Snow day!!!! :o)

Well my March break just started with a bang... no school today since right now in Montréal we are having ourselves a nice snow storm (15-25 cm of snow with 40-60km/hr winds). (I'm sure that my lil, sister Jazz is very impressed, well maybe not, since I know how much she just loves winter) I'll be able to sit at my desk at home, with some Gregorian Chant playing on my Ipod (I know it's weird but I find it relaxing. I often play it while driving because of that, and no I'm not a believer, I'm an atheist, I just like the music.) This means that I'll be able to finally get all my corrections done, quietly, with nobody interrupting me every 2 minutes in the teacher's room because they are having a problem with a computer, printer, or program. At school; I'm the local computer geek. It's not part of my job but since I'm such a helpful person (it's good for my karma :0) ) I will usually help out the other teachers. The only down side is that Mrs. BB might have trouble coming back tonight, so I hope that the storm will die down later today.
With an abrupt changing of the subject, Mrs. BB and I finally bought ourselves some new Macbook laptops since our old 12" Powerbooks were 5 years old and starting to show their age. They were still usable but were getting kind of slow. We'll probably use one of them as a server and the other one we'll use while traveling which we do quite a lot of.

Here is some trivia about snow.

• The highest seasonally cumulative precipitation of snow ever measured was at Mount Baker Ski Area, outside of Bellingham, Washington in the United States during the 1998-1999 season. Mount Baker received 1140 in. (29 m or 95 ft.) of snow, thus surpassing the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, Washington, which during the 1971-1972 season received 1122 in. (28.5 m or 93.5 ft) of snow. (Now that's snow. How about shoveling that out of the driveway?)
  
• Snow crystals are crystals that have formed around tiny bits of dirt that have been carried up into the atmosphere by the wind.
• Scientists think that there are really four different shapes of snow crystals. The simplest shape is a long needle shaped like a spike. The other shapes all have six sides. One of them is a long, hollow column that is shaped like a six-sided prism. There are also thin, flat six-sided plates. And lastly there are intricate, six-pointed stars.
• As the snow crystals grow they become heavier and fall towards Earth. If they spin like tops as they fall then they may be perfectly symmetrical when they hit the Earth. But if they fall in a sideways fashion then they end up lopsided.
• Falling snow crystals clump together forming snowflakes. Each snowflake is made up of from 2 to about 200 separate crystals.
• Snow crystals are really soil particles that have been dressed up in ice.
• The shape that a snow crystal will take is dependent upon the temperature at which it was formed.
• What is chionophobia? The fear or dislike of snow. (Jazz must suffer from this ;o) )
• Bright marshmallow-colored snow blinds us with its gleaming white color because it reflects beams of white light. Instead of absorbing light, snow's complex structure prevents the light from shining through its lattice formation.
• Snow can actually be seen in several different colors. Snow can be red if the air during the snow formation contains red dust particles. Snowflakes forming around these tainted dust particles take on a reddish color. Red snow is found in those parts of Europe where the air is filled with dust particles from the red sands of the Sahara desert. In addition, certain types of algae stain snow yellow, purple, orange, green, and red. In fact, some people believe that the red algae that taints snow red actually looks and tastes like watermelon!

Flying on skis

There's nothing like cross-country skiing, fresh air, snow, and a good workout. Now x-country skiing is great at anytime but at night it's even better. The temperature was ideal (-7 to -8 degrees Celsius), great snow (dry and powdery), wax was perfect and finally the moon is almost full. All these things factored in make it indescribable. You almost fly across the snow and you can do 8 feet just on one kick. It's the closest thing to flying I know with your two feet still on the ground. Add to that, the full moon and it's "féerique" (more beautiful than reality, from the fairies world) The moon shining on the snow is so bright that most of the time I had my head light turned off. The pale white light, sparkling on the snow, with the black, black shadows of the trees makes an image approaching the abstract. When you stop all you can hear is the soft sighing of the breeze in the trees, nothing else. No cars, no people talking, nothing. If ever you get a chance to try I highly recommend it.

And they're off.

We are having an election here right now and the politicians are making promises right, left and center. Promises that everyone knows they will never keep. (and politicians wonder why they are about as popular as a dose of clap) So to make things a little less cynical, or maybe to prove I ain't the only cynic here, here are some quotes on the the subject of democracy.

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech, Nov. 11, 1947

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear, ALAN COREN

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD, Jumpers (Ah those hangin' chads and electronic voting machines)

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. H.L. MENCKEN

The ballot is stronger than the bullet. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, May 19, 1856

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. WINSTON CHURCHILL

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, The American Democrat

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. RALPH WALDO EMERSON

In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing. ANATOLE FRANCE, Penguin Island

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. ROBERT HUTCHINS

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. E.B. WHITE

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H.L. MENCKEN

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. HELEN KELLER (a very wise woman)

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. ARISTOTLE

Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. PLATO

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. H.L. MENCKEN

Democracy is the road to socialism. KARL MARX

Justice is served

Today the Supreme Court of Canada made me proud to be a Canadian. It threw out the provisions of Canada's Anti-Terrorism law making it legal to detain a person indefinitely without trial.
The current Federal law allows sensitive intelligence information to be heard privately by a federal judge , with only sketchy summaries given to defense attorneys. ( Of course the people doing the accusing are the ones who decide what information can be given to the accused. This usually means next to nothing.) If the people choose to fight their deportation they can spend years in jail while the cases go through the courts. Even if they are freed, they risk being labeled as terrorists. (Maher Arar comes to mind) This means that the accused has no way of knowing the complete charges against him and therefore no way of being able to adequately defend himself.
The justices of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision (9-0), stated that certain parts of the law that pertain to the certificates are against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and they give parliament one year to make changes to the law.
''The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process,'' Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the ruling.
In the last couple of years our liberties have gradually been eroded in the name of security. To tell you the truth, I feel that these draconian laws are far more dangerous than any terrorist attack. The loss of liberty and freedom usually does not come in a terrible revolution but is a gradual giving away of our rights. Once started it is too easy to justify still more sacrifices until there is nothing left.
We would do well to remember that in the Germany of the 1930's, Adolf Hitler was democratically elected and by the manipulation of the public's fear was able to take complete power. Too many Canadians gave their lives to stop him and to protect the freedom that we enjoy today. Thank g*d. we are still far from that situation and hopefully with today's Supreme Court decision we will be farther still.
Maybe the men who were detained are guilty of something, if so put them on trial and give them a chance to defend themselves. If they are found guilty, then you can deport them. To not do so, not only infringes their rights but it diminishes everyones.

PS: I found a nice quote in the Montréal Gazette that fits perfectly.
"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot." Horace Greeley

Oh my g*d she's bald.

