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A moment to breath and contemplate...
May. 22nd, 2017 02:13 pmSooooooooo the last you heard from me I was planning a series of baking attempts and posts as I was working for an application to the Great Canadian Baking Show....
Then I worked 21 days straight, and even after that the combination of the two jobs and trying to squeeze in a bit of baking and bookkeeping in between has left little time for blogging.
I think we can probably safely say, that as filming was planned to happen May-June, that I didn't get a spot this year, I am thinking I still, at this juncture, want to continue to work towards a placement next year.
Of course if they actually viewed this blog as part of the selection criteria, well I haven't exactly been keeping it up, and certainly the only post that I put up regarding the competition was a failure. I never did get posted the "laminated pastry in 3 hours" post... which was a win. Or the Potato Bread one. Or even Black Forest Cake for Mother's Day post. Ah well I can only keep doing what I do.... and given the choice of baking or writing about baking, the baking will always win.
In other depressing news, the wee inexpensive building next to the national park, that would have been perfect for my Big Black Dog Cafe, (which was all part of the 'must win Baking Competition' obsession) has been bought. It's a sadness, but honestly without a competition win, or a lottery win, it wasn't going to happen this year anyway.
The combination of the two has left me floundering a bit .... I don't enjoy the work I'm doing, but the income is necessary, but it's not leaving a lot of room emotionally, physically, temporally, or financially, for stuff I *want* to be doing. Building the house, sending the Feychild to school in England, my cafe, or even gardening, knitting, reading,..... *anything*. So I'm feeling a bit trapped in a black hole. But James and I are in this together and we keep on slogging, and maybe, just maybe .... eventually we'll figure our way out of it. I just kinda hope it happens before we're too old and weak and addle minded to enjoy it. In the meantime, I'm looking for a new idea, Plan, obsession, to hang my hope on.
-----------------------------------------
Oh and as you know.... there's been changes to LiveJournal's TOS, that has a lot of people leaving. Honestly, I haven`t been reading at LJ regularly for a couple years now - much as I hate FB it really has become my point of contact with a lot of people. As for posting that comes too from my own blog space, and dreamwidth and they`re all crossposted to each other. If I can eventually manage to figure out new image hosting (I have been continuing to use scrapbook for all my image hosting) ... I may end my LJ account for these privacy reasons. But migrating all my photos is gonna take a looong time, so that may not happen any time soon. It will be sad if it does.... 15 years I`ve been there, 15 years since a certain person I will never speak to again convinced me to try this idea that sounded hideous to me (yeah really I am NOT a big fan of change....) 10 years at least since I made that account permanent..... OK enough being maudlin.... I haven`t decided, and it`ll be a lot of work before its ready to happen if I do and besides it`s not like I`m leaving cyberspace..... LOL
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Then I worked 21 days straight, and even after that the combination of the two jobs and trying to squeeze in a bit of baking and bookkeeping in between has left little time for blogging.
I think we can probably safely say, that as filming was planned to happen May-June, that I didn't get a spot this year, I am thinking I still, at this juncture, want to continue to work towards a placement next year.
Of course if they actually viewed this blog as part of the selection criteria, well I haven't exactly been keeping it up, and certainly the only post that I put up regarding the competition was a failure. I never did get posted the "laminated pastry in 3 hours" post... which was a win. Or the Potato Bread one. Or even Black Forest Cake for Mother's Day post. Ah well I can only keep doing what I do.... and given the choice of baking or writing about baking, the baking will always win.
In other depressing news, the wee inexpensive building next to the national park, that would have been perfect for my Big Black Dog Cafe, (which was all part of the 'must win Baking Competition' obsession) has been bought. It's a sadness, but honestly without a competition win, or a lottery win, it wasn't going to happen this year anyway.
The combination of the two has left me floundering a bit .... I don't enjoy the work I'm doing, but the income is necessary, but it's not leaving a lot of room emotionally, physically, temporally, or financially, for stuff I *want* to be doing. Building the house, sending the Feychild to school in England, my cafe, or even gardening, knitting, reading,..... *anything*. So I'm feeling a bit trapped in a black hole. But James and I are in this together and we keep on slogging, and maybe, just maybe .... eventually we'll figure our way out of it. I just kinda hope it happens before we're too old and weak and addle minded to enjoy it. In the meantime, I'm looking for a new idea, Plan, obsession, to hang my hope on.
-----------------------------------------
Oh and as you know.... there's been changes to LiveJournal's TOS, that has a lot of people leaving. Honestly, I haven`t been reading at LJ regularly for a couple years now - much as I hate FB it really has become my point of contact with a lot of people. As for posting that comes too from my own blog space, and dreamwidth and they`re all crossposted to each other. If I can eventually manage to figure out new image hosting (I have been continuing to use scrapbook for all my image hosting) ... I may end my LJ account for these privacy reasons. But migrating all my photos is gonna take a looong time, so that may not happen any time soon. It will be sad if it does.... 15 years I`ve been there, 15 years since a certain person I will never speak to again convinced me to try this idea that sounded hideous to me (yeah really I am NOT a big fan of change....) 10 years at least since I made that account permanent..... OK enough being maudlin.... I haven`t decided, and it`ll be a lot of work before its ready to happen if I do and besides it`s not like I`m leaving cyberspace..... LOL
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Hello again. We're taking a bit of a break from Market Day Posts to bring you The Great Vicky Baker Off. For fans of the Great British Bake Off, you'll understand this reference, for those who aren't familiar with the show (currently only running on the other side of the pond, but hugely popular - really any baker who is even passingly familiar with pop culture has most likely heard of it).
Now the CBC, here in Canada, is planning their own version The Great Canadian Baking Show, and of course, I cannot resist tossing my hat in the ring. I've been obsessing about this and my application for the last two weeks and today my application goes in.
While I've been obsessing - it seemed prudent to practice and make sure my chops are what I think they are, and try and polish what are rough spots for me. Honestly, after my diabetes diagnosis, I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever really be able to bake at my former levels again.... it hurt to think about. With my health under control, and learning that I can be both - diabetic and baker. I thought this could be a good test of whether or not I still have it, and do I have it well enough to open my own café, and can I bake everyday and still keep my blood glucose numbers under control. In short I'm thrilled, nervous, and excited to be baking again - and to see how my skills compare to the world at large out there.
One of the things I thought I ought to do, I tracked down some of the season 7 (latest) episodes of The Great British Bake Off and am trying them out - time limits and all - over the next weeks. This will introduce me to things I may not have thought of, some new techniques and interesting things, as well as encouraging me to take my normal good game to a higher level.
Strengths: Planning, Timing, Organization. In a past life I was an airline dispatcher - and a very good one, planning, timing and organization was the very lifeblood of being a good dispatcher - or Chief Dispatcher. I've always said, if I have a super-power - it's planning, I can plan anything faster and more thoroughly than any human being alive.
.. and breads, my yeast breads are glorious and to die for, I *will* win bread week, and my laminated pastries - croissants anyone, are pretty much a "could do with my eyes closed"
Weaknesses: Hand skills, I don't have the dexterity a lot of people do for fiddly wee hand skill things. So Cakes will be my downfall. Piping, decorating, neat and beautiful, that's high on my practice page. And maybe stick with what I can do well, fondant cut outs, molded gum paste. After all my cocounut cake is a thing of glory because .... all that shining WHITENESS ... a lovely boiled italian meringue frosting and just heaps of bright white coconut. It looks a thing of beauty, but very little hand skills involved.
All that said, I'm going to be posting the failures as well as the winners - because we need to learn, and as always I share the learning with you gentle reader, that's how we both get better at this.
Week One was just such a failure. Decided to try the Mirror Cake - because it was a decorating technique I'd not tried before, and because I've had génoise cakes fail on me before (too much stuff in the batter - it fell flat.)
I will say that once I stuck to Julia's "Perfect Génoise" recipe, without trying to doll it up with cherries and 'stuff' - the cake batter worked much better. It does take a bit of getting used to - to quote Julia, "Sturdy, firm, adaptable, and amenable to almost any flavouring, the génoise is the first cake a French patissier learns to make and the one (s)he'll make most often in his/her career. It is drier than most American cakes and, for this reason, not every American's favourite, but it's dryness is considered an asset by the French, who soak their génoise with sugar and liqueur syrups of every conceivable savor." It's firmer dryer texture does make me want to believe the cake failed, but as the blind taster remarked they loved the cake it was more 'pound cake like' than the usual fluffy fare.
So the batter turned out perfectly - really it's just a question of beating those eggs a minute past when you think it might be ready, give it a little bit more, and being very gentle with the folding in the flour. No nothing but cake flour will really work well here.
It baked beautifully. (As a side note, you have to know when a cake is done, more than one competitor has been tripped up by the use of an unfamiliar oven - and I expect they will be using convection ovens in competition rather than standard ovens. It took me some time to get used to the vagueries of this oven it might get tricky when I have an oven that actually holds it's temperature properly.)
It has a lovely crumb and a beautiful texture... but it is different from what a lot of us think of when we say "cake".
(ignore the bad lighting - shooting in the kitchen lighting is always challenging)
This is where things started going a bit sideways though.
My thought process was - most people do white chocolate in the mirror glaze, what if I changed it up a bit and did a white chocolate butter cream filling / crumb coat, and a fruit glaze? Rather than the more traditional other way around? There wasn't too much wrong with the white chocolate butter cream , it's hard to mess that up.... although it was very sweet and needed a bit more white chocolate and vanilla I think to really shine.
Melted white chocolate and whipping cream
.. and a bigger bowl"
So while the butter cream needed some minor tweaks, it was the mirror glaze which I haven't done before that let me down. Problem one. Non of the recipes I came across gave a temperature to boil the syrup to, so it really came out a bit thin. Also the cake should have been colder - freezer, not fridge next time. It just didn't adhere as well as it should have. Secondly, I was working with frozen mango chunks and should have thought to thaw them first and actually cook it into the syrup part.... adding the cold pureed mango to the syrup really brought the temperature down, and if it had been candied enough - it would have solidified the syrup before it even poured. Thirdly - mango and sugar syrup - it was deathly sweet especially with the white chocolate butter cream, it needs a hit of sharp, lemon juice would be the usual way to go.... but I'm thinking maybe go lime for a bit of the unexpected next time.
In the assembly ... it failed some. Partly that lack of hand skills thing. It needed to have the cake sides more tidied up and even, the butter cream crumb coat needed to be smoother. Then perhaps the mango glaze had it been the right consistency would have worked better, and the 'sunrise' effect I was going for with the naturally coloured sunny mango and darker, copper red glaze would have worked better.
What it was - was a nice enough home baked cake, but not anywhere near competition standard. We will do this again... because we learned something, and I can see that the perfect mirror cake is within my grasp.
Now the next challenge this week is:
2 batches of 12 each danish pastries, one sweet, one savoury in 3.5 hours.
Danishes? Laminated pastry? I got this. BUT. 3.5 hours? I don't know a danish pastry recipe that doesn't call for a minimum 4 hr rest (preferably overnight). But I'll try it. Also the burning question... most of the competitors went with a traditional lamination - dough, then butter, a la puff pastry or croissants, on the other hand, all my recipes, Julia, Anna Olson (will she be a judge? really in Canada in TV bakers who else is there? But she might still be under contract to Shaw?)... all refer to the method most used in Denmark these days of the butter in the dough before lamination - a sort of short cut puff pastry method - like a yeasted short crust, that's then laminated.
The sweet: goat cheese and port wine jelly - I keep wanting to ADD something to this to make it "MORE" but.. I can sometimes over think a thing. And it should be perfect as JUST cheese and port wine. (or maybe a dried tart cherry or two?)
The savoury: roasted garlic goat cheese with sun dried tomato sausage topped with sun dried tomato and kalmata olives. I was just going to go with the sausage, but I'm not happy there's enough of the tomato in the sausage. So we'll top it with a bit more.
We've got a half a pot of coffee, a full larder, it's 3.5 hours to the buzzer and we're wearing aprons over our pajamas....BAKE IT!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Now the CBC, here in Canada, is planning their own version The Great Canadian Baking Show, and of course, I cannot resist tossing my hat in the ring. I've been obsessing about this and my application for the last two weeks and today my application goes in.
While I've been obsessing - it seemed prudent to practice and make sure my chops are what I think they are, and try and polish what are rough spots for me. Honestly, after my diabetes diagnosis, I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever really be able to bake at my former levels again.... it hurt to think about. With my health under control, and learning that I can be both - diabetic and baker. I thought this could be a good test of whether or not I still have it, and do I have it well enough to open my own café, and can I bake everyday and still keep my blood glucose numbers under control. In short I'm thrilled, nervous, and excited to be baking again - and to see how my skills compare to the world at large out there.
One of the things I thought I ought to do, I tracked down some of the season 7 (latest) episodes of The Great British Bake Off and am trying them out - time limits and all - over the next weeks. This will introduce me to things I may not have thought of, some new techniques and interesting things, as well as encouraging me to take my normal good game to a higher level.
Strengths: Planning, Timing, Organization. In a past life I was an airline dispatcher - and a very good one, planning, timing and organization was the very lifeblood of being a good dispatcher - or Chief Dispatcher. I've always said, if I have a super-power - it's planning, I can plan anything faster and more thoroughly than any human being alive.
.. and breads, my yeast breads are glorious and to die for, I *will* win bread week, and my laminated pastries - croissants anyone, are pretty much a "could do with my eyes closed"
Weaknesses: Hand skills, I don't have the dexterity a lot of people do for fiddly wee hand skill things. So Cakes will be my downfall. Piping, decorating, neat and beautiful, that's high on my practice page. And maybe stick with what I can do well, fondant cut outs, molded gum paste. After all my cocounut cake is a thing of glory because .... all that shining WHITENESS ... a lovely boiled italian meringue frosting and just heaps of bright white coconut. It looks a thing of beauty, but very little hand skills involved.
All that said, I'm going to be posting the failures as well as the winners - because we need to learn, and as always I share the learning with you gentle reader, that's how we both get better at this.
Week One was just such a failure. Decided to try the Mirror Cake - because it was a decorating technique I'd not tried before, and because I've had génoise cakes fail on me before (too much stuff in the batter - it fell flat.)
I will say that once I stuck to Julia's "Perfect Génoise" recipe, without trying to doll it up with cherries and 'stuff' - the cake batter worked much better. It does take a bit of getting used to - to quote Julia, "Sturdy, firm, adaptable, and amenable to almost any flavouring, the génoise is the first cake a French patissier learns to make and the one (s)he'll make most often in his/her career. It is drier than most American cakes and, for this reason, not every American's favourite, but it's dryness is considered an asset by the French, who soak their génoise with sugar and liqueur syrups of every conceivable savor." It's firmer dryer texture does make me want to believe the cake failed, but as the blind taster remarked they loved the cake it was more 'pound cake like' than the usual fluffy fare.
So the batter turned out perfectly - really it's just a question of beating those eggs a minute past when you think it might be ready, give it a little bit more, and being very gentle with the folding in the flour. No nothing but cake flour will really work well here.
It baked beautifully. (As a side note, you have to know when a cake is done, more than one competitor has been tripped up by the use of an unfamiliar oven - and I expect they will be using convection ovens in competition rather than standard ovens. It took me some time to get used to the vagueries of this oven it might get tricky when I have an oven that actually holds it's temperature properly.)
It has a lovely crumb and a beautiful texture... but it is different from what a lot of us think of when we say "cake".
(ignore the bad lighting - shooting in the kitchen lighting is always challenging)
This is where things started going a bit sideways though.
My thought process was - most people do white chocolate in the mirror glaze, what if I changed it up a bit and did a white chocolate butter cream filling / crumb coat, and a fruit glaze? Rather than the more traditional other way around? There wasn't too much wrong with the white chocolate butter cream , it's hard to mess that up.... although it was very sweet and needed a bit more white chocolate and vanilla I think to really shine.
Melted white chocolate and whipping cream
.. and a bigger bowl"
So while the butter cream needed some minor tweaks, it was the mirror glaze which I haven't done before that let me down. Problem one. Non of the recipes I came across gave a temperature to boil the syrup to, so it really came out a bit thin. Also the cake should have been colder - freezer, not fridge next time. It just didn't adhere as well as it should have. Secondly, I was working with frozen mango chunks and should have thought to thaw them first and actually cook it into the syrup part.... adding the cold pureed mango to the syrup really brought the temperature down, and if it had been candied enough - it would have solidified the syrup before it even poured. Thirdly - mango and sugar syrup - it was deathly sweet especially with the white chocolate butter cream, it needs a hit of sharp, lemon juice would be the usual way to go.... but I'm thinking maybe go lime for a bit of the unexpected next time.
In the assembly ... it failed some. Partly that lack of hand skills thing. It needed to have the cake sides more tidied up and even, the butter cream crumb coat needed to be smoother. Then perhaps the mango glaze had it been the right consistency would have worked better, and the 'sunrise' effect I was going for with the naturally coloured sunny mango and darker, copper red glaze would have worked better.
What it was - was a nice enough home baked cake, but not anywhere near competition standard. We will do this again... because we learned something, and I can see that the perfect mirror cake is within my grasp.
Now the next challenge this week is:
2 batches of 12 each danish pastries, one sweet, one savoury in 3.5 hours.
Danishes? Laminated pastry? I got this. BUT. 3.5 hours? I don't know a danish pastry recipe that doesn't call for a minimum 4 hr rest (preferably overnight). But I'll try it. Also the burning question... most of the competitors went with a traditional lamination - dough, then butter, a la puff pastry or croissants, on the other hand, all my recipes, Julia, Anna Olson (will she be a judge? really in Canada in TV bakers who else is there? But she might still be under contract to Shaw?)... all refer to the method most used in Denmark these days of the butter in the dough before lamination - a sort of short cut puff pastry method - like a yeasted short crust, that's then laminated.
The sweet: goat cheese and port wine jelly - I keep wanting to ADD something to this to make it "MORE" but.. I can sometimes over think a thing. And it should be perfect as JUST cheese and port wine. (or maybe a dried tart cherry or two?)
The savoury: roasted garlic goat cheese with sun dried tomato sausage topped with sun dried tomato and kalmata olives. I was just going to go with the sausage, but I'm not happy there's enough of the tomato in the sausage. So we'll top it with a bit more.
We've got a half a pot of coffee, a full larder, it's 3.5 hours to the buzzer and we're wearing aprons over our pajamas....BAKE IT!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Another long overdue update
Feb. 27th, 2017 06:52 pmI admit, I've been bad about posting regularly this last year. It's been busy and hectic and whole months slip by unnoticed.
I took on a second part time job, because finances. The less said about that the better. The good part is they pay mileage, and it's on my own time and it makes things a little less stressful. But lately it also means been working 7 days a week.
And the diabetes diagnosis, I haven't said much about that lately. Except that my numbers are very nicely under control - shocked my doctor with my improvement at the 3 month mark, cut my meds back to a half dosage and things seem to be remaining stable. Even through the holidays and my returning to less strict eating patterns my BGL have stayed pretty reasonable. Even the occasional pastry is back in; although I'm still very cautious about potatoes and rice, and pretty much avoiding pasta all together. So really not cut anything out completely anymore, just LESS of. Still keeping all my 3 month check ups and minding how I go, although I've also kinda gotten lax on my spread sheet trackers as well - I need to be more diligent about that, but getting back into the habit when everything is so ... pressing, is difficult.
This brings us to the events of the past few days.... I'll give you the Coles Notes Facebook version:
"So.
I kinda pushed James a little into buying the Durango. He hadn't been really interested in the ad.... but I made him look at the ad a 2nd time. And go out and see it. He has really enjoyed owning it, and I was so pleased that finally after almost 8 yrs in Canada he finally had a decent vehicle he liked, and was comfortable in and.........
I wrote it off today.
A stupid error in a moment of panic.
Hit the gas instead of the brakes.
Took out a phone pole.
I got lucky and only side swiped the pole. Otherwise the truck wouldn't be the only thing that's gone. I banged my hand up and I've got a good rope burn from the seatbelt. Otherwise I'm just devastated, embarrassed and broken hearted that once again I've made a stupid mistake that's going to cost us a pretty penny, and thrown our lives into logistical hoop jumping and ... spoiled something nice for him."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I got this plan.... to toss my hat in the ring for the Great Canadian Baking Show - a new entry into the reality TV series game from the CBC ... based loosely on The Great British Bake Off - I'm working on my application. I've mostly put it together well I think..... still trying to get a photo of me I don't hate.... the problem is that they all look like I'm 52 LOL! The other problem is that a 'application video' is recommended (but not required) "for a good video, see out Video Tips" - I can't find their video tips - not on their website, not on the cbc's not via google - I got nothin'.
So plan is a 5 min video - no action sequences baking - that just ends up with camera shake - no script, just a few notes on key points I want to touch on.
I don't know if I'm reality tv material - lord knows I can talk a blue streak. And I can bake, and I am competitive - I just have trouble seeing cooking as a competitive sport ...... still if it gives me a shot and maybe seeing some of our life ambitions to fruition. My cafe outside the park, our Arthcwtch Creative Space and Workshops, then I'll go to just about any lengths to make that happen.
I think I'll have to try again on the photos....the whole squinting wrinkly forehead thing doesn't work well.
"
I've also been working on the tax returns, because there is money coming back to us there. However it's been a bit of a pita - despite the simple calculations of mine and the Feychild's.
"Frustrating day.... still can't find the 'video tips', trying to figure out the difference between the accountant's tax return last year (which shows a $2300 deduction from total income) and this year's tax return where I see no category or box check where I would qualify for that kind of deduction..... this may well explain the difference in outcomes for this tax year, BUT I don't have his working copy - just the final summary page of the assessment - so I figure I'll try logging into My Account at CRA for the past filing.... except it won't accept the username and password I have .... or the "security question" answers (must get all 4 right - I'm sure it's the Make of Your first car - that's screwing me up), too many attempts - locked out, so reregister - but to have them email me the security code to activate the account (rather than wait for Canada Post) I have to physically speak to someone - but because it's tax season, the lines are too busy and I can't get through.
The good news is that the brake lines on Ziggy2 look pristine and should be able to fix the brakes on Ziggy the First ... but these things don't happen instantly and it's cold out and ... the poor man :( but we need a working vehicle... now. Insurance inspection should have happened today or tomorrow - but so far no actual call from the guy actually coming out to look.... just calls from people confirming that he will call *head*desk*. Pretty sure it's gonna be a write off and the buy back will probably make it not worthwhile.... but we'll see. We can replace it with an identical yr/model for probably $5000-$6000 - we were into Chuck for $5K so that's not unreasonable, but unless I win the Bake Off it might as well be a $1 million.
The work I was out to do yesterday is supposed to be completed by Friday, when the new tasks come down for next week. Staying in touch with my supervisor, but honestly wondering if there's a point in doing a scan on Thursday and then going out and doing another one on Saturday?
Holding tight and trying to get through everything one step at a time. And taking tonight with Him as "Date Night" .... because that's the thing that helps keep us sane."
So hopefully we'll get you back to one of our regularly scheduled Market Day, or now the new Prep for The Great Canadian Bake Off posts very shortly.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I took on a second part time job, because finances. The less said about that the better. The good part is they pay mileage, and it's on my own time and it makes things a little less stressful. But lately it also means been working 7 days a week.
And the diabetes diagnosis, I haven't said much about that lately. Except that my numbers are very nicely under control - shocked my doctor with my improvement at the 3 month mark, cut my meds back to a half dosage and things seem to be remaining stable. Even through the holidays and my returning to less strict eating patterns my BGL have stayed pretty reasonable. Even the occasional pastry is back in; although I'm still very cautious about potatoes and rice, and pretty much avoiding pasta all together. So really not cut anything out completely anymore, just LESS of. Still keeping all my 3 month check ups and minding how I go, although I've also kinda gotten lax on my spread sheet trackers as well - I need to be more diligent about that, but getting back into the habit when everything is so ... pressing, is difficult.
This brings us to the events of the past few days.... I'll give you the Coles Notes Facebook version:
"So.
I kinda pushed James a little into buying the Durango. He hadn't been really interested in the ad.... but I made him look at the ad a 2nd time. And go out and see it. He has really enjoyed owning it, and I was so pleased that finally after almost 8 yrs in Canada he finally had a decent vehicle he liked, and was comfortable in and.........
I wrote it off today.
A stupid error in a moment of panic.
Hit the gas instead of the brakes.
Took out a phone pole.
I got lucky and only side swiped the pole. Otherwise the truck wouldn't be the only thing that's gone. I banged my hand up and I've got a good rope burn from the seatbelt. Otherwise I'm just devastated, embarrassed and broken hearted that once again I've made a stupid mistake that's going to cost us a pretty penny, and thrown our lives into logistical hoop jumping and ... spoiled something nice for him."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I got this plan.... to toss my hat in the ring for the Great Canadian Baking Show - a new entry into the reality TV series game from the CBC ... based loosely on The Great British Bake Off - I'm working on my application. I've mostly put it together well I think..... still trying to get a photo of me I don't hate.... the problem is that they all look like I'm 52 LOL! The other problem is that a 'application video' is recommended (but not required) "for a good video, see out Video Tips" - I can't find their video tips - not on their website, not on the cbc's not via google - I got nothin'.
So plan is a 5 min video - no action sequences baking - that just ends up with camera shake - no script, just a few notes on key points I want to touch on.
I don't know if I'm reality tv material - lord knows I can talk a blue streak. And I can bake, and I am competitive - I just have trouble seeing cooking as a competitive sport ...... still if it gives me a shot and maybe seeing some of our life ambitions to fruition. My cafe outside the park, our Arthcwtch Creative Space and Workshops, then I'll go to just about any lengths to make that happen.
I think I'll have to try again on the photos....the whole squinting wrinkly forehead thing doesn't work well.
"I've also been working on the tax returns, because there is money coming back to us there. However it's been a bit of a pita - despite the simple calculations of mine and the Feychild's.
"Frustrating day.... still can't find the 'video tips', trying to figure out the difference between the accountant's tax return last year (which shows a $2300 deduction from total income) and this year's tax return where I see no category or box check where I would qualify for that kind of deduction..... this may well explain the difference in outcomes for this tax year, BUT I don't have his working copy - just the final summary page of the assessment - so I figure I'll try logging into My Account at CRA for the past filing.... except it won't accept the username and password I have .... or the "security question" answers (must get all 4 right - I'm sure it's the Make of Your first car - that's screwing me up), too many attempts - locked out, so reregister - but to have them email me the security code to activate the account (rather than wait for Canada Post) I have to physically speak to someone - but because it's tax season, the lines are too busy and I can't get through.
The good news is that the brake lines on Ziggy2 look pristine and should be able to fix the brakes on Ziggy the First ... but these things don't happen instantly and it's cold out and ... the poor man :( but we need a working vehicle... now. Insurance inspection should have happened today or tomorrow - but so far no actual call from the guy actually coming out to look.... just calls from people confirming that he will call *head*desk*. Pretty sure it's gonna be a write off and the buy back will probably make it not worthwhile.... but we'll see. We can replace it with an identical yr/model for probably $5000-$6000 - we were into Chuck for $5K so that's not unreasonable, but unless I win the Bake Off it might as well be a $1 million.
The work I was out to do yesterday is supposed to be completed by Friday, when the new tasks come down for next week. Staying in touch with my supervisor, but honestly wondering if there's a point in doing a scan on Thursday and then going out and doing another one on Saturday?
Holding tight and trying to get through everything one step at a time. And taking tonight with Him as "Date Night" .... because that's the thing that helps keep us sane."
So hopefully we'll get you back to one of our regularly scheduled Market Day, or now the new Prep for The Great Canadian Bake Off posts very shortly.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Market Day - Chicken and Dumplings
Nov. 25th, 2016 03:40 pmThe fall weather is well and truly here ... cool nights, frosty mornings, and a craving for hot comfort foods, easy to make easy to eat, and smothered in gravy/sauce of some kind.
In this a slow cooker, and/or a big cast iron enamel dutch oven are your friends.
This week was ox tail stew - in the slow cooker for a market decorating day potluck
Slow cooker pulled pork for Wednesday evening was a huge time saver during a very busy week.
But what really warmed the cockles of my heart, and my belly was a big pot of chicken and dumplings. I don't do them very often, despite the fond remembrance of childhood, so a quick glance around the internet for a recipe. Alas I really wasn't particularly taken with any of the ones I saw, non really seemed to use what seemed to me to be 'proper methodology' .... so using basic ingredients from some, add a bit here and there for flavours and then upped the ante on the techniques to proper old school cookery.
Chicken and Dumplings
1 whole chicken cut into pieces / 8-9 chicken thighs
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 stalks celery - chopped
1 large onion - roughly minced
3-4 carrots sliced
1 clove garlic
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried savoury
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup butter
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup white wine (optional)
2 bay leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh sage
Dumplings
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk (splash of white wine - optional)
Start with a nice bird. Cut into pieces, depending on your butcher there'll be either 8 or 9 - doesn't matter because you're gonna debone em anyway. The other option here is to use chicken thighs - 8 or 9 or so and forgo the deboning.
Firstly - whenever you're braising meat you want to brown it first, it's all about the flavour and a nice crispy caramelized browning makes a world of flavour. So .. put 1 cup of flour, 1 tbsp dried mustard powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground pepper, 1 tsp smoked paprika and 1 tsp of dried savoury in a bag and about 3 pieces at a time give the chicken a shake to coat. Heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in your cast iron enameled dutch oven on the cooktop over medium high heat. Working with 3 or 4 pieces at a time brown your chicken pieces and then remove to a plate and continue with the next 3-4 pieces. When the chicken pieces are all browned, add 1 minced onion (large) 2 spears of chopped celery, 3-4 carrots sliced and 1 clove garlic minced. Turn the heat down to medium and stir and saute for 5 mins or so till the vegetables wilt and soften. Toss in a 1/4 cup of butter (because butter makes everything better) and when melted add in the flour you coated the chicken in. Stir till it starts to colour just a little, then slowly add 2 cups of chicken stock, and 1 cup of buttermilk - trust me on this - you really need a hit of acid in this dish to take it from good to great! Turn the heat off, stir as the stove cools down and you'll see that lovely thickening of a nice gravy. Add your chicken bits back into the pot, push em down a little to see them covered in sauce. Toss on top 2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, and a sprig of fresh sage - barring fresh herbs you can substitute a tsp each of dried herbs - but really, try to keep a couple little pots of a few essential herbs on the go in your kitchen - fresh makes a difference. Cover with a lid, pop in an oven preheated to 325°F. Go do something else, like soak in a tub, read a novel, drink some wine, for about an hour and a half.
When you wander back to the oven, take the pot out, remove the chicken pieces to a plate. If the gravy / sauce looks a bit too thick (and it well might) you can add a little additional liquid, a cup of stock, some water, a bit of white wine is nice here.... just to bring it to 'stew' consistency. While the meat is cooling a bit, mix up your dumplings, 2 cups of flour, 4 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, and 3/4 cup of buttermilk (or a combination of buttermilk and a splash of white wine). whisk together with a fork until just mixed - don't over stir these puppies! Using two forks pull the meat from the bones and add back to the pot, if you're using thighs you can skip this bit and just serve them as whole pieces. Stir them back into the gravy. If you've added cool liquid to the pot bring it back up to a simmer and then turn it off, add the dumpling mixture to the pot in spoonfuls, leave some space between them they're gonna rise!, pop the lid back on and slide her back into the oven for another 20 mins while you go build a salad, or open another bottle of wine.
And I promise.... one of these days I might actually go find a plug in that allows you to print these recipes more easily.... because it is the one thing I hate about some food blogs.
Your Market vendors ... see Kevin at Thousand Hills Farms for the best chickens, and of course as always Evelyn at Riverview Produce Farms has lots of fresh onions and carrots right now, and talk to Alice at Ouest-Ville Perennials about fresh herb plants.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
In this a slow cooker, and/or a big cast iron enamel dutch oven are your friends.
This week was ox tail stew - in the slow cooker for a market decorating day potluck
Slow cooker pulled pork for Wednesday evening was a huge time saver during a very busy week.
But what really warmed the cockles of my heart, and my belly was a big pot of chicken and dumplings. I don't do them very often, despite the fond remembrance of childhood, so a quick glance around the internet for a recipe. Alas I really wasn't particularly taken with any of the ones I saw, non really seemed to use what seemed to me to be 'proper methodology' .... so using basic ingredients from some, add a bit here and there for flavours and then upped the ante on the techniques to proper old school cookery.
Chicken and Dumplings
1 whole chicken cut into pieces / 8-9 chicken thighs
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 stalks celery - chopped
1 large onion - roughly minced
3-4 carrots sliced
1 clove garlic
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried savoury
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup butter
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup white wine (optional)
2 bay leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh sage
Dumplings
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk (splash of white wine - optional)
Start with a nice bird. Cut into pieces, depending on your butcher there'll be either 8 or 9 - doesn't matter because you're gonna debone em anyway. The other option here is to use chicken thighs - 8 or 9 or so and forgo the deboning.
Firstly - whenever you're braising meat you want to brown it first, it's all about the flavour and a nice crispy caramelized browning makes a world of flavour. So .. put 1 cup of flour, 1 tbsp dried mustard powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground pepper, 1 tsp smoked paprika and 1 tsp of dried savoury in a bag and about 3 pieces at a time give the chicken a shake to coat. Heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in your cast iron enameled dutch oven on the cooktop over medium high heat. Working with 3 or 4 pieces at a time brown your chicken pieces and then remove to a plate and continue with the next 3-4 pieces. When the chicken pieces are all browned, add 1 minced onion (large) 2 spears of chopped celery, 3-4 carrots sliced and 1 clove garlic minced. Turn the heat down to medium and stir and saute for 5 mins or so till the vegetables wilt and soften. Toss in a 1/4 cup of butter (because butter makes everything better) and when melted add in the flour you coated the chicken in. Stir till it starts to colour just a little, then slowly add 2 cups of chicken stock, and 1 cup of buttermilk - trust me on this - you really need a hit of acid in this dish to take it from good to great! Turn the heat off, stir as the stove cools down and you'll see that lovely thickening of a nice gravy. Add your chicken bits back into the pot, push em down a little to see them covered in sauce. Toss on top 2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, and a sprig of fresh sage - barring fresh herbs you can substitute a tsp each of dried herbs - but really, try to keep a couple little pots of a few essential herbs on the go in your kitchen - fresh makes a difference. Cover with a lid, pop in an oven preheated to 325°F. Go do something else, like soak in a tub, read a novel, drink some wine, for about an hour and a half.
When you wander back to the oven, take the pot out, remove the chicken pieces to a plate. If the gravy / sauce looks a bit too thick (and it well might) you can add a little additional liquid, a cup of stock, some water, a bit of white wine is nice here.... just to bring it to 'stew' consistency. While the meat is cooling a bit, mix up your dumplings, 2 cups of flour, 4 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, and 3/4 cup of buttermilk (or a combination of buttermilk and a splash of white wine). whisk together with a fork until just mixed - don't over stir these puppies! Using two forks pull the meat from the bones and add back to the pot, if you're using thighs you can skip this bit and just serve them as whole pieces. Stir them back into the gravy. If you've added cool liquid to the pot bring it back up to a simmer and then turn it off, add the dumpling mixture to the pot in spoonfuls, leave some space between them they're gonna rise!, pop the lid back on and slide her back into the oven for another 20 mins while you go build a salad, or open another bottle of wine.
And I promise.... one of these days I might actually go find a plug in that allows you to print these recipes more easily.... because it is the one thing I hate about some food blogs.
Your Market vendors ... see Kevin at Thousand Hills Farms for the best chickens, and of course as always Evelyn at Riverview Produce Farms has lots of fresh onions and carrots right now, and talk to Alice at Ouest-Ville Perennials about fresh herb plants.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Health - Home and Finanacial and Personal
Nov. 25th, 2016 01:17 pmWoah..... six months since I last posted?? How insane is that?
Ok, it's been a busy six months. Getting my feet back under me after the whole health thing in April.... good news is that at my 3 month check up we reduced my meds by half the numbers were that good, the bad news is that coming up on my 6 month check in I've gotten sloppy about my record keeping, the numbers I think should still be good, but I need to keep my spreadsheets up to date. Also, having trouble keeping to the exercise routine - working nights makes scheduling havoc. Good news is I've lost 50 lbs - well 75 if you count the highest I hit (2 yrs ago), bad news is that seems to have plateaued now. Maybe getting the exercise routine more routine will help that. Good news is no apparent nerve damage in the feet or the eyes, eye doc made me buy glasses for driving, can't stand wearing them all the time (same story of my life), but I do wear em for driving and sometimes watching TV. Bad news is I think I'm fighting another case of plantar fasciitis (had it once 30 yrs ago), combined with the arthritis that is always present, the pain in my feet, especially when working, is excruciating. Unfortunately the only cure is rest and time, rest I won't get - my job requires me to be on my feet 8 hours a night. And as for time - been going on 2 months now. I'm hoping that a couple light weeks over the holidays will help. I'd been thinking about the diagnosis, the scheduling and now the foot thing and talking to the doctor when my 6 month review comes up about getting me onto Employment Insurance on medical grounds. However, that's a risky proposition - I'd been meaning to have a market stall for the the cordials and drinks up and running for the Christmas boost, but it just didn't happen in time, so that's going to have to wait until the spring.
Which leads to the always difficult money discussion. Finding work for us both, while only part time, did mean we were out of the fire so to speak - there was still a lot of detritus in it's wake that needed cleaning up. Still it wasn't BAD, just .. not good. We figured a small mortgage - clean up the financial mess and the house mess and get both houses in order. Didn't quite work out that way, almost a year of headaches and false starts and ..... stress, we ended up in a mortgage situation that was by all accounts toxic, but at least it would be something to build on. But it wasn't what we needed to clear the house situation, although it did take care of the bad debts, but the terms were horrific and it cost us almost $10K to get there. This year we went looking for a better deal..... well it IS better ... its a fast pay out at least, but we're into another $8K just to land the deal, still no money to work on the house and the payments are double. It does put us seriously into the "we're gonna be eating a lotta kraft dinner and hot dogs" territory. The new lender does have a different approach and is all very patronizing and paternalistic in their approach and is all "you naughty children, we're doing this for your own good and..." yeah. But... again the process dragged out to the point where our feet were to the fire and there wasn't a lot of choice in the matter. Good news is it IS a fast pay out, it was a bit of a wake up call regarding personal business stuff here, and it's a 5 yr term, so we don't have to go through this again next year unless we want to pursue a better loan option. The frustrating part is that each time we go through this process it costs us thousands, and we're now into a $45K loan situation and still have never seen the $15K we needed to the work on the house, and until we put the work into the property, we're not going to see an increase in the value to extend any further credit to. The payments are deep enough that I just can't risk taking any kind of medical leave from work. I'm just going to have to suffer through it, and hope it starts clearing up and pray that something better turns up that'll get me off my feet.
Yeah a bit depressing.
That said. Here's the important bit. James and I are madly in love. I *am* managing my health well, we're stressed but we have each other and Jessica and the dogs and our friends and our volunteer work - we've got the important stuff. The rest is just money. And as much as our lender would sneer to hear us say it - it IS just money, and money has never been that important to us (I suppose that's how we ended up here). We've lived through NO employment, NO welfare, and selling off furniture to eat. We've had money and spent it, and we've been broke and done without. We will get through this, things will get better, and we are on our way OUT of the mess, it just wasn't quite as neat and tidy as a nice wee $55K mortgage at 7.5% over 20 yrs and $450/mnth. MAYBE if we can keep this going for a year or two, and pay it down some, and put the bad debt further in the past ... we can eventually find a lender willing to do $65K at 7.5% over 20 yrs... that puts us in the $500/mnth range ($600 with taxes) .... which is a $200/mnth saving over where we're at now, and will actually get the work done on the house. The new lender would have a cow - they're all very "NO DEBT, NO DEBT, NOOOOOOO DEBT!!!" and I'll agree, no, or little debt is a very fine goal and one we DO keep in front of us, but ya know - adding heat to the upstairs is also a very fine goal. And if we keep to the payment schedule and are able to dump a little extra cash into it now and again we might even be able to keep that down to the original $50K plan - now that would be nice, but I'm also keeping in mind that sometime in the next 5 yrs we're gonna need a new roof as well.
The other carrot we're keeping in front of our noses, is the promise we made to Jessica to do all we can to get her into Aardman Studio's Master Class in Character Animation for the 2018 semester. Between her savings (if we can keep our paws off it) and our savings (yeah right) and maybe a little help from family, and a GoFundMe we can make that happen. We've already had some very kind help getting her a kiln to work on her character sculptures - which should be paid back in the next week.
So right now it's just getting through the holidays, always a busy time personally and financially, waiting on the mortgage and how much out of pocket that's going to be, waiting on the income tax - hopefully any day now, waiting on another cheque and a couple of larger contract jobs James has in the pipes to pay out, and get David's airline ticket for the holidays and arrange the time off to go pick him up and....
Taking today to clean the decks, catch up the paperwork, turn over a fresh page and make sure nothing gets lost in the hustle and bustle. There's still a lot of plans on deck, stuff in the pipeline so to speak. Much to do on the PETSCORT scene and I'll talk a bit about James plan to do Fixit workshops at the market, possibly alternating with me doing a set of DIY workshops, sticking our toes into the whole Maker / Teacher / Workshop coordination "Nouveau Arts and Crafts Movement" vision.
Speaking of which ... this was supposed to be a Market Day Post but *snerk* it went in an entirely other direction. That's ok... Market Day Post and recipe coming up.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Ok, it's been a busy six months. Getting my feet back under me after the whole health thing in April.... good news is that at my 3 month check up we reduced my meds by half the numbers were that good, the bad news is that coming up on my 6 month check in I've gotten sloppy about my record keeping, the numbers I think should still be good, but I need to keep my spreadsheets up to date. Also, having trouble keeping to the exercise routine - working nights makes scheduling havoc. Good news is I've lost 50 lbs - well 75 if you count the highest I hit (2 yrs ago), bad news is that seems to have plateaued now. Maybe getting the exercise routine more routine will help that. Good news is no apparent nerve damage in the feet or the eyes, eye doc made me buy glasses for driving, can't stand wearing them all the time (same story of my life), but I do wear em for driving and sometimes watching TV. Bad news is I think I'm fighting another case of plantar fasciitis (had it once 30 yrs ago), combined with the arthritis that is always present, the pain in my feet, especially when working, is excruciating. Unfortunately the only cure is rest and time, rest I won't get - my job requires me to be on my feet 8 hours a night. And as for time - been going on 2 months now. I'm hoping that a couple light weeks over the holidays will help. I'd been thinking about the diagnosis, the scheduling and now the foot thing and talking to the doctor when my 6 month review comes up about getting me onto Employment Insurance on medical grounds. However, that's a risky proposition - I'd been meaning to have a market stall for the the cordials and drinks up and running for the Christmas boost, but it just didn't happen in time, so that's going to have to wait until the spring.
Which leads to the always difficult money discussion. Finding work for us both, while only part time, did mean we were out of the fire so to speak - there was still a lot of detritus in it's wake that needed cleaning up. Still it wasn't BAD, just .. not good. We figured a small mortgage - clean up the financial mess and the house mess and get both houses in order. Didn't quite work out that way, almost a year of headaches and false starts and ..... stress, we ended up in a mortgage situation that was by all accounts toxic, but at least it would be something to build on. But it wasn't what we needed to clear the house situation, although it did take care of the bad debts, but the terms were horrific and it cost us almost $10K to get there. This year we went looking for a better deal..... well it IS better ... its a fast pay out at least, but we're into another $8K just to land the deal, still no money to work on the house and the payments are double. It does put us seriously into the "we're gonna be eating a lotta kraft dinner and hot dogs" territory. The new lender does have a different approach and is all very patronizing and paternalistic in their approach and is all "you naughty children, we're doing this for your own good and..." yeah. But... again the process dragged out to the point where our feet were to the fire and there wasn't a lot of choice in the matter. Good news is it IS a fast pay out, it was a bit of a wake up call regarding personal business stuff here, and it's a 5 yr term, so we don't have to go through this again next year unless we want to pursue a better loan option. The frustrating part is that each time we go through this process it costs us thousands, and we're now into a $45K loan situation and still have never seen the $15K we needed to the work on the house, and until we put the work into the property, we're not going to see an increase in the value to extend any further credit to. The payments are deep enough that I just can't risk taking any kind of medical leave from work. I'm just going to have to suffer through it, and hope it starts clearing up and pray that something better turns up that'll get me off my feet.
Yeah a bit depressing.
That said. Here's the important bit. James and I are madly in love. I *am* managing my health well, we're stressed but we have each other and Jessica and the dogs and our friends and our volunteer work - we've got the important stuff. The rest is just money. And as much as our lender would sneer to hear us say it - it IS just money, and money has never been that important to us (I suppose that's how we ended up here). We've lived through NO employment, NO welfare, and selling off furniture to eat. We've had money and spent it, and we've been broke and done without. We will get through this, things will get better, and we are on our way OUT of the mess, it just wasn't quite as neat and tidy as a nice wee $55K mortgage at 7.5% over 20 yrs and $450/mnth. MAYBE if we can keep this going for a year or two, and pay it down some, and put the bad debt further in the past ... we can eventually find a lender willing to do $65K at 7.5% over 20 yrs... that puts us in the $500/mnth range ($600 with taxes) .... which is a $200/mnth saving over where we're at now, and will actually get the work done on the house. The new lender would have a cow - they're all very "NO DEBT, NO DEBT, NOOOOOOO DEBT!!!" and I'll agree, no, or little debt is a very fine goal and one we DO keep in front of us, but ya know - adding heat to the upstairs is also a very fine goal. And if we keep to the payment schedule and are able to dump a little extra cash into it now and again we might even be able to keep that down to the original $50K plan - now that would be nice, but I'm also keeping in mind that sometime in the next 5 yrs we're gonna need a new roof as well.
The other carrot we're keeping in front of our noses, is the promise we made to Jessica to do all we can to get her into Aardman Studio's Master Class in Character Animation for the 2018 semester. Between her savings (if we can keep our paws off it) and our savings (yeah right) and maybe a little help from family, and a GoFundMe we can make that happen. We've already had some very kind help getting her a kiln to work on her character sculptures - which should be paid back in the next week.
So right now it's just getting through the holidays, always a busy time personally and financially, waiting on the mortgage and how much out of pocket that's going to be, waiting on the income tax - hopefully any day now, waiting on another cheque and a couple of larger contract jobs James has in the pipes to pay out, and get David's airline ticket for the holidays and arrange the time off to go pick him up and....
Taking today to clean the decks, catch up the paperwork, turn over a fresh page and make sure nothing gets lost in the hustle and bustle. There's still a lot of plans on deck, stuff in the pipeline so to speak. Much to do on the PETSCORT scene and I'll talk a bit about James plan to do Fixit workshops at the market, possibly alternating with me doing a set of DIY workshops, sticking our toes into the whole Maker / Teacher / Workshop coordination "Nouveau Arts and Crafts Movement" vision.
Speaking of which ... this was supposed to be a Market Day Post but *snerk* it went in an entirely other direction. That's ok... Market Day Post and recipe coming up.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Life takes a wee bit of a left turn....
May. 1st, 2016 03:29 pmSo, I was diagnosed with Type2 Diabetes last Thursday ...
1. this wasn't particularly a shocking development to either myself or my husband (who was with me)
why no surprise? because I've been overweight for probably nigh on 40 yrs, (give or take), and 2 of my 7 siblings have both been diagnosed some years ago.
2. it was / is frightening - one of my 2 brothers also suffered from depression and that played a role in his not caring for himself after his diagnosis - this led eventually to amputation of his left foot, and eventually to him dying of a stroke in 2011.
2b) it was/is frightening - my numbers at diagnosis were better than double what my doctor wants them to be (and is confirmed by the 'what should my blood glucose levels be' on this website). 16mmol/L. She sorta subtly hinted at "Why are you walking around not feeling like crap/death warmed over/ dead?" When my doctor seems nervous, that's kinda scary.
3. it was / is embarrassing - see above two statements - I've been whistling in the wind for years, half expecting this, going through the motions of diet and exercise for 6 months / a year ... aware that I needed to take better care - In other words - I knew better than to let it get to this. I really don't want to hear my mother say, "see I told you" right now (if ever).
3b) it was / is embarrassing - I've put my poor long suffering husband through a lot of difficult life changes in the last 5 yrs (we've been married 10 this year), I hate putting him through this too ... and while it may be MY diagnosis, it will impact on him, us, the whole family.
4. it was / is depressing - as you all know I'm a passionate cook, particularly baking .... I do love my carbs. Just before my diagnosis I was working towards getting a spot at our local farmer's market to sell syrups and cordials and flavoured ices.
5. it was/is overwhelming - despite all the knowledge and education and prior research and exposure to diabetes before the diagnosis, it's different when it's happening to you and see point 2 and point 3 and point 4 .... and woah.... gimme a second to catch my breath....
Ok so that was 10 days ago.
The doctor has me on metformin 500mg - started me on slowly 1/2 tab once a day 3 days, 1/2 tab twice a day 3 day, then full tab twice a day.... because of the 'digestive upset' potential side effects, (my pharmacist was a bit more graphic than the doctor was about those) ...well didn't see any of that on a half tab, so moved up after 2 days ... since I've gone to the full tab things have been a bit uncomfortable, but that seems to be easing up a little bit.
No one has told me how quickly I should be seeing an improvement in the numbers. But 10 days in and I'm seeing 8's and 9's (down from 14-16) so target range of 6+/- is in sight and that pleases me.
We're trying to take this in stride and remember that the lifestyle changes this is forcing was a direction we were working in anyway - aside from a higher reliance on carbs than perhaps would have been good, my diet wasn't HORRIBLE - just maybe a bit much... so we've removed all sugar sweetened items, almost completely eliminated all bread / potato / rice / pasta - and when it does include bread then it's a half portion and it's whole grain.
Breakfast is the most difficult meal of the day to accommodate - all cereals are kinda carb heavy, and eggs everyday isn't maybe the best choice (and don't you always want toast with your eggs?). So balancing eggs with a half a whole grain bagel with high fibre low carb cereals like steel cut oats and 12 grain cooked cereal.
Trying to consider this a positive thing - these were lifestyle changes I was working towards - it just fast tracking some of them. I do all my own cooking and am food educated - so using this as an opportunity for recipe development and I'm pretty good at that. I found some very interesting baking options through jewish passover recipes - (grain / leavened baked goods are forbidden) - like a lovely blueberry muffin made with almond meal and beaten egg whites that - isn't quite what we'd call a muffin, different texture, but neither unpleasant nor untasty - I think I'm going to use this basis for further recipe development. ( http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/flourless-almond-blueberry-muffins ). I've also downloaded all the cookbooks / recipes on this site and shared them with Him (as he does share cooking duties). Still trying to think my way around the Farmers Market plan - haven't given that up entirely.
I am feeling good about seeing the numbers come down - I figured my next blood test was for 6 weeks from diagnosis so maybe I wasn't gonna drop dead on the spot - still not sure how 'fast' they should drop but they're coming down so it's good right? I am also finding that I am feeling 'better' - I didn't feel all that badly - I thought, but I was tired and worn out, figured that was just a product of working the night shift. Now it may be that it's springtime now and we've got some sun after weeks of rain, or it may be diet changes, or blood sugars dropping, but in general my energy levels seem to be improving. (and as a side note, there's been an improvement in my depression this past 6-8 months - still getting the blues a bit, but the deep gut wrenching death wishing crashes seem to be gone, that's more hormonal - God bless Menopause). And well bluntly my libido is back, honestly I thought that was a menopause thing, I thought when they talked about sexual function and diabetes they were talking a guy thing - hey it's always a guy thing side effect right? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it's just increased energy levels, but hey my frisk is back. Yay for that!
Last but not least, and if you've survived this far through my interminable ramblings you're a brave soul and deserve a sugar free chocolate (yay my favourite Farmers Market chocolatier might make me some sugar free treats...)... I do have a question..
I thought (it made sense) that fasting blood sugars ie. the first one of the day / before breakfast should/would be the lowest number of the day.... and while it generally isn't the highest my lowest blood sugar tends to be the one I take right before dinner on average it's 1 below my breakfast numbers. So maybe someone from a more experienced crowd might weigh in?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
1. this wasn't particularly a shocking development to either myself or my husband (who was with me)
why no surprise? because I've been overweight for probably nigh on 40 yrs, (give or take), and 2 of my 7 siblings have both been diagnosed some years ago.
2. it was / is frightening - one of my 2 brothers also suffered from depression and that played a role in his not caring for himself after his diagnosis - this led eventually to amputation of his left foot, and eventually to him dying of a stroke in 2011.
2b) it was/is frightening - my numbers at diagnosis were better than double what my doctor wants them to be (and is confirmed by the 'what should my blood glucose levels be' on this website). 16mmol/L. She sorta subtly hinted at "Why are you walking around not feeling like crap/death warmed over/ dead?" When my doctor seems nervous, that's kinda scary.
3. it was / is embarrassing - see above two statements - I've been whistling in the wind for years, half expecting this, going through the motions of diet and exercise for 6 months / a year ... aware that I needed to take better care - In other words - I knew better than to let it get to this. I really don't want to hear my mother say, "see I told you" right now (if ever).
3b) it was / is embarrassing - I've put my poor long suffering husband through a lot of difficult life changes in the last 5 yrs (we've been married 10 this year), I hate putting him through this too ... and while it may be MY diagnosis, it will impact on him, us, the whole family.
4. it was / is depressing - as you all know I'm a passionate cook, particularly baking .... I do love my carbs. Just before my diagnosis I was working towards getting a spot at our local farmer's market to sell syrups and cordials and flavoured ices.
5. it was/is overwhelming - despite all the knowledge and education and prior research and exposure to diabetes before the diagnosis, it's different when it's happening to you and see point 2 and point 3 and point 4 .... and woah.... gimme a second to catch my breath....
Ok so that was 10 days ago.
The doctor has me on metformin 500mg - started me on slowly 1/2 tab once a day 3 days, 1/2 tab twice a day 3 day, then full tab twice a day.... because of the 'digestive upset' potential side effects, (my pharmacist was a bit more graphic than the doctor was about those) ...well didn't see any of that on a half tab, so moved up after 2 days ... since I've gone to the full tab things have been a bit uncomfortable, but that seems to be easing up a little bit.
No one has told me how quickly I should be seeing an improvement in the numbers. But 10 days in and I'm seeing 8's and 9's (down from 14-16) so target range of 6+/- is in sight and that pleases me.
We're trying to take this in stride and remember that the lifestyle changes this is forcing was a direction we were working in anyway - aside from a higher reliance on carbs than perhaps would have been good, my diet wasn't HORRIBLE - just maybe a bit much... so we've removed all sugar sweetened items, almost completely eliminated all bread / potato / rice / pasta - and when it does include bread then it's a half portion and it's whole grain.
Breakfast is the most difficult meal of the day to accommodate - all cereals are kinda carb heavy, and eggs everyday isn't maybe the best choice (and don't you always want toast with your eggs?). So balancing eggs with a half a whole grain bagel with high fibre low carb cereals like steel cut oats and 12 grain cooked cereal.
Trying to consider this a positive thing - these were lifestyle changes I was working towards - it just fast tracking some of them. I do all my own cooking and am food educated - so using this as an opportunity for recipe development and I'm pretty good at that. I found some very interesting baking options through jewish passover recipes - (grain / leavened baked goods are forbidden) - like a lovely blueberry muffin made with almond meal and beaten egg whites that - isn't quite what we'd call a muffin, different texture, but neither unpleasant nor untasty - I think I'm going to use this basis for further recipe development. ( http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/flourless-almond-blueberry-muffins ). I've also downloaded all the cookbooks / recipes on this site and shared them with Him (as he does share cooking duties). Still trying to think my way around the Farmers Market plan - haven't given that up entirely.
I am feeling good about seeing the numbers come down - I figured my next blood test was for 6 weeks from diagnosis so maybe I wasn't gonna drop dead on the spot - still not sure how 'fast' they should drop but they're coming down so it's good right? I am also finding that I am feeling 'better' - I didn't feel all that badly - I thought, but I was tired and worn out, figured that was just a product of working the night shift. Now it may be that it's springtime now and we've got some sun after weeks of rain, or it may be diet changes, or blood sugars dropping, but in general my energy levels seem to be improving. (and as a side note, there's been an improvement in my depression this past 6-8 months - still getting the blues a bit, but the deep gut wrenching death wishing crashes seem to be gone, that's more hormonal - God bless Menopause). And well bluntly my libido is back, honestly I thought that was a menopause thing, I thought when they talked about sexual function and diabetes they were talking a guy thing - hey it's always a guy thing side effect right? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it's just increased energy levels, but hey my frisk is back. Yay for that!
Last but not least, and if you've survived this far through my interminable ramblings you're a brave soul and deserve a sugar free chocolate (yay my favourite Farmers Market chocolatier might make me some sugar free treats...)... I do have a question..
I thought (it made sense) that fasting blood sugars ie. the first one of the day / before breakfast should/would be the lowest number of the day.... and while it generally isn't the highest my lowest blood sugar tends to be the one I take right before dinner on average it's 1 below my breakfast numbers. So maybe someone from a more experienced crowd might weigh in?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Market Day - Eggs Benedict
Apr. 17th, 2016 04:23 pmGeez, I haven't updated in forever..... work, and new job applications and ... Life getting in the way of art.
However, part of being busy is work, and home from a looooong night shift I'm often keen for a hot meal, that means more mid-week cooked breakfasts than I usually do. Eggs have become an important staple, but fried egg sandwiches can get a bit same old same old after a while - even with an amazing homemade ketchup (no really you should be doing this! Frenchs vs Heinz vs PC will mean nothing to you once you've made your own). So in a fit of insanity; after all who tries out new skills when they're brain dead from 8 hours on a graveyard shift; I must be insane, I decided to give a go at poaching eggs ... freehand, once more. I've tried it in the past and ended up with 'egg drop soup', maybe I had to be just a little loopy to give this a go again, if I'd been sane I'd have said 'no way'. Still it's another kitchen skill, and I'm trying to tackle more and more things that have failed me in the past.
First time I tried it in a shallow pan, with still water. I wasn't brave enough to try the whirlpool method yet. I did add a recommended 1 tsp vinegar to the water (white wine vinegar because it tastes better when you can taste it). The results were very encouraging, more importantly, they were edible. However, I did decide that maybe the whirlpool method would help keep the whites in tight, and a deeper cooking vessel was necessary. Next day we tried again. Still edible, still improving, not sure the whirlpool helped; and well with a whirlpool you can only do one at a time, a downside for weekend brunches. Still learning, but willing to call it a fair to middlin' success.
Sooooooooooo flush off one new skill success and with a fresh box of market eggs in hand... really for poached eggs the fresher the better ... I figured what I needed to go with poached eggs was a little hollandaise and I'd have eggs benedict for breakfast. If I'd planned this further ahead I'd have made homemade english muffins too, but this was sorta spur of the moment thinking. Besides, I had to master hollandaise. It's another one of those 'chef skills' I've tried in the past and failed and have been trepidacious about trying again. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound, I had nothing to lose by 3 eggs and a half a pound of butter, besides I'd mastered mayonnaise.
Interesting thing once I went looking for a recipe and instructions. Hollandaise is a pretty basic sauce - eggs, butter, lemon, beaten into an emulsion. However, like most simple classics there are about 10,000 different takes on it, from slight variations in ratios to prep methods (sauce pan vs bain marie vs blender) and all of them from sources I trust: eggs.ca, Julia Child, Alton Brown, BBC Good Food, Michael Ruhlmann..... In the end I went with Michael, and a traditional bain marie method. A) because I really liked Michael's argument for taking the extra step of a vinegar reduction, despite that no one else does, and B) I like Michael Ruhlmann for teaching and demystifying slightly more advanced skills that some would shy from as being the providence of professionals and C) while people do debate his choices, the comments over there are always interesting, enlightening and respectful, and lastly, D) he's always just a plain old fashioned 'good read'
I'm gonna have to call this one another success! I might have liked it a bit thicker (perhaps cook the egg a bit longer?), but it was rich and lemony and lovely flavour and texture was smooth and silky. To quote Him
High praise indeed.
So 1 perfectly poached egg, 3 nicely poached eggs, a very nice hollandaise, (although next time - better ham) later we had eggs benedict for brunch, and enough egg whites (and a broken egg) to decide we must make lemon meringue pie for dessert tonight.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
However, part of being busy is work, and home from a looooong night shift I'm often keen for a hot meal, that means more mid-week cooked breakfasts than I usually do. Eggs have become an important staple, but fried egg sandwiches can get a bit same old same old after a while - even with an amazing homemade ketchup (no really you should be doing this! Frenchs vs Heinz vs PC will mean nothing to you once you've made your own). So in a fit of insanity; after all who tries out new skills when they're brain dead from 8 hours on a graveyard shift; I must be insane, I decided to give a go at poaching eggs ... freehand, once more. I've tried it in the past and ended up with 'egg drop soup', maybe I had to be just a little loopy to give this a go again, if I'd been sane I'd have said 'no way'. Still it's another kitchen skill, and I'm trying to tackle more and more things that have failed me in the past.
First time I tried it in a shallow pan, with still water. I wasn't brave enough to try the whirlpool method yet. I did add a recommended 1 tsp vinegar to the water (white wine vinegar because it tastes better when you can taste it). The results were very encouraging, more importantly, they were edible. However, I did decide that maybe the whirlpool method would help keep the whites in tight, and a deeper cooking vessel was necessary. Next day we tried again. Still edible, still improving, not sure the whirlpool helped; and well with a whirlpool you can only do one at a time, a downside for weekend brunches. Still learning, but willing to call it a fair to middlin' success.
Sooooooooooo flush off one new skill success and with a fresh box of market eggs in hand... really for poached eggs the fresher the better ... I figured what I needed to go with poached eggs was a little hollandaise and I'd have eggs benedict for breakfast. If I'd planned this further ahead I'd have made homemade english muffins too, but this was sorta spur of the moment thinking. Besides, I had to master hollandaise. It's another one of those 'chef skills' I've tried in the past and failed and have been trepidacious about trying again. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound, I had nothing to lose by 3 eggs and a half a pound of butter, besides I'd mastered mayonnaise.
Interesting thing once I went looking for a recipe and instructions. Hollandaise is a pretty basic sauce - eggs, butter, lemon, beaten into an emulsion. However, like most simple classics there are about 10,000 different takes on it, from slight variations in ratios to prep methods (sauce pan vs bain marie vs blender) and all of them from sources I trust: eggs.ca, Julia Child, Alton Brown, BBC Good Food, Michael Ruhlmann..... In the end I went with Michael, and a traditional bain marie method. A) because I really liked Michael's argument for taking the extra step of a vinegar reduction, despite that no one else does, and B) I like Michael Ruhlmann for teaching and demystifying slightly more advanced skills that some would shy from as being the providence of professionals and C) while people do debate his choices, the comments over there are always interesting, enlightening and respectful, and lastly, D) he's always just a plain old fashioned 'good read'
I'm gonna have to call this one another success! I might have liked it a bit thicker (perhaps cook the egg a bit longer?), but it was rich and lemony and lovely flavour and texture was smooth and silky. To quote Him
I've not been impressed with Eggs Benedict in the past. I've not had good hollandaise, it's always been a bit too acidic, a bit too lemon, but this is creamy and smooth.
High praise indeed.
So 1 perfectly poached egg, 3 nicely poached eggs, a very nice hollandaise, (although next time - better ham) later we had eggs benedict for brunch, and enough egg whites (and a broken egg) to decide we must make lemon meringue pie for dessert tonight.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Market Day Post - Cranberries
Dec. 5th, 2015 07:15 pmRiverview Farms has had a bumper crop of cranberries this year, and of course, I'm making the best of it.
I love cranberries, their bright fresh taste gives you fresh fruit late into the year and they're so easy to use. A quick rinse, a quick chop and they'll go in anything. Or cranberry sauce; simply 2 cups of cranberries, a little orange zest if you like, and a cup of sugar and simmer till the cranberries pop.
This morning, it was cranberry scones. 15 mins. to mix up, 20 mins. to bake, 10 mins. to cool, and we had a lovely fresh breakfast on our way out the door. I didn't even have to get up any earlier, I just grabbed my shower while they were in the oven.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I love cranberries, their bright fresh taste gives you fresh fruit late into the year and they're so easy to use. A quick rinse, a quick chop and they'll go in anything. Or cranberry sauce; simply 2 cups of cranberries, a little orange zest if you like, and a cup of sugar and simmer till the cranberries pop.
This morning, it was cranberry scones. 15 mins. to mix up, 20 mins. to bake, 10 mins. to cool, and we had a lovely fresh breakfast on our way out the door. I didn't even have to get up any earlier, I just grabbed my shower while they were in the oven.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
First wee bit of decorating done, picked up a wonderful fresh evergreen wreath and got it all done up with a few bits and bobs and a wee string of lights..... I'm liking the results.
Beautiful evergreen wreaths available from Riverview Farms -this is a 12 inch mixed (I believe) - $9.00
Many more sizes and evergreen types available - all equally beautiful and equally reasonably priced
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Beautiful evergreen wreaths available from Riverview Farms -this is a 12 inch mixed (I believe) - $9.00
Many more sizes and evergreen types available - all equally beautiful and equally reasonably priced
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Thoughts about Paris.....
Nov. 16th, 2015 11:38 amDepressing thought for this morning...... the attacks in Paris, even amongst moderates I know who are wise and circumspect and know "not all Muslims" see this event as affirmation that we need to keep up the pressure on Syria and for Canada to not remove our fighter jets and to keep bombing the country and keep taking in refugees (which we have hand in creating - maybe not directly, but certainly indirectly) ..........
*cry*
9/11 was 14 yrs ago, when we ramped up the 'War on Terror", although lord knows it existed long before that..... and frankly - bombing the hell out of em hasn't worked - the War on Terror has been as effective as the War on Drugs.
Without opening large cans of worms and being in my usual way broadly over simplistic. Even at the worst times of The Troubles and the IRA Britain never bombed the hell out of Ireland (although I can't be sure there wasn't talk of it). We have lots of home grown terrorists (although we like to put the misnomer of 'eco-terrorist' on them ..... like somehow that makes their violence more palatable) but no one is calling on bombing Vancouver or Northern California....
This isn't our parents war, or our grandparents war. This isn't one country and tanks and u-boats and armies marching across Europe, this isn't a formal declaration of war and send in the bombers and the tanks till they cry "uncle' and sign an amnesty, this isn't an easy enemy to see or defeat. Because the enemy is hate. This is a new war and a new warfare for the new millennium - welcome to the technological revolution - old strategies and tactics aren't going to work..... they haven't for 14 yrs, or 24 yrs or 54 yrs .....
I'm just a silly old woman who's tired of the answer being 'bomb the hell out of them', I don't know what the answers are - but I know that I'm proud of Canada's and Lester B Pearson's role in developing the concept of Peacekeeping missions - I think that it plays a role in our identity as Canadians (or is the result of our identity as Canadians or both) .... and maybe Peacekeeping (as it exists now) isn't the answer any more than 'bomb the hell out of them is', BUT maybe that thinking - maybe that mindset - maybe that Canadianism can help find answers for a new millennium and a new war. Maybe our new millennium Prime Minister can help find that, maybe I hope too much. I suspect that in the global reality - Canada is small potatoes, Justin is young and only a month in office and will he, can he, have the ear of the world ... can hope and optimism that's been so infectious here infect the world?
Yeah I know - I'm asking too much.
#thewaronhate
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
*cry*
9/11 was 14 yrs ago, when we ramped up the 'War on Terror", although lord knows it existed long before that..... and frankly - bombing the hell out of em hasn't worked - the War on Terror has been as effective as the War on Drugs.
Without opening large cans of worms and being in my usual way broadly over simplistic. Even at the worst times of The Troubles and the IRA Britain never bombed the hell out of Ireland (although I can't be sure there wasn't talk of it). We have lots of home grown terrorists (although we like to put the misnomer of 'eco-terrorist' on them ..... like somehow that makes their violence more palatable) but no one is calling on bombing Vancouver or Northern California....
This isn't our parents war, or our grandparents war. This isn't one country and tanks and u-boats and armies marching across Europe, this isn't a formal declaration of war and send in the bombers and the tanks till they cry "uncle' and sign an amnesty, this isn't an easy enemy to see or defeat. Because the enemy is hate. This is a new war and a new warfare for the new millennium - welcome to the technological revolution - old strategies and tactics aren't going to work..... they haven't for 14 yrs, or 24 yrs or 54 yrs .....
I'm just a silly old woman who's tired of the answer being 'bomb the hell out of them', I don't know what the answers are - but I know that I'm proud of Canada's and Lester B Pearson's role in developing the concept of Peacekeeping missions - I think that it plays a role in our identity as Canadians (or is the result of our identity as Canadians or both) .... and maybe Peacekeeping (as it exists now) isn't the answer any more than 'bomb the hell out of them is', BUT maybe that thinking - maybe that mindset - maybe that Canadianism can help find answers for a new millennium and a new war. Maybe our new millennium Prime Minister can help find that, maybe I hope too much. I suspect that in the global reality - Canada is small potatoes, Justin is young and only a month in office and will he, can he, have the ear of the world ... can hope and optimism that's been so infectious here infect the world?
Yeah I know - I'm asking too much.
#thewaronhate
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
But I still love fall weekends, even when they don't have that glorious late year sunshine. Thanksgiving weekend is always a bit of the embodiment of all that is marvellous and wonderous in autumn. Because I've never worked a traditional M-F schedule we tend to plan around 'near enough', and besides who wants to do a huge big meal on Monday and then get up early on Tuesday for work. Bah Humbug to that. So we almost always do Thanksgiving supper on Sunday.
But the Thanksgiving feast post is later.
This post is about mornings. And muffins.
Nothing much new to say about muffins, but I did need to get a little inventive.
See The Feychild, she loves cranberries, just not with the poultry feast (it has been chicken, traditional turkey, but since we moved to Nova Scotia it's been a duck every year - my only duck of the year). She also loves orange juice, just not with a lot of pulp, I got a few jugs of orange juice from work for cheap, but they had extra pulp. So I'd strained the orange juice, but that left me with a lot of orange pulp. I was gonna use the orange pulp up with some left over pineapple (from the carrot cake adventures), but that fell by the wayside. So why not 'orange cranberry muffins'? However most orange cranberry muffin recipes call for orange juice and zest, not pulp. So a bit of muffin recipe adaptation was called for. The results were a very nice muffin indeed, so without further ado:
Orange Cranberry Muffins
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup fresh cranberries - chopped
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 3/4 cups orange pulp
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1 egg
Method:
- 1. Preheat oven to 400°F
- 2. In a medium size bowl, whisk together dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- 3. Toss chopped cranberries with the 2 tbsps of sugar
- 4. Stir cranberries into dry ingredients
- 5. Whisk orange pulp together with juice, oil, and egg
- 6. Pour wet ingredients into dry, and stir just until well combined - about 10 turns
- 7. Fill lined muffin tin - I like to fill the cups more or less to the top (I like a big muffin top)
- 8. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar or streusal topping
- 9. Bake in a 400°F oven for 20 mins or till golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean
It's a lovely easy start to a Thanksgiving Sunday that will involve much baking and roasting and cooking of things later in the afternoon
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Since we moved to Nova Scotia, James and I haven't been doing a lot of dining out. We used to go out for dinner quite regularly - as in a weekly date night. However, truth be told it got to be more and more difficult as my own culinary skills improved, it became harder to justify paying restaurant prices for food I could do myself only better at home, so that meant better and better restaurants - and prices accordingly.
So after we moved, and our household income downsized accordingly, we just haven't been out for dinner. Oh we've had meals out or away as part of a trip, or other event, but we just hadn't gone out for dinner for the sole sake of 'going out for dinner together'. We have missed that. And as our fortunes are a little better than they were this time last year, and James learned (through his work at the Clare Shopper) of a meal event coming up at a local restaurant we've heard very good things about, we hemmed and hawed about it a bit, after all we don't have the mortgage money or tax refunds in hand yet (although we are assured they ARE coming!!). In the end, it was a meal event, and it was the 3rd Anniversary of out move to Nova Scotia, so we bit the bullet, so to speak.
Rudders Seafood Restaurant and Brew Pub in Yarmouth has a very good reputation and we've been told by others we really needed to go sometime. When James learned of their Annual Brewer's Dinner it sounded like a nice way to investigate the joint. We are very glad we did. The evening was a perfect delight from first sip to last bite, nothing disappointed. The location in an old warehouse building on the waterfront gives marvelous harbour views, and creates the rustic and relaxed atmosphere you expect from a microbrewery restaurant. The in-house entertainment, (which so often has the potential to be insipid), was provided by a duo of guitar and keyboards, and a talented singer, the repertoire was the old standards that so often can come across as live 'musak', but in this case the talent of the performers brought them to life, and was a thoroughly pleasant addition to the evening.
But we were here for the beer and the food, all the great entertainment, and fabulous atmosphere don't mean much if the food doesn't hold up, and a brew pub must be able to stand on it's beer. First course was a Baked Blond Clams with Blond Rock Ale. Honestly, I don't tend to be a big fan of blond beers, even microbrewery ones tend to be watery, thin, and a bit flavourless in their quest for lightness. Blond Rock Ale wasn't. Yes it was light, bubbly, blond but it was full flavoured in a bright bouncy way that didn't leave much of an after taste. It was a thoroughly delightful surprise, and it was the perfect match for the baked clams with blond ale sauce, and a very auspicious beginning to the evening. The baked clam starter, still crispy under the blond ale sauce with a hint of sharp cheese on a bed of wilted spinach was also a pleasant surprise that boded well.
James, as you may know, can't eat shellfish, so while he sipped his beer and listened to me enthuse on about the starter (both of them - yes I ate his as well!) he was impressed with the beer, but anticipating getting to try the food as well. Most of you who know us know that we've often said "Salad is what food eats". It's hard to impress us with a bit of green leaf on a plate, but the Irish Apple Ale Salad did exactly that! The mixed greens were nicely sharp and peppery which contrasted beautifully with the sweetness of the cranberry and watermelon, and all balanced with the richness of the smoked gouda (oh my we'd almost forgotten how wonderful a smoked gouda is!). the Irish apple vinaigrette was another perfect balance of sweet and sharp, rich and bright. No flavour dominated or competed with the others, they all shone in beautiful harmony with each other. The Killam's Irish Ale was definitely a deeper bolder ale with more mouth feel than the blond that preceded it, drunk on it's own it had a brief but distinct after taste, that was smoothed out by the pairing of it with the Irish Apple Ale Salad. The ale alone was a wonderful drop that could easily be sipped all evening on it's own, but it really did reach a whole new nuance of character paired with the salad. As I say, we're not really 'salad' people, for James to comment on how marvelous a salad is, is a real testament.
So by this point in the meal we're yammering excitedly about just how delightful this experience is. We expected to enjoy a pleasant evening out, but by this point it's all been perfect, and we're positively giddy with just how nice it all is. And then the lamb t-bones arrived. Two, at least, inch and a half thick lamb chops with Red Ale Au Jus, with baby potatoes and mixed vegetables. Simple, plain, perfect. A good cut of meat doesn't need a lot of dolling up, it shouldn't be dolled up, it should be left to shine on it's own. Cooked to perfection, with a rich warm red ale au jus. I noticed that two was a bit much for many of the ladies dining this evening, but non left them on the plate, they all asked for a box to take it home. For many restaurants bringing a shining example of pure meat heaven to the table is enough and the potato and veg that accompany it are an afterthought and often they suffer for that. Rudder's chef though did not disappoint, the baby potatoes and vegetables were cooked to exact, firm and bright, not starchy or mushy or underdone. I felt like the baby bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.... not too hard, not to soft, just right, and I got to eat mine! Like the lamb, simple, plain, and just right. Not meant to compete but to compliment. The Rudders Red Ale was just the thing to stand up to that hearty hunk of meat, Substantial without being heavy, full bodied, full flavoured, rich and round without being 'too much'.
It's quite clear trying these three beers thus far, that they're all the work of one artist. While they are each unique and special on their own, they together form a body of work and a flavour profile that is obviously in a similar style. Much as Starry Night and Sunflowers are very different paintings, but they're both obviously Van Gogh's work.
Thus enthralled, the fourth course, dessert, arrived. James had never considered beer with dessert, and I admit it wouldn't be my first thought either. However, after the lamb, this was the course I was really anticipating. I love my chocolate, I love my brown beers, how would the chef marry these together? Like everything else this evening, perfectly. Microbreweries always want to do a stout, and they so often end up feeling like Guinness knock offs, trying to be something they're not they miss the mark. Town Brown is it's own beer, it's not trying to be anything else. The notes of bitter chocolate are upfront and marry well to the chocolate lava cake, as does the lingering hint of coffee notes. The carbonation is very fine and gives a light gentle buzz rather than a bright bubbly. The lava cake was amazing, I almost started to say in the first bite or two that it needed more lava, then I hit it's gooey, liquid centre. and those words died on my ecstatic tongue.
By the end of the meal we were sated, contented, completely enthralled, and I dare say even a bit inspired. We ordered coffee, not because we really needed to finish with coffee, but simply to give us reason to continue to linger at the table. We had eaten just exactly enough, anything more would have been too much and hurt, and you don't want any less of it.
So to sum it up. Perfect. Perfect atmosphere, perfect entertainment, perfect service, perfect beers, perfect food - I keep looking to say "but", but there are no buts. When the only 'downside' to an entire 4 course with beer pairings meal is paper napkins, there is no downside.
Thank you Rudders for sharing your 10th Anniversary Brewers Dinner with us, we will be back, and it won't take us a year.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
So after we moved, and our household income downsized accordingly, we just haven't been out for dinner. Oh we've had meals out or away as part of a trip, or other event, but we just hadn't gone out for dinner for the sole sake of 'going out for dinner together'. We have missed that. And as our fortunes are a little better than they were this time last year, and James learned (through his work at the Clare Shopper) of a meal event coming up at a local restaurant we've heard very good things about, we hemmed and hawed about it a bit, after all we don't have the mortgage money or tax refunds in hand yet (although we are assured they ARE coming!!). In the end, it was a meal event, and it was the 3rd Anniversary of out move to Nova Scotia, so we bit the bullet, so to speak.
Rudders Seafood Restaurant and Brew Pub in Yarmouth has a very good reputation and we've been told by others we really needed to go sometime. When James learned of their Annual Brewer's Dinner it sounded like a nice way to investigate the joint. We are very glad we did. The evening was a perfect delight from first sip to last bite, nothing disappointed. The location in an old warehouse building on the waterfront gives marvelous harbour views, and creates the rustic and relaxed atmosphere you expect from a microbrewery restaurant. The in-house entertainment, (which so often has the potential to be insipid), was provided by a duo of guitar and keyboards, and a talented singer, the repertoire was the old standards that so often can come across as live 'musak', but in this case the talent of the performers brought them to life, and was a thoroughly pleasant addition to the evening.
But we were here for the beer and the food, all the great entertainment, and fabulous atmosphere don't mean much if the food doesn't hold up, and a brew pub must be able to stand on it's beer. First course was a Baked Blond Clams with Blond Rock Ale. Honestly, I don't tend to be a big fan of blond beers, even microbrewery ones tend to be watery, thin, and a bit flavourless in their quest for lightness. Blond Rock Ale wasn't. Yes it was light, bubbly, blond but it was full flavoured in a bright bouncy way that didn't leave much of an after taste. It was a thoroughly delightful surprise, and it was the perfect match for the baked clams with blond ale sauce, and a very auspicious beginning to the evening. The baked clam starter, still crispy under the blond ale sauce with a hint of sharp cheese on a bed of wilted spinach was also a pleasant surprise that boded well.
James, as you may know, can't eat shellfish, so while he sipped his beer and listened to me enthuse on about the starter (both of them - yes I ate his as well!) he was impressed with the beer, but anticipating getting to try the food as well. Most of you who know us know that we've often said "Salad is what food eats". It's hard to impress us with a bit of green leaf on a plate, but the Irish Apple Ale Salad did exactly that! The mixed greens were nicely sharp and peppery which contrasted beautifully with the sweetness of the cranberry and watermelon, and all balanced with the richness of the smoked gouda (oh my we'd almost forgotten how wonderful a smoked gouda is!). the Irish apple vinaigrette was another perfect balance of sweet and sharp, rich and bright. No flavour dominated or competed with the others, they all shone in beautiful harmony with each other. The Killam's Irish Ale was definitely a deeper bolder ale with more mouth feel than the blond that preceded it, drunk on it's own it had a brief but distinct after taste, that was smoothed out by the pairing of it with the Irish Apple Ale Salad. The ale alone was a wonderful drop that could easily be sipped all evening on it's own, but it really did reach a whole new nuance of character paired with the salad. As I say, we're not really 'salad' people, for James to comment on how marvelous a salad is, is a real testament.
So by this point in the meal we're yammering excitedly about just how delightful this experience is. We expected to enjoy a pleasant evening out, but by this point it's all been perfect, and we're positively giddy with just how nice it all is. And then the lamb t-bones arrived. Two, at least, inch and a half thick lamb chops with Red Ale Au Jus, with baby potatoes and mixed vegetables. Simple, plain, perfect. A good cut of meat doesn't need a lot of dolling up, it shouldn't be dolled up, it should be left to shine on it's own. Cooked to perfection, with a rich warm red ale au jus. I noticed that two was a bit much for many of the ladies dining this evening, but non left them on the plate, they all asked for a box to take it home. For many restaurants bringing a shining example of pure meat heaven to the table is enough and the potato and veg that accompany it are an afterthought and often they suffer for that. Rudder's chef though did not disappoint, the baby potatoes and vegetables were cooked to exact, firm and bright, not starchy or mushy or underdone. I felt like the baby bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.... not too hard, not to soft, just right, and I got to eat mine! Like the lamb, simple, plain, and just right. Not meant to compete but to compliment. The Rudders Red Ale was just the thing to stand up to that hearty hunk of meat, Substantial without being heavy, full bodied, full flavoured, rich and round without being 'too much'.
It's quite clear trying these three beers thus far, that they're all the work of one artist. While they are each unique and special on their own, they together form a body of work and a flavour profile that is obviously in a similar style. Much as Starry Night and Sunflowers are very different paintings, but they're both obviously Van Gogh's work.
Thus enthralled, the fourth course, dessert, arrived. James had never considered beer with dessert, and I admit it wouldn't be my first thought either. However, after the lamb, this was the course I was really anticipating. I love my chocolate, I love my brown beers, how would the chef marry these together? Like everything else this evening, perfectly. Microbreweries always want to do a stout, and they so often end up feeling like Guinness knock offs, trying to be something they're not they miss the mark. Town Brown is it's own beer, it's not trying to be anything else. The notes of bitter chocolate are upfront and marry well to the chocolate lava cake, as does the lingering hint of coffee notes. The carbonation is very fine and gives a light gentle buzz rather than a bright bubbly. The lava cake was amazing, I almost started to say in the first bite or two that it needed more lava, then I hit it's gooey, liquid centre. and those words died on my ecstatic tongue.
By the end of the meal we were sated, contented, completely enthralled, and I dare say even a bit inspired. We ordered coffee, not because we really needed to finish with coffee, but simply to give us reason to continue to linger at the table. We had eaten just exactly enough, anything more would have been too much and hurt, and you don't want any less of it.
So to sum it up. Perfect. Perfect atmosphere, perfect entertainment, perfect service, perfect beers, perfect food - I keep looking to say "but", but there are no buts. When the only 'downside' to an entire 4 course with beer pairings meal is paper napkins, there is no downside.
Thank you Rudders for sharing your 10th Anniversary Brewers Dinner with us, we will be back, and it won't take us a year.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Adventures in plums
Sep. 28th, 2015 12:07 pmEssentially we have 2 kinds in the house. Larger elongated purple plums bought from the local grocery store, but locally grown, they're quite sweet and, for the most part, free stone. And smaller, more like very large grapes, purple plums grown by the neighbour the flesh is yellower, and they're quite tart and they're cling stone. For the moment we have equal amounts of each.
For the plum jam, I used a 50/50 mix. Lots of fun there, the pitting and chopping - well lets just say the resulting mess of pulpy fruit mass was a dirty yellow/brown disgusting looking mess and colour. Then we cooked them. It was almost instantaneous, as soon as we added heat, the skins started turning the mass bright bright pink, and then deep strawberry jam bright red, then finally as it finished cooking (5 minutes tops) the resulting jam was a deep rich warm merlot.
It was, in a word, enchanting to watch. The resulting jam is delightful, it has just the tiniest hint of a tart edge to it that keeps it from being too cloying, and the colour is extraordinary and very cheery. I do tend to think that the colour of jams and jellies, especially homemade is at least as important as their flavour. The neighbour who donated the fruit to this endeavour should be pleased, I know I am.
Now thoughts turn to what to do with the remainder. There's about 1.5 kg of each left. There's no shortage of ideas, all of them good ones, just need to make some decisions.
Clafouti sounds very good. I think this might demand the sweet plums.
Duck with plums was suggested, normally we do duck for Thanksgiving, so that's a possibility. That will require tart plums I think, and I can always get more from G* so I think we'll leave that to investigate a bit later on.
There's an interesting recipe for plums and apples (yes, I need to use those up too!). Harvest Fruit Dessert seems to be very much a shortbread crusted cheesecake with roasted apple and plum topping. Always a cheesecake fan, so that's a definite option, although it's not the Feychild's favourite.
And of course there's always my 'Go To' fall cake the BBC Good Food's Roasted Rhubarb and Custard Cake. I love this cake, it's lent itself gloriously to apples, I really can't see it not working with plums, or plums and apples.
Too many desserts, too many ideas, too many plans, not enough mouths to feed!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
For the plum jam, I used a 50/50 mix. Lots of fun there, the pitting and chopping - well lets just say the resulting mess of pulpy fruit mass was a dirty yellow/brown disgusting looking mess and colour. Then we cooked them. It was almost instantaneous, as soon as we added heat, the skins started turning the mass bright bright pink, and then deep strawberry jam bright red, then finally as it finished cooking (5 minutes tops) the resulting jam was a deep rich warm merlot.
It was, in a word, enchanting to watch. The resulting jam is delightful, it has just the tiniest hint of a tart edge to it that keeps it from being too cloying, and the colour is extraordinary and very cheery. I do tend to think that the colour of jams and jellies, especially homemade is at least as important as their flavour. The neighbour who donated the fruit to this endeavour should be pleased, I know I am.
Now thoughts turn to what to do with the remainder. There's about 1.5 kg of each left. There's no shortage of ideas, all of them good ones, just need to make some decisions.
Clafouti sounds very good. I think this might demand the sweet plums.
Duck with plums was suggested, normally we do duck for Thanksgiving, so that's a possibility. That will require tart plums I think, and I can always get more from G* so I think we'll leave that to investigate a bit later on.
There's an interesting recipe for plums and apples (yes, I need to use those up too!). Harvest Fruit Dessert seems to be very much a shortbread crusted cheesecake with roasted apple and plum topping. Always a cheesecake fan, so that's a definite option, although it's not the Feychild's favourite.
And of course there's always my 'Go To' fall cake the BBC Good Food's Roasted Rhubarb and Custard Cake. I love this cake, it's lent itself gloriously to apples, I really can't see it not working with plums, or plums and apples.
Too many desserts, too many ideas, too many plans, not enough mouths to feed!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Oh my - we've been crazy busy, I've barely had time to click a few 'share' buttons over on Facebook these last few weeks let alone actually write blog posts. Lord knows I owe a few ... like how the bacon turned out, and 'Carrot cake, that giant muffin of goodness', or how I feel about being 50 :) You get non of those, you get a hit and run.
Today isn't much different. The last 4/5 weeks I've only had one day a week off work - and James and I fervently try to use it to get caught up. It doesn't work, but it keeps things from sliding too far.
We've had David visiting for the last week - we celebrated his birthday last weekend, we're celebrating mine today (sort of) and we had our anniversary (9 yrs) in there as well. Unfortunately with the craziness I've not had as much time with David as I'd like - so we're all going out on an outing this afternoon to the beach.
We've also been going potty crazy trying to make a trip to California next weekend - for James's nephew's wedding, and to visit with family and very dear friends - this is our real anniversary/birthday present. We have the tickets now ... bought yesterday thanks to help from many friends and family, but we are still waiting on James's passport which should be in the mail by now. (I'll pick mine up in Halifax on Thurs morning).
It probably is a very good thing I've been insanely busy - and it's a good busy mostly, getting to the marvellous stuff I want to do this year. But, it also keeps me from ruminating morosely on the things I *meant* to be doing on my 50th birthday (back when I was 45). And where we aren't isn't BAD, it's just different from what I'd planned. But that's life.
Next year will be our 10th anniversary, and we have plans for that including the honeymoon we didn't take. We had talked about a canal tour in England, or a horse drawn caravan in Ireland - we chose Ireland, so it only makes sense to celebrate our10th with the other choice, the canal boat in England. While we're there we'll celebrate my 50th+1 with a lovely dinner at Jimmy's Farm's Sausage and Beer Festival!
Ok. must go get busy with enjoying this year's celebration......
Love ya all!
OE
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Today isn't much different. The last 4/5 weeks I've only had one day a week off work - and James and I fervently try to use it to get caught up. It doesn't work, but it keeps things from sliding too far.
We've had David visiting for the last week - we celebrated his birthday last weekend, we're celebrating mine today (sort of) and we had our anniversary (9 yrs) in there as well. Unfortunately with the craziness I've not had as much time with David as I'd like - so we're all going out on an outing this afternoon to the beach.
We've also been going potty crazy trying to make a trip to California next weekend - for James's nephew's wedding, and to visit with family and very dear friends - this is our real anniversary/birthday present. We have the tickets now ... bought yesterday thanks to help from many friends and family, but we are still waiting on James's passport which should be in the mail by now. (I'll pick mine up in Halifax on Thurs morning).
It probably is a very good thing I've been insanely busy - and it's a good busy mostly, getting to the marvellous stuff I want to do this year. But, it also keeps me from ruminating morosely on the things I *meant* to be doing on my 50th birthday (back when I was 45). And where we aren't isn't BAD, it's just different from what I'd planned. But that's life.
Next year will be our 10th anniversary, and we have plans for that including the honeymoon we didn't take. We had talked about a canal tour in England, or a horse drawn caravan in Ireland - we chose Ireland, so it only makes sense to celebrate our10th with the other choice, the canal boat in England. While we're there we'll celebrate my 50th+1 with a lovely dinner at Jimmy's Farm's Sausage and Beer Festival!
Ok. must go get busy with enjoying this year's celebration......
Love ya all!
OE
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I've been working a lot of hours the past couple weeks covering other staff's vacation time, so with only one day off - today - I decided, much as I hate to miss a market, to stay home and catch up on some things.
One of the things I need to catch up on is BACON.
I love bacon, I love pancetta, and thanks to Michael Ruhlman I no longer fear making my own.
At last weekend's market, I picked up a lovely 11lb slab of whole pork belly from Kevin at Thousand Hills Farm.
The warmer temps have arrived so I have less trouble now keeping the smoker temps steady. But even if you don't have a smoker, or aren't comfortable with it, Michael has the answer for you.
Michael Ruhlman's Home-Cured Bacon
Michael Ruhlman's Home-Cured Pancetta
So today we'll get this slab o'meat into the cure and into the fridge, and in week or so, there will be smoked bacon.... stay tuned for smoking day! As for the Pancetta, last time I had a bit of trouble with the ambient temp being too high, and the summer humidity, so this time I'm gonna try it in the wee little bar fridge. (Which also doubles as a safe brewing environment for my ginger beer.... but that too is another post for another day)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
One of the things I need to catch up on is BACON.
I love bacon, I love pancetta, and thanks to Michael Ruhlman I no longer fear making my own.
At last weekend's market, I picked up a lovely 11lb slab of whole pork belly from Kevin at Thousand Hills Farm.
The warmer temps have arrived so I have less trouble now keeping the smoker temps steady. But even if you don't have a smoker, or aren't comfortable with it, Michael has the answer for you.
Michael Ruhlman's Home-Cured Bacon
Michael Ruhlman's Home-Cured Pancetta
So today we'll get this slab o'meat into the cure and into the fridge, and in week or so, there will be smoked bacon.... stay tuned for smoking day! As for the Pancetta, last time I had a bit of trouble with the ambient temp being too high, and the summer humidity, so this time I'm gonna try it in the wee little bar fridge. (Which also doubles as a safe brewing environment for my ginger beer.... but that too is another post for another day)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
One thing I haven't talked about much here on this blog is cars.
Oh I mention them on occasion but never much in depth. One of the things that James and I share, is a fondness for things automotive. Now, grant you, we're not as obsessed as some, but we both have a relationship with motorized transport that goes beyond "an appliance to get from a to b. For James I think it was growing up at a particular time in car culture in Australia; for me I think it was my Dad, and my brother Michael.
I'm not a full on gear head, but I like cars. I like motor racing of a certain age and vintage too. I do have certain particular tastes and areas of interest. I like post war, particularly 60's, British cars. Jags, Land Rovers, Morris are always on my radar. And I'll take notice of Nortons and Triumphs and TVRs, as well as MGs, Rovers, Austins, Astons and Sunbeams. With at least a passing awareness of Rolls, Alvis, Bently, Bristol, Daimler, Jensen and AC. This existed for me before James and I met. It was one of those "things we have in common" things - it's not what brought us together, but was one of the weird little bent things that made us twisted in just the same ways.
Back in 2008 when James finally moved to Canada, he was greatly unhappy with my 2001 Dodge Caravan (and who can blame him!?) He worried about my driving to my critical services work at all hours, in all weather, in it and wanted me to have something 4 Wheel Drive. So once his house sold we went hunting for my 'birthday present', something SUVish, and affordable, we budgetted about $15K. I had looked at KIA SUVs and crossovers as affordable, but he wasn't happy with the questions of quality and reliability and preferred something used, and older model but a more known quantity. We considered Subarus - I liked the Outback, but preferred a 6 cylinder, the Forrester was a possibility (we ended up buying one last year as a runabout) but couldn't find one we were happy with in our price point. Then he happened upon a Land Rover Discovery II in respected used car lot. There were other possibilities, including a big Blazer SUV, but the Disco really sang to me, as he knew it would. It wasn't just buying me 'a' car, but buying me 'my' car.
Bertie came to live with us.
It is kind of ironic. I didn't actually get to drive it much the first year I had it. Having picked it up in late August it had an oil cooler failure on Thanskgiving weekend which took him out of commission until December (when they finally found a replacement engine), and then there were drive train failures in February which resulted in another 12 weeks off the road. Fortunately we had bought a warranty with the car that cost us a chunk of change but probably saved us $5000 in the end. Bertie has run well ever since. But it did lead to a moment standing around waiting for parts at the local Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo dealership and my mooning over a new Aston Martin I thought would look stunning in our Seal Cove driveway parked next to the Disco (and it would have) and James very good naturedly rolling his eyes at me and saying "Good god woman, don't you want at least one vehicle that works?" He liked to pick on my fondness for British automotive engineering, but then promptly bought himself a 1989 Jaguar XJS project car that I'd had my eyes keenly fixed on. Bastid!
Time and us moved on to other things and places. Now 7 yrs later we're living in the wilds of Nova Scotia, and Bertie is parked in the driveway waiting on our mortgage application to acquire a donor vehicle to make him right for inspection and licensing here. Catherine is also still with us waiting on the same funds to acquire about $600 worth of parts to make her road worthy again, and probably another $2000 worth to make her 'finished'. As our lives have grown more rustic so too has my garage 'wish list'. For farm 'work' vehicles, I've set my sights on getting my hands on a pair of Morris Minor commercial vehicles. Specifically a panel delivery van, and a pick up truck with the canvas cover. Both of which, while rarer than the cars, can still be had brought to Canada and restored and North Americanized for about $10,000-$15,000 each.
Along that line I had had for a while, my eyes on the new Fiat 500 (because the old ones are hard to get) and I thought that they had done a better job than the Beetles and the Minis at staying true to the original. However, it really isn't the original 'Cinquecento' in style or spirit, but at least it's cute and not entirely yuppiefied. Saying all that, a Morris Minor convertible or cabriolet, would serve the niche that a Fiat 500 would as well and match nicely the other two MMs.
The final car in the Morris Minor line is the Traveller, an estate version.
Now I've always been of two thoughts here: 1. I love estate cars/shooting brakes/station wagons (whatever your particular culture calls them) 2. I'm really not all that fussed on 'woodies'. It was a bit of an internalized argument. Saved by the fact it's a Morris Minor, and that the wood is real ash and structural, not just crap for show. The love affair with station wagons came from growing up through the 70s when cars were still boats, and a wagon was a land yacht and I'd always envisioned doing a camper style conversion on one. I love camper conversions, that may be something else I inherited from my Dad - his Blue Bird Blunder Bus converted to take the family to Expo in 1967. I loved it, but it wasn't exactly a stylish or comfortable job, it was functional. Or it may just be my love affair with repurposing old junk into beautiful functional things. Or it may be that I grew up though the van conversion hay days of the 70s (air brush anyone?) Doesn't really matter why, what matters is I keep seeing campers out of everything. From big boat station wagons to the delivery trucks my ex used to drive, to my Morris Minor fandom, and was probably the thing that led me to lusting after a Volvo P1800E - the shooting brake version of Volvo's answer to the E-type Jag. Yes, my motoring passions keeping crossing wire with each other and coming up with some interesting frankenstiens.
(Volvo P1800E)
Now the whole camper conversion obsession falls into three categories as well. There is the small camper, two person roughing it, weekender, little more than a hard top tent, car conversion. There is the larger take the 3 of us family, and the 2-3 dogs, and the 7-12 cats, bug out vehicle. The current Shamrock camper can/will meet this criteria when we get the firewall fixed and the interior redone, but I'm still interested in doing a cool version in an old short school bus, or a hotel people mover van, or .... something. James has even suggested something retro cool like the original GMC Motorhome.
(Paddy O'Tiddslaine) or..
(Retro-Cool)
Lastly, I'd love a custom little tear drop trailer that could be towed by a decent sized motorcycle for camping type camping.
Ok.. back to the question at hand. Does the small camper, two person, hard top tent fit in the Morris Minor collection? Do I do that camper conversion on a Traveller? The biggest question (literally) in doing that vehicle conversion is the sleeping bed (which is really the whole of the thing); my hubby is 6' 4" tall, I can fold up and sleep anywhere pretty much, him not so much. To convert a Morris would mean doing a stretch on it by at least two feet. Doable, but it spoils the lines and there's still a host of other Minor issues, and a lot of work.
The P1800E Volvo? The back bed still isn't long enough. Really, we need about 7 ft behind the front door post to make it work. Oddly enough the Forrester we bought last summer as a quick cheap runabout would almost do the trick, but not quite, and it's not got quite the quirky style I'm after here - not enough converting.
(Sherwood)
I've considered a host of donor vehicles over the years. An old hearse? That would work, but it would still be obviously a hearse conversion. An old ambulance? Possible, but Ghostbusters made buying those suddenly cachet and expensive. Don't really want a van / SUV conversion, that's getting closer to the Bug Out vehicle project. In the end, a compromise has been found. It's been suggested by James, and I think it would probably work, that a classic Suburban would do the job nicely. Quirky? No, it's not. What it is is so plain, so ordinary, so white bread bland that it's a completely blank canvas on which to paint the quirky vision of my dreams. I can do anything I like to it, to create my own unique style. Yeah it's a compromise, it's not a Morris, or a shooting break, or a big boat station wagon, but there were used a lot as small ambulances by companies that couldn't afford bespoke ambulance designs like Hess and Eisenhardt. So yes, I think its been decided that what I want as a donor vehicle is a 1965-1975 (with 68'-72' being the preferred years) GMC or Chevy Suburban with a blown engine (because James will replace it with an LS1 or L76 engine and a 350 Turbo gear box).
This really brings the 'garage' bays up to 10. Yes, I know, no one needs 10 cars. However, that's not the point. Jay Leno doesn't need 130(+/-) cars either, but he collects them each for a reason, he loves them each individually. I don't want 130 cars, but each of the 10 vehicles on the list serves a purpose and a niche and a reason 'why'. I might even expand the space to be an even dozen, so there's room for some of the cars on James's list and in case I discover other niche that need filling. Some women collect shoes. Me? I want a car for every occasion.
So my virtual garage/wishlist/project plans include:
That'll leave 2 spaces (or possibly only one as I think the big camper might take up two spaces) in the 12 car garage.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
What?
Oh I mention them on occasion but never much in depth. One of the things that James and I share, is a fondness for things automotive. Now, grant you, we're not as obsessed as some, but we both have a relationship with motorized transport that goes beyond "an appliance to get from a to b. For James I think it was growing up at a particular time in car culture in Australia; for me I think it was my Dad, and my brother Michael.
I'm not a full on gear head, but I like cars. I like