blog post...

Yeah I know this is an old (old in real world terms I guess) medium by now, but until now I've never really cared to blog. Why? Lazy maybe, thinking I have a lack of specific stuff (great word huh) to write about, or just consideration that I'd burn out pretty quickly if I did blog and it would all have been a waste of time, which I might still do, but whatever, here goes possibly nothing :)

Another lovely day in London Ontario and my fiancee Kata got off work early (a call center where they send employees home early if its a slow day in the world of roadside assistance). We had decided to take a walk to one of our local coffee shops, either the Starbucks on Richmond and Central, or the Coffee Culture on Richmond (there are only 2 in downtown London and the other is on Dundas). Kata asked if I'd had lunch yet, which I hadn't, so she suggested we go for lunch at one of London's many restaurants, which I agreed to, since I was pretty hungry at the time (I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast some 5 hours earlier). Now for those of you who don't know me, which will hopefully be most of you (being super positive here), I'm a vegetarian and have been for 18 years so far (I'm 35) which can limit your food choices somewhat, especially when you're in a country which loves the grill/bbq so much... (1)

This might bug people but since this is how my mind works it'll be how I blog. So this is how I'll do things. When I come to a tangent I'll make it quite clear and when I tangent, like this and the tangent I meant to go on, I'll start it with three periods ... and then a number in brackets eg (0). There's one right up there at the end of the previous paragraph, you most likely saw it and wondered what it was for, or didn't. The tangent paragraph will have the number in front of it and I'll put them at the end of the blog post (but not this time obviously as I need to explain the idea at least once) so that you can either ignore the whole thing, or follow me on my tangents and get a bit more insight to my mind. So time to continue from where I left off

...especially when you're in a country which loves the grill/bbq so much... (1) however in London and I presume much of the rest of Canada (although I've not been out of the province of Ontario yet) there's at least a small selection of foods which a vegetarian can eat at most eateries and I don't mean just fries. For example Kelsey's, one of Canada's many bar and grills, offers all of their burger menu, which is more than 4 different burgers, with a vegetarian option and these are damn good veggie burgers I have to say. Harvey's (I'll call it the Canadian McDonalds, although its a babillion times better (for babillion see the Keith and the Girl podcast)) also offers a vegetarian burger, again a really good burger. Burgers aren't the only thing of course, there's lots of salad in Canadian menus and many of them have no meat/fish added, but I almost tangent... so we were discussing where to have lunch. We'd been talking about visiting Spageddy Eddy's for a while but we weren't sure if they had a lunch service, so I checked google on my phone (W800i on Rogers) and they were open. A decision (which we're both pretty poor at making) had been made (the other choice was our favourite Indian restaurant the Curry Garden on Richmond by King).

Entering Eddy's is an intersting journey, its located off Richmond down a small alley that's opposite Carling and is located in the basement of the building. When you walk in it looks like someone has been hoarding old junk and never thought to dump it with the likes of old bottles, lamps, a bicycle, signs and much more. The menus are made from laminated record sleeves and the pop is served in Mason jars, the large is a 32oz (908ml) jar (we had iced tea which tasted like home made). We both decided on a lunch portion of pasta, Kata had veggie sauce (a standard neopolitan) with added mushrooms on spaghetti and I went for the Maza maza with linguine, which is the veggie sauce mixed with alfredo sauce to make a blush sauce. We also decided to split a garlic bread with cheese. We barely waited 5 minutes before the food arrived and we tucked in. The garlic bread was a loaf of italian bread split in half and smothered in garlic olive oil (i believe) then covered in cheese (tasted like mozzerella and cheddar) and baked to perfection, crunchy and soft, gooey and garlicy. The pasta was nicely cooked, a little past al dente, but not too soft and the sauces were delicious. I finished my bowl without trouble (i'm a good food guzzler) but Kata was unable to finish hers so we took the rest home to have later (will add pasta to the sauce and presto, another meal). The meal came to just under $30, pretty decent for what we got, then we headed off home avoiding Victoria park as much as possible (so as to avoid the smell of Ribfest).

(1) Those of you who aren't Canadian might not realise just how much the Candian people love their grills/bbqs. Like most countries, in the summer the ritual of burning meat on a naked flame/hot coals is an incredibly regular thing, most days when there's sunshine and the day ends in y, but more realistically weekends. In London though I've seen more grills on patios/balconies/back and front yards in the last 10 months than I'd seen in my whole life in the UK, on sale in stores included. More than that there's umpteen steak houses/bar and grills in the city for those of the populace who find it hard to go without professionally burned meat on a regular basis. What sets the Canadians apart (and probably Alaskans) is that there is very little that will stop a Canadian from using their grill. If its raining, that's what the hood is for, if its snowing, same. I've seriously seen a person grilling in -15C weather with snow thick on the ground, still determined to be outside burning his meat on the grill. I have to admire that level of determination.