Well good old Britney blew a gasket, as if she wasn't running one cylinder short of a V4 (have to be ecological). She cut off all her hair and got a tattoo. I don't know whether she is just bonkers or if she is sly as a fox. All that free publicity, maybe it will give some much needed CPR to her career, let's face it, it has been just about dead for the last three years. What is really strange is that this piece of fluff news, has been breaking news for days. In some places it even made it to the evening news and there are tons of videos on You-tube. Personally...yawn who cares?
Now mind you, I have nothing against bald women, after all Sinéad O'Connor has made a bald head her trade mark, but then again she has talent. Britney on the other hand is not even close to being in the same class, nor does she have the same class.

All of this just to introduce the trivia of the day... Hair, or lack there of.

• Average number of hairs on the head: 100,000
• Red hair: 90,000
• Brunet: 100,000
  
• Black hair: 110,000
• Blond hair: 140,000
• The longest documented hair length is Xie Quiping with 5.627 meters (Guiness Book Of World Records)
• Annual growth: 12 cm
• Female hair grows more slowly than male hair (too bad ladies)
• Normally takes about 7 years to grow hair down to the waist
  
• Male hair is more dense than female hair (ditto)
• Lifespan of hair: 2 to 7 years
• Diameter of hair: 0.1 mm
• Load-carrying capacity: 100 grams (= one chocolate bar)
• Humidity stretches the hair (also causes frizzz)
  
• Combing is less detrimental than brushing
• Hair grows faster in warm weather
• Elderly people have slower hair growth and diminished hair density (it's called naturally going bald)
  
• Hair is the fastest growing tissue in the body, second only to bone marrow.
• 35 meters of hair fibre is produced every day on the average adult scalp.
• 90% of scalp hairs are growing and 10% are resting.
• It is normal to lose 100 hairs per day from the scalp.
• You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone.
• Thyroid imbalance and iron deficiency are reversible causes for hair loss.
• Over 50% of men by age 50 have male pattern hair loss.
• Forty percent of women by the time they reach menopause will have female pattern (hereditary) hair loss.
• The technical term for balding is alopecia (There's a word for you Jazz. Britney is suffering from self-inflicted alopecia)
  

Medieval Help desk

Jazz sent me this since she knows that I love the medieval time period and I also have a rather quirky sense of humour. (Just ask my students) It is hilarious so I thought that you might all enjoy it as much as I did. The Medieval Help Desk
Enjoy. :o)

Here is a bit of medieval trivia for you trivia nuts.

• The keep at Bridgnorth Castle, located in England, leans at 17 degrees, three times further than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• In 1813 a walled up skeleton was found in one of the vaults of Craigmillar Castle.
• In 1787 Robert Burns was knighted at Clackmannan Tower by Henry Bruce's widow with the sword of Robert the Bruce.
• The largest castle in England is Windsor Castle.
• The largest castle in Wales is Caerphilly Castle.
• All the inhabitants of Cainhoe Castle, in Bedfordshire England, died due to the "Black Death".
• Loch Doon Castle once sat on an island in the middle of Loch Doon. In 1934 the castle was moved, stone by stone, to the west shore of the Loch.
• Killyleagh Castle is the oldest occupied castle in Ireland. It was built in the 13th century.
• In 1250, Walter de Clifford forced a royal messenger to eat the king's Writ, wax seal and all. (ketchup with that?)
• At Exeter Castle, in 1136, the garrison used wine to extinguish fires from a siege. (what a waste)
• The medieval long-bow had a range of 220 yards and could easily penetrate 3/4 inch of oak.
• Super-heated sand was used in warfare. It penetrated the joints of armor and made the attacker run in the opposite direction.

Thanks to www.castles-of-britain.com

The name is Bond, James Bond!

Since I bought the whole collection of the James Bond films, I have been watching them with Mrs. BB every Saturday night. Sure the special effects are rather rudimentary and Bond is more macho than is politically correct in these newer egalitarian times, but the films do have something. Being a rather curious person I decided to look up the order of the films and that of the books. There is certainly a difference... the first shall be last. So the new James Bond film is which came out recently was the first book written. And even though I must say I was somewhat reticent about a blond Bond (Ian Fleming's description of him makes him 6'2" black hair and blue eyes) I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the film. It was a Bond that we hadn't seen in a long time, cold and ruthless, just as he was in the books. After all Commander Bond is an assassin.

Here are the order of the books as they were published:

1. Casino Royale (1953),
2. Live and Let Die (1954),
3. Moonraker (1955),
4. Diamonds Are Forever (1956),
5. From Russia, With Love (1957),
6. Doctor No (1958),
7. Goldfinger (1959),
8. For Your Eyes Only (1960) (short stories: For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill, Quantum of Solace, Risico, The Hildebrand Rarity)
   
9. Thunderball (1961),
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1962),
11. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963),
12. You Only Live Twice (1964),
13. The Man With the Golden Gun (1965),
14. Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

Here are the films in order that they appeared:

1. Doctor No* (1962)
2. From Russia With Love* (1963)
3. Goldfinger* (1964)
4. Thunderball* (1965)
5. You Only Live Twice* (1967)
6. On Her Majesties Secret Service** (1969)
7. Diamonds are Forever* (1971)
8. Live and Let Die*** (1973)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun *** (1974)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me *** (1977)
11. Moonraker*** (1979)
12. For Your Eyes Only*** (1981)
13. Octopussy*** (1983)
14. A View to a Kill*** (1985)
15. The Living Daylights**** (1987)
16. Licence to Kill**** (1989)
17. Golden Eye ***** (1995)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies***** (1997)
19. The World is Not Enough ***** (1999)
20. Die Another Day***** (2002)
21. Casino Royale****** (2006)

* Sean Connery **George Lazenby *** Roger Moore **** Timothy Dalton ***** Pierce Brosman ****** Daniel Craig Green = not an Ian Fleming story

Here is some trivia about James Bond.

• In the film "You Only Live Twice" the screen play was written by Roald Dahl the famous author who wrote many children's books.
• In the film "From Russia with Love" Ian Fleming has a cameo appearance.
• Jane Seymour, the actress that plays Solitaire in "Live and Let Die", has eyes of different colour, grey and brown.
• Goldeneye (film 17) was the name of a WWII contingency plan in case the Nazi's invaded Spain that Fleming worked on while in the British Secret Service. It was also the name of his home in Jamaica.
• Ian Fleming had the same rank as Bond, Commander RN
• Ian Fleming chose the name James Bond because he thought it was bland and boring.
• Ian Fleming participated in the great deception before D-Day where a body was placed in the water containing documents that led the Germans to believe that the allies would invade Greece instead of Sicily. (see The Man Who Never Was)
• The Bond family motto is "Non Sufficit Orbis" (The World is not Enough) (film 19)
• Favorite weapon is the Walther PPK but before that weapon he used a Beretta which was judged to not have enough stopping power.
• Bond always took his vodka martini, medium dry, shaken not stirred.

* Some of the trivia borrowed thanks to bondtrivia.netfirms.com/

More Trivia

Here is some maritime trivia for Jazz and Ian

• It cost $3 million to build the Titanic and $100 million to make the movie. (Should have spent more on the boat I guess.)
• And keeping to the topic. The Titanic took 2 hours 40 minutes to sink (11:40 pm to 2:20 am) and the film takes 3 hours 14 minutes to watch. (without the previews)
• Again on the same subject: The panel on which Kate Winslet floats after the Titanic sinks actually exists. It is to be found at the Halifax Maritime Museum along with other bits and pieces of debris from the sinking (deck chairs, flotation devices etc)
• And Finally: The tombs of the victims that were not claimed by relatives are to be found in a Halifax cemetery. They are placed in such a way as to reproduce the curve of the bow of the Titanic and two cedars were planted to show the start and end of the gash that sank her. Every few years the coroners and forensic experts take out the effects of the victims that were not identified and using new forensic techniques try to put a name on the bodies. They have been surprisingly successful and there are now tombstones marked "Unknown but to God" that now have a name below. :o)
• One of the tombstones of the victims has the name "Jack Dawson" on it. (He wasn't the same one as the film.)
  
• We have our own maritime disaster on the St. Lawrence River. In 1914 on the St Lawrence near Rimouski, the Empress of Ireland sank . She went down in less than 15 minutes after being holed by the SS Storstad. Out of 1477 people on board 1027 died, and more passengers died on her (840) than on the Titanic (817). Yet she is relatively unknown.
• A Mr. William Clarke, a coal stoker in the boiler rooms, survived the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. He had also survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic 2 years before. (Hope he stayed on dry land after)

RMS Empress of Ireland

RMS Titanic

Hérouxville Redux

Well the bigot does it again. André Drouin, the author of the defamatory declaration from the village council of Hérouxville has opened his mouth on television and proved to everyone that he is the village idiot*. He actually demanded that the prime minister declare a state of emergency, like the one declared in 1970 by Prime Minister Trudeau (the War Measures Act), to protect our** culture, abrogate all accommodations, reasonable or otherwise, and make sure the immigrants toe the line.
Help, help, the big bad immigrants are going to burn our houses and women, stone us and forcibly convert us to Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism or (insert your religion here). Quick, barricade the doors and windows and call out the army. We must absolutely put them back in their place, after all, if they are refugees from a war it has to be because of their culture. (Yes, he did say that.)
This just goes that every village has its moron*. He, unfortunately, was elected and was provided with a public forum. Hopefully the legal proceedings that have been brought against him under the Charter of Human Rights will finally shut him up, cuz I'm very tired of having my good name sullied by his ignorant, bigoted ideas.

* I mean this in a generic way, I, in no way, wish to insult people who are suffering from a handicap. They are way more tolerant and much less mean-spirited than this bozo.

**I say again, his culture sure as H*LL ain't my culture. I'm ashamed to have him as a fellow citizen. Maybe we should deport him.

Just for you little sister (Jazz)

Here are a couple of little tidbits of miscellaneous trivia for Jazz who asked so politely.

1. Oscar the Grouch is based on a rude and grouchy waiter that worked at Oscar's Tavern where Jim Henson and Jon Stone of Sesame Street fame used to eat lunch.
2. On a baby, the belly button is exactly midway from the top of his head to the bottom of his foot.
3. Keeping to the theme of babies, more babies are born in the month of September than any other month.
4. Two dogs were hanged at the Salem witch trials
5. Ketchup was once sold as a medicine
6. According to Guinness the longest bout of hiccups was 65 years (that's got to hurt)
7. 46% of all television violence happens in cartoons. (must be coyote and roadrunner)
   
8. Al Capone's older brother was a policeman in Nebraska
9. 20% of all potatoes in the US will end up as fries
10. Farthest distance a pumpkin has been hurled without the aid of explosives: 3178 feet. Hum just have to wonder about the people that have nothing better to do than hurl pumpkins... must be like us bloggers living in a twilight world of irreality. ;o)
    

Hope that feeds you trivia appetite, Jazz

Tag you're it!

Weird is as weird does. I have been tagged by my lil' sister Jazz. Now don't get me wrong but my sister is the weird one in the family, me, I'm just your everyday normal teaching kind of guy. Oh I can see her staring at me right now with her eyebrows in the air, muttering to herself, Yeah right.

Ok here goes.

1. I have been a teacher for 30 years and I still love teaching. This could be considered weird since the age group that I have always loved teaching are the 13-14 year olds...Yeah that's right right in their adolescent hormonally charged weirdness.
2. I love Gregorian Plain Chant nothing better that driving up to Gatineau with 2 hours of Gregorian Chant echoing full blast in the car. I find it relaxing, a bit like driving in a cathedral.
3. I love to go trekking by myself across mountains, rain or shine, for a couple of days, as long as I am far away from the the bustle of humanity (at least 30km away). I get enough of humanity at school.
4. I love old stones... I teach ESL but if I hadn't been an ESL teacher I would have been a History teacher. I just love to crawl all over ruins, the older the better. Mrs BB and I spent two summers in the UK and Ireland. Paradise, so many ruins to visit.
5. I have no sense of musical rhythm (some people would say I have no sense period, but let's not go there). I couldn't play a musical instrument to save my life. My sisters are both able to play something, one used to play the piano the other a tenor recorder. My daughter can play the violin, my wife plays the classical guitar, and my son could play the recorder. What can I play? Absolutely nothing. One of my friends tried to show me how to play the bass guitar for a song. Not too hard he said, one or two chords and a bit of rhythm... hah he soon gave up. I could finger the chords but the rhythm resembled nothing even close to that of the song.
6. Last but not least, I am a trivia nut. If you could make a living from trivial pursuit I would be rich. I just love reading trivia, the Bathroom Reader series, News from the Weird, anything that contains esotheric, strange and little known facts, of little or no value. I just need to assimulate them. So here I am with thousands ot titbits of totally useless information filling my poor little memory. In the meantime I have trouble remembering my name on Mondays. "What's ma name, and where's my lunch box?"
As for tagging 6 people. Well I can't very well retag Jazz now can I? And I don't know anyone else so very well. So as Jazz said anyone who wants to try it go right ahead... consider yourself tagged.

Apologies for our yokels

Today in the news I was reading about the small village of Hérouxville north of Shawinigan. They set a declaration laying out a code of conduct for imigrants who might wish to come to their village. Here is a small example: since all women are equal, you mustn't stone them or set them on fire. You are not allowerd to wear a veil, unless it's Halloween. Carrying a kirpan is strictly prohibited in schools (even if the highest court in the land has stated otherwise) etc. etc.
I hereby declare and categorically state that these yokels do not represent me, my family, my friends or anyone that I know.
I live in the West Island (western part of the island of Montreal) and there are many immigrants. I have yet to participate in a stoning much less in an auto-da-fé. We all live and let live.
I must say that I find Hérouxville's attitude rather disgusting and more than a little disturbing. Yes there has been some problems with "reasonable accommodation" lately and the media is making a big deal of it, (which is a problem in itself, without the media coverage it would just fizzle out) so it has sometimes escalated, but that is no reason to be so xenophobic. As for "reasonable accommodation" as far as I'm concerned if we can do it without taking away rights from others then why not, but if we can't and it becomes unreasonable then all we need to say is simply no. Maybe that is one of the reasons why we have had problems with "reasonable accommodation" because the people in charge don't have the guts to say no, to say that it is unreasonable. But that is neither here nor there. Even though there have been tensions that is not a reason for labeling immigrants as savages that go around burning and stoning their women. It is also strange that this declaration makes no mention of the good "Québecois de souche" getting piss drunk and beating the crap out of their wives and children, or sexually abusing their children, or driving down the highway drunk as a lord and wiping out a family in a car wreck, or murders, or rapes or the other things that any society has to live with.
This declaration just besmirches the good name of all resonable Québecois and Québecoise and paints us as a gang of ignorant yahoos. The democratically elected representatives of the village that came up with this asnine idea should be impeached. They obviously don't have enough to do if they have time to come up with such bigoted trash. Unfortunately what is really frightening is that they are getting support from like minded bigots. I am ashamed that these are my fellow citizens.
So please ladies and gentlemen do not put us in the same basket as those yahoos, they do not represent the majority of Québecois who are tolerant and open.

Here are some web sites with more information:
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/070129/n012979A.html
Municipal Web Site -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca
Municipal Web Site with documents -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/avispublic.htm
PDF of declaration -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/Standards.pdf

11 rules for life or how to become a productive member of society

I found this on the internet... it has been going around for a while. This is not from Bill Gates. It's an excerpt from the book " Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add (St. Martin’s Press, 1995)" by educator Charles Sykes. It is a list of eleven things that children do not learn in school and is directed at high school and college grads. It talks about how feel-good politically correct teaching (eg: never telling a student that his work is sub-standard, as this might make him feel bad about him/herself) is creating a generation of children with a very small grasp of reality. In French we call this "la pensée magique" (magic thinking) which means that because they want it so, so shall it be. Unfortunately that is not how the world works. Never did, never will.

*Comments in italics are my thoughts

Here are the 11 rules...

Rule 1: Life is not fair-get used to it.

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn both. (no schooling = minimum wage = can't pay for a big apartement, recent model muscle car, clubbing and a girl friend... at most you'll end up living with mom and dad forever!)

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. (or just life in general!)

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity (especially if it is a student job to help pay for your education.). Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping-they called it opportunity. (with no schooling that is about all you'll be doing.)

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them. (taking resposability for your actions can be sooo hard, it's everyone's fault but your own... but whining doesn't get you out of the manure pile!)

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room. (unfortunately some parents are stuck with their "Tanguy**" forever, some couldn't leave home even if they wanted to... not that they would want to. )

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life. (How true... wouldn't want them to feel bad, unfortunately when they get to the real world the shock is awful, and who's fault is that? Often we get fragged by parents because they think that we were too hard on their poor little angel, that we just don't understand and won't give them a chance! It's not his/her fault it's our fault for not being more comprehensive.)

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. You have to do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. (Television and the internet tells them that they'll have the good life, with no effort or hard work, after all they deserve it.... pensée magique)

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. (Maybe not but the good hard working students (and there are still some out there) are going to be the ones footing the bill for the lazy wastrels.)

** Tanguy is a French movie about a 30 something man who just won't leave his parents' home and the parents end up doing all kinds of things to get him to go,. It's hilarious, but something that many parents have to live with.

Full disclosure: I am a teacher and I can tell you that much of this is perfectly right.

Right brain, left brain, no brain*

I was listening to a report this week about bilingual people. The researchers with the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto (how's that for a mouthful) did the study and found that the onset of dementia symptoms was on average four years later for us bilingual people (71.5 for unilingual and 75.5 for bilingual). What was really interesting was what they found about the language center in the brain. You would think that all languages would be using the same part of the brain but no. For your second language a different part is used so the brain must coordinate the two parts so you can use one or the other language. This exercising of the frontal lobes (your cognitive part.... the part that thinks... the part that is you) builds up cognitive reserve (more brain cells/connections) so when the old brain starts to go you have enough reserve to keep going for a while longer.
Rather interesting... good thing I've always been bilingual. I guess I'll be able to be an irasible old codger and bug people for the longest time. Only in Canada would we find such a good reason for being bilingual.
* I know the title has nothing to do with the blog besides the word brain, but it sounded nice.

13 photographs that changed the world

Came across this site while surfing, 13 photographs that changed the world.
Very interesting photos. I might have included a few more such as the picture of Armstrong on the moon with the earth in the background, a picture of the first atomic blast, but interesting none the less.

Bike paths and ski trails

In Montréal we pride ourselves in being an open cosmopolitain city but when you get right down to it, it is pretty much like any other big american style city, many roads, many cars and not much in the way of safe paths for walking or biking.
Last week I was staying in Gatineau, the little city on the other side of the river from our nations capital, Ottawa. I was amazed by the amount of green space and bike paths that exist in that one small town. The picture on the left is a picture of Parc Gatineau bike path. It's also used as a cross country skiing trail when there is enough snow. This is only one of the many bike paths that crisscross the city, not just a sign saying that cars must share the road with bikes, but real bike trails just for bikes. The bike paths not only crisscross the city but they also join up to each other and to the kilometers of bike paths in Ottawa. In Ottawa the same thing is the case, all along the Ottawa river there is a green space that has a bike path that stretches its whole length.
What do we have in Montreal? An autoroute that cuts off the city from the St. Lawrence River. There are bike paths, the canal Lachine path being one, but it is not joined to any others. To get to the bike path you must go down Lakeshore road with the automobile traffic. Lakeshore road not being in the best of conditions, this sometimes can be quite perilous especially when you share with buses and trucks. Even getting down to Lakeshore road is dangerous since you have to cross over autoroutes, where cars won't give you any chances as they get on or off the autoroute...(cloverleafs)
On the southshore, off the island, there are also many bike paths, but to get to them from the island is to say the least a rather dangerous undertaking since getting across the bridges is almost impossible. The only really safe way to cross is the "Estacade" (a kind of small bridge that is used to break up the ice before it gets to the bigger bridges) but that is kilometers out of the way. In Gatineau-Ottawa the bridges all have a dedicated path for bikes, nice and large not squeezed between the railing and the cars.
We are always talking about how people take their cars to work instead of using their bikes or the transit system. Well if you have an alternate system that works then people will use it. If there are safe paths then people will be more likely to use their bikes. In Ottawa there are there are thousands of workers who bike to work. In fact all the government buildings have bike racks, enough for all the workers who wish to bike in. They also have showers and a place to change. Quite a different mentality.

Thoughts on Christmas and kids

It was the last day of school before the Christmas vacations, so today was very relaxed. We had a basketball tournament between the classes. For the tournament they got themselves organized and even wrote a theme song in English (their second language). My homeroom won the tournament by 2 points. The kids were ecstatic, group hug, cheers, the whole nine yards. It's funny because we were certainely not the favorites, but our team spirit won the day.
Often these days kids get a bad rap, but it's stange that all the kids that I teach (and have taught) are good kids, not perfect, but good hearted and willing to do their best for something they believe in. (I can count on the fingers of my hands the really bad kids and I've been teaching for 30 years.) This year, secondary 2 (grade 8 for the rest of you) wrote over 400 Christmas cards for Amnesty International political prisoners throughout the world. So there is hope for the future, maybe they'll do a better job than my generation and there will finally be "peace on earth and good will amoungst men".
So as that famous poem says, "Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

Joyeux Noël (the film)

Saw a great film on the weekend called Joyeux Noël. This little gem of a film got a nomination for the Oscar for best foreign film and it is really worth seeing. It takes place during the First World War on December 24-25 1914, when the British, French, and German troops declared an unofficial cease fire and crawled out of their trenches to celebrate Christmas. This really happened, it has been well documented. The story really brings out the futility and stupidity of war and shows how the most enthusiastic proponants of "kill the enemy" are all people who stay safely way behind the lines. I won't say anymore because I don't want to ruin the film for you, but if you want to see a great little film rent or buy it at your nearesr DVD place of purchase. I got mine at Costco. It is really worth it.

Montréal winters

Winter has finally come with a vengeance. When I left for school on Thrusday it was raining and the temperature was about +2 degrees C, when I got home the temperature had dropped to -11 degrees C. That's what I hate about winter in Montréal, not the cold, not the snow but the variations from damp, wet to freezing cold.
To the contrary of my sister Jazz, I like winter sports. I like the cold, clear days of winter where the temperatures hovers in the minus teens. The air is like champagne, the snow is dry and squeeks under our boots. I am a great fan of cross country skiing (nordic, not downhill). I love the sensation of flying over the snow on my skis, of the stinging sensation of the wind on my face and the sun in my eyes. There is no sensation like it especially when you have the exact combination of wax, temperature and snow. Unfortunately in the last couple of years we have been having yo-yo weather. We get a nice drop of snow and then the temperature warms up, it rains, sleets and the temperature then drops drastically. What happens to the cross country ski trails? They become ice. It is possible to cross country ski in icy conditions, but it is a pain in the keaster. You have to use klister, a gooey kind of wax that sticks to everything and is a real pain to clean up after.
What I would like is a real winter, nice and cold, with plenty of snow, no sleet, rain, and damp. I can live with the cold, in fact I prefer cold dry weather to overly hot weather, but this type of winter, the kind that can't make up its mind is awful. You can't do warm weather sports, such a bicycling or inline skating and you can't do winter sports cuz there's not enough snow and what there is has turned to ice. :o(

Black Friday

The U.S. Thanksgiving was last Thursday, so now they are free to start their Christmas shopping... Black Friday, the start of the shopping season, is not called that because of the negative connotations of shopping for the Christmas holidays, it is so named because that is when stores go from red ink to black ink and start to turn a profit. In fact some stores make 50% of their profits during the Christmas shopping season... frightening isn't it.
But even more frightening is the fact that stores in the States open their doors at midnight after Thanksgiving to start off Christmas shopping and there are people who line up starting at 7pm on Thanksgiving to be the first through the doors. They actually eat their Thanksgiving turkey sitting in the parking lot of their local mall. This year one man even brought his Glock with a pocket full of bullets in case of trouble. A rather extreme way of dealing with line jumpers!
Tell you the truth some people really, really need to get a life.

SUN, GLORIOUS SUN

Finally after what seems to be years of grey clouds, we finally had sun today. There was a large yellow ball in the blue sky. The light was magnificent. We have had a really wet and gloomy autumn this year. I think it has been weeks since we saw some clear skies. In fact the weathermen were saying that it has been the wettest autumn on record. The dark, gloomy weather just gets us down. This morning when I saw the sun, I felt like a plant. I just felt like standing there, face to the sun drinking in the light. It seems that the weather will be clear for the rest of the week... maybe enough time to pick up a little energy.

Later... went out and actually saw some stars, you know those twinkly things in the night sky. We were discussing the lousy weather this afternoon with my fellow teachers, seems to me that we hadn't had sun for at least 2-3 weeks correct me if I'm wrong.

Thoughts about Thanksgiving, roads and such things

For once we had a really nice Thanksgiving weekend. The weather was superb, warm and sunny. Almost made you think it was summer again. Haven't written in a while cuz I'm just lazy I guess. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, an overpass fell down in Laval. That is the second one in the last 5-6 years, mind you the last one wasn't the government's fault since it was the construction company that f****d up. Of course, I'm sure that that fact doesn't really matter all that much to the victims. There was also the highway 40 incident where a good chunk of road kind of fell into a huge hole when the culvert collapsed. Who says that driving in Québec can't be an adventure? Makes you wonder where all the gas tax ended up.
So here we are in the automne, where Québec has made it into international news for being a place where crazed killers roam the crumbling infrastructure. (seems almost post-apocalyptic) Not exactly the kind of PR we need. Good thing we have old Kimmy to take the media scrutiny away from us. And yes little sister (that's Jazz to the rest of you) the politicians should be forced to drive wherever they go instead of flying. Then at least they would have an idea about how our roads are. We could even get them to test drive all the overpasses, at least they would be useful. Only wish our roads were half as nice as those I drove on this summer in Britain.

The Dawson Tragedy

Since I am from Montreal I'll put in my 2 cents worth about the tragedy. The first thing that I will say is that the young man (I won't even mention his name, the faster he is consigned to oblivion the better) was a grade "A" loser. He wanted to be someone, thought weapons gave him power, posed with pictures of his weapons as if it was cool, but basically he was a loser. So much so that he should have had "LOSER" tatooed on his forehead. Face it, at 25 still living with mom and dad, wearing a long black coat and combat boots, playing violent first person shooter video games, wanting to go out in a hail of bullets, is not the most mature mindset. More like something you would find amoung adolescents. The reason that he hated those young men and women in Dawson was basically because they were not losers, they were making something of themselves so they would be able to contribute something to society. We must not forget the victims... but the shooter, put the curse of oblivion on him. He wanted to be known, well deny him recognition, make him a non person.
The second point is about the weapons. He had legally bought a semi-automatic rifle (can't even be used for hunting), a 45 caliber pistol and another weapon. He even registered them. What is wrong in this scenario? I really think that ALL semi-automatic weapons should be banned. Don't go tell me about the poor little hunters... if a hunter isn't a good enough marksman to kill his animal with a bolt action rifle he shouldn't be allowed in the woods... he's a menace. The only legitimate use for a pistol is target practice and competition. For that a 22 caliber pistol will do just fine. So all other calibers of pistols should also be banned. As for the target pistols, they should only be used on a range as a member of a shooting club and the pistols locked up in the shooting club's vault after the member has finished using them. Sounds drastic, yes it is but I'm tired of people saying "it's not the gun that kills, it's the person who pulls the trigger" well having no trigger to pull makes it a lot harder to plan a massacre using a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.

On liars and damned liars.

Part two of the US Senate's Intelligence Committee's report (now there is an oxymoron if ever I heard one, linking politicians with intelligence) has come out today. Part one stated that there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Irak. Part two states that after investigation there is no evidence of any link between Sadam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
I think that the US constitution gives Congress and the Senate the right and the duty to impeach a president who deliberately lies, obstructs justice, goes against the US constitution. I just wonder what they are waiting for. What does he have to do, shoot the justices of the Supreme Court?
Ironic, the Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton about Monica, and here we have a president that has broken just about every US and international law and nothing. There is an old saying that says that we get the government that we deserve... well if that is true, then the Amercicans are in a bad way.
There are however many Americans that are not sitting idle. If you wish to learn more about what they are doing go to http://impeachcentral.com/ maybe with a bit of luck they will succeed.

Back to school

It has been way too long since the last time I posted must be jet lag..;o) Well school started this week and my brain is still insisting that I should still be on vacation. I have realised, as time goes on, that I could easily get used to being a person of leisure. Do you know those people who say, "If ever I won 10 million dollars nothing would change, I'd keep right on working.. " well they are full of it. That is a load of BS. I'd stop working in the next micro-second and leave my job to some deserving young person. This said, I haven't won the lottery so I'm back to school.
This year I am starting my thirtieth year of teaching... that's right 30 years. That's probably longer than some of you have been on this green earth, and to tell the truth, despite all the grumbling, I still love what I do... so that's my confession for the day.
The adolescents of today are often maligned, but the vast majority of them are good people, growing up in a world that can't be easy to grow up in. After all they are the product of their upbringing... and we are the ones who did the upbringing. So if they are so awful, we have only to look in a mirror to see who is to blame. We adults seem to have a selective memory when it comes to our youth... I seem to remember some rather weird and wacky things that I did at that age. ;o)
That said, I met my new batch of students yesterday and they seem to be a good bunch of kids...should be fun.

I'm back from a great vacation

Well our vacation in the UK is over. snif snif... I guess we have to come back someday. It was great fun and we saw and did some fantastic things.
Hiking on Dartmoor and seeing the wild ponies on the other side of a tor. Such a beautiful place.
Seeing Stonehenge, awe inspiring.
Driving around Cornwall and Wales with the ocean cliffs on one side and the hedgerows on the other. Sleeping at a campground in Tewksbury close to Tewksbury abbey. Staying at another canpground beside Castle Howard (the house shown in the film Brideshead Revisted) and realising people still live there. Visiting numerous castles, abbeys, and churches that date back almost 1000 years (I'm rabid amateur historian. I'm facinated by piles of old stones ;o). Visiting neolithique sites such as a flint mine or a copper mine that date back 4000-5000 years (first industrial revolution?). The Batttle of Hastings, Dover Castle, The city of York (just loved it), Stratford on Avon and old William Shakespeare, the British Museum and it goes on and on. There is so much history in that one small island, it is amazing.
The weather was superbe, we only really had 3 days of rain in 5 weeks. The British meterological service said that it was the warmest and sunniest July since they have records. Must have known we were coming.
Was there something we didn't like as much... well to tell the truth London was disappointing. There are some fantastic things to see but we felt that the wild cat developement was ruining what would have otherwise been a very beautiful city. There were beautiful little Wren churches surrounded by huge, ugly, cement and glass buildings. Some of them were truly ugly, like the Modern Tate (looks like what Dartmoor prison should look like), the glass pineapple etc. For once I think that Prince Charles was right and that the developpers are killing the soul of the city. London should have taken a page from Paris and forced the developement outside the city. Oh well that's my gripe for the day. (As you can see I'm not a great fan of big cities)
But we did have loads of fun and we met some really extraordinarily nice people, like the taxi driver in Liverpool, who when we asked him for directions to drive to a certain road, told us to follow him and led us to the address that we needed to go. There were many other people who took the time to explain things when we had questions, who were patient with us when we were lost and searching, and chatted with us when they noticed that we were Canadians. We'll always keep a fond memory of the people of the UK.

Vacation Time :o)

Ah vacation time. Now that school is finally out and the horrendous piles of corrections are done. :o) (Really happy all my kids passed and got pretty good marks, and no I didn't make up the exam, someone else did, so it's not me being nice. Anyhow they tell me that my exams are usually way harder. ;o) ) I finally have time to write this. This one will probably be the last one for a while since Mrs. Big Brother and I are leaving on Saturday for Merry Olde England for a month. London, the Tower of London, the British Museum, Stonehenge, the cathedrals and castles, Cornwall, Wales, climbing Snowdon, walking on the moors, York, the Cotswald, Dover, and last but not least, the pubs and the beer.(Already did all of Scotland, all the way to John O'Groats, the Orkneys, Cape Wrath, the Hebrides, the Highlands and also spent a month exploring Ireland)

I am a Guiness

Took the test and this is what came out. Seems to work cuz I love Guiness. Even went all the way to Dublin to drink a Guiness where it is made (from Canada that's quite a ways) ;o)

What Type of Alcoholic Beverage Are You?

You're a Pint of Guinness!
Take this quiz!

Coffee for me!

I tried this and I found it rather fun... thank you Hagletoast.

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

The number of the beast the day after

Yesterday was 666 day, Damien the remake was launched and I went to my physio whose telephone number ends in 0666. Nope nothing happened, the only joint twisting was done by the physiotherapist... oh well maybe in another hundred years or better still in 4460 years it'll be the real thing. Believe it or not the secretary was telling me that when some people see the phone number they refuse to come to the clinic... talk about weird.
We must however remember that for the Chinese the number 666 is lucky, so lucky in fact that I heard that Chinese couples were getting married on that date for luck. In fact if you add the numbers up the sum is 18 and in Chinese the character for 18 means "to be rich".
So all things considered I'd rather be rich than power puking and twisting my head around 360 degrees... remember "The Exorcist"?. As for Damien, the anti-christ, he'll probably end up getting blown up in a terrorist attack. ;o)

Same old thing :o(

I know it happened last week but I just didn't have time to write about it. Last week we had a little upset where Joe Volpe, a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party, received 29 donations amounting to $152,700. Most of them came from twenty $5,400 donations from executives of Apotex Inc., and members of their families. He finally had to give back some of the funds because they had been donated by minor children. Amoung them, $10800 from two 11 year old twins and $5400 from their 14 year old brother. (Boy, don't I wish I had had that kind of cash when I was a kid... in fact don't I wish I had that kind of cash now! LOL)
While this is probably not illegal in the strict sense of the law, it surely contravenes the spirit of it. It seems that the Liberals just have not learned anything. No wonder people don't trust politicians... it's not that we are cynical, we are just being realistic...

PS I'm sure that the Conservatives and others are just as bad... just give them some time and it will all come out. ;0(

Snail Mail

How's this for slow? I was reading that the French postal service just delivered a postcard that was mailed September 29th 1910. It only took 96 years to get delivered to the recipient's daughter-in-law since the recipient had died in 1978.
Think about it, when the card (a picture of the Sémois valley in Belgium) was mailed the Titanic was not even completed, much less sunk. It was mailed four years before the First World War and 29 years before the start of the Second. The airplane was in its infancy and men walking on the moon was just a story by Jules Verne. Email? Forget it. There were telegrams, the telephone (if you didn't mind the neighbours and the operator listening in) and the Postal Service.
Gives a whole new dimension to the term "Snail-mail"

Been absent...

Finally got my cast off last Monday... it feels so good to be free of the weight and the hassle. Makes you appreciate having two hands, there are so many things in our world that can only work well with two hands.
I haven't written in a while since last week I was in Washington with my students. We went to see old uncle George. ;o) Mind you, I did see him in a big cavalcade riding down Constitution Avenue, with a huge police escort. There were police cars blocking traffic at each intersection, a motorcycle escort to make sure the way was clear, a bunch of big black SUV's with men armed with automatic weapons hanging out the windows. It was like watching an emperor driving by. I found the situation ironic in the land that professes that everyone is equal. Here in Canada the Prime Minister walks his children to school and then walks off to his office. I know that the need for security is different, but it is ironic none the less.
I must say however that Americans really know how to do a capital city. As the students said, "It's like walking in ancient Rome". The museums are really magnificent and they are all free. The Aerospace museum, the Museum of Natural History , the National Gallery, the Museum Of American History etc. We also saw the National Archives with the original Declaration of Independance and the US Constitution, and the Library of Congress and finally all the memorials. We also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. (If you only visit one museum, visit that one. It isn't an easy museum to visit, my students came away from there somber and quiet, and for 14 year olds that's saying a lot, but I can guarantee that that it will touch you.) We were also impressed by the cleanliness of the streets and the flowers everywhere. You can see that they take care of the city. The people were also nice and very patient since the student's English was sometimes mangled. (They are French speaking and English is their second language) There was even an employee of the metro system that lent a student his cell phone to call his mom after seeing him trying to use a pay phone. We warned him that we came from Montreal and it was a long distance call but he said that it was OK. That was really generous of him and we greatly appreciated it. That is one of the nicest things about travelling, meeting nice people. :o)
There was really only one point that bugged me and that was the "over the top" security. At the Capitol there was a group of students with their teacher talking to a someone that worked there. They seemed to be trying to arrange a visit (something that is pretty much impossible since 9/11). On the top of the steps overlooking them were two soldiers? security? armed with automatic weapons and one of them had his weapon aimed at the group. Not casually pointing but deliberately aimed. That is frightening. Where they expecting the group of high school students to storm the Capitol and take the senate hostage. That's almost paranoid. God knows that after 9/11 they had to beef up security, but there is a point where it become a bit much. Thank goodness my students didn't notice. I am really glad to live in a country where that type of paranoia is not needed, and I hope that one day the American people will also be able to live without that kind of security.

A Friday Afternoon

Here I am on a Friday afternoon, the sun is shining, and all is well with the world. I haven't written in a while cuz to tell the truth typing with a cast is a major bummer. In fact the cast itself is a major bummer. It really takes a lot of energy to get along with it. You are always asking people to help you. Ever tried to open a juice bottle with only one hand, cut a slice of bread... squished bread, lousy slice... fustration assured. Makes you appreciate having all the bits and pieces working. (OK Jazz, I know... I'm not always all there...duuuh what's my name and where's my lunch box? but at my age I'm allowed.) It has been so nice this week and my bike and inline skates are sitting there in the garage going "Take me out for a ride please, pretty please", soooo fustrating. Well at least I could have my morning coffee on the patio before going to work and sit here after work reading a good murder mystery knowing that the situation isn't permanent. Have yourselves a good weekend.

Cleaning up

It was once said that he who controls the information controls the game. Our Prime Minister has promised a massive cleanup of our government. He is even proposing a new law to do so. Now that is all well and good, except that he has taken the reforms to the Access to Information Act out of the package to send to a commitee. Now we all know that sending something to a commitee is the kiss of death. They will mull it over, gum it to death and it will quietly slip into oblivion.
Now can someone explain to me how you can clean up corruption if there is no transparency. How do you know where the corruption is? How do you keep tabs on what the government is doing if you can't get the information. The Prime Minister doesn't even want his ministers to talk to the press, much less give them information about what is going on.
So from where I sit it is business as usual. If the politicians want us to respect them, they should maybe let us see what is going on. If not it's still the same old book with a new dust jacket.

*******************************

On another note, I was reading about a Los Angeles cop who gave a $114 ticket to an 82 year old woman because she wasn't fast enough to cross a five lane boulevard before the light turned to red. There's one cop who really wins the booby prize for stupidity. Instead of giving her a ticket he should have blocked the traffic himself to give her time to cross the intersection.
It really makes you wonder sometimes.

The Medical System...Thanks

Usually when you here about the medical system it is to complain or tell horror stories about the awful service/waiting list/hospital/employees etc. Well guess what? I'm not going to do that. Today I had to have minor surgery on my hand, nothing very important, just something that had to be done. Well the waiting period before the day surgery was very reasonable and when I went in to the Lakeshore hospital the service was courteous, professional and expeditive. The people where invariably nice, explaining everything that they were going to do and answering any questions I had. The surgery took place using a drip block (sort of like the dentist freezing your tooth) so they didn't even have to put me to sleep, so I was out of there in record time. The only inconvenience is the plaster cast that slows up my typing skills by 50% :o(
Thanks to the doctors and staff of Lakeshore hospital for their professionalism, courtesy, and humanity. It is greatly appreciated.

Of unused intellignece.

Spring is here and the daffodiles are coming out. At the same time road repairs are starting up again. Mind you, I have nothing against repairing the roads, lord knows that they need it, but it is the way they go about it.
Highway 40 is one of the busiest highways in Montreal and they are currently getting ready to start repairs, so they have deviated the lanes and made them much narrower. This of course slows down traffic. So far so good. Now comes the fun part. The city of Point-Claire in their infinite wisdom has decided to dig up the service road. They therefore have shut down one of the lanes. Now you would think that since they are repairing the highway causing major traffic congestion you would want to keep the service road open as an extra safety valve to help the flow of traffic, but oh no, instead they shut it down causing an even bigger snafu. Let me tell you that whoever thought that one up was really not the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer or the brightest light in the Christmas tree.
As the saying goes...God must really love stupid people, he/she made so many of them.

The Commonwealth Games..good show!

Did you know that in the Commonwealth games offers full inclusion for atheletes with disabilities? In that way Chantal Petitclerc's gold and the seven other medals won by our disabled atheletes have been counted in the Canadian total. They are truly world class atheletes and regular atheletes would be hard pressed to do as much in those conditions. Finally these atheletes are given the recognition that they deserve.
I was listening to a report on CBC Radio about the Paraolympics at Torino and the reporter was saying what a shame it was that there were hardly any spectators or media at the events. I find that so sad, these atheletes have overcome so many hurdles and all they get is an afterthought. The Olympic Governing Committee should take a page from the Commonwealth Games. Include these superbe atheletes so that they get the recognition that they deserve. Let them have their place in the sun. How hard can it be? If there is a will they can surely find a way.
Finally bravo to the Canadian Team for having chosen Chantal Peticlerc to be the flag bearer for the team... I am sure, that for her, it was as great an honour and pleasure as winning her gold medal. After all, this was a gesture from her peers, recognizing her talent and perseverence.

Of seals and cod fish!!!

Don't you wish that international stars that are in need of an infusion of publicity would stay away from the "save the animals " thing. Bardot's back in Ottawa to shake a finger at we Canadians saying naughty, naughty, because of the seal hunt. There are about 5 million of the critters, and the population has been going way up since the 70's. They are far from being an endangered species. I wonder why McCartney and Bardot haven't shed any tears for the poor common cod fish, whose population has been decimated by overfishing. Certain nations of the EU being amoung the worst offenders... Could it be because the cod fish are not cute, are not photogenic ? Where were they when Canada was trying to control the EU fishing fleets that were scooping up all the cod they could, making a recovery of the population almost impossible. What about all the little lambs or calves being slaughtered in Europe to make lamb chops or veal parmesan?
Can we all spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S???

Of priorities and the public good

I think that this rant deserves a post all by itself. As I have said before I am a teacher in the public school system and as such have been told that the system costs too much and that we must do more with less, that we must find creative solutions. There is no money. So our students work on old beat up computers that have been donated and don't work half the time. There is no money... we are trying to find the $25000 it would cost to equipe a new computer lab but it is going to take some kind of miraculous finances to accomplish this. What services will we cut to do it?
In the mean time, our elected commisioners of the school board have voted themselves $65000 worth of new P5 laptop computers ($48000 for computers and $17000 for IT support such as WIFI and broadband internet at home). The students are using recycled computers and they are spending the equivalent of two new computer labs to "save paper and mailing costs". (But let's be fair, in fours years when they are obsolete, they'll be changed and the old ones then given to the schools... how's that for generous. )
We are always being told that there is no money, that we must cut costs. I just wonder sometimes what percentage of the billions in the education budget is really spent DIRECTLY on the students. (By directly I mean, money that goes into the classes, that the students profit from, either in equipement or direct services) I would not be surprised if it was less than 1%. Since the students are at the end of the line there isn't much left when everyone above have taken their slice. Then society wonders why so many students drop out and don't finish high school. The budget should be reversed... the students get what they need and whatever is left over can be used for other things. Gee what an inovative thought, the education budget actually being used for the education of students.

Luv that new car smell...

Last post car died... put it out of its misery. Got a new car, don't you just love that new car smell? That folks is the smell of hard earned cash going, going, gone... Bought a Subaru, cuz the last Toyata kind of soured me on Toyota's in general and Corollas in particular. I know they are good cars but I got the only lemon they ever built. (By the way I forgot one other defect in my last post... when we put gas in the Corolla's tank the revs would yoyo so you had to keep your foot on the gas or she'd die. Ever try to keep your foot on the gas, work the clutch and brake and pull out of a service station? After 2km the occilattions would fade and away you'd go until the next time. :o( ) The Impreza drives like a charm and I'm really happy since I no longer have to worry if I'll get home again.

Cars and things...

Last night the f***ing transmission/clutch of my Toyota Corolla gave out... The thing started to whine, grind and finally jolt. Acrid smoke started to come out from under the car. The only good thing is that I wasn't far from home and finally limped into the driveway. The language I used about the situation would have blistered the paint off the barn at 100 meters. (This is one advantage of being bilingual, it gives you so much more material for creative swearing) This car must have been made on a Friday at 4pm just before a long weekend... after a year changed the bearings on the transmission, after 2.5 years changed the linking arm for the wipers (took them over a week to get the part since this happens so rarely), the anti-theft stopped working, the A/C died when its bearings seized, the check motor light kept coming on despite changing just about every part in the pollution control system... the motor takes about a gallon of oil between oil changes and sounds like a farm tractor, the suspension always makes the ride interesting, and finally the transmission/clutch gave up the ghost with a screeching whine and a crunch... We've always had Toyota and never had any problems. We ran the cars into the 270000 km's and still they ran, yet this one was one big pain in the kiester. One thing is sure, I'm not pouring more money into the thing... to paraphrase Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch... "it is dead, defunct, passed away, this is a dead car... it is not sleeping, it is DEAD". So I guess I'll soon be paying car payments again but it won't be to Toyota.

Roots

We spent the March Break in "le Vieux Québec". For those of you that are not from Québec, "la Vielle Ville" is the old part of Québec City near the St. Lawrence River. It dates back to the the 17th and 18th century and has been largely restored. It is one of the first UNESCO hertitage sites in North America. It is the cradle of French America and most francophones have ancestors that come from there. This is where it all started.
As I walked along the snowy cobbled streets, that have a distinctly European flavour, I reflected upon what it must have been like to live there 300-350 years ago. You would have left a nice safe civilized country, sailed for at least a month across the stormy Atlantic, to end up in a place where nothing was the same. You had more freedom, but life was probably much harsher than back in France. Chances were that you would never see your family or homeland again. Yet people made a place for themselves and created a French culture in this strange land. They set out and explored a continent, going from Hudson's Bay to the far west all the way down to Louisiana and New Orleans.
This is where my roots are, and I can feel that even if I have spent most of my life elsewhere. It is a strange feeling, this feeling of being home. I was an airforce brat and as such lived all over the place but when I came to study in Québec, as I got off the bus, the feeling struck me, I was home. This place was home. It is a feeling that I have never had elsewhere. I know it sounds strange but that feeling has stayed with me all my life and though I have lived longer elsewhere than here, Québec is still my home, my roots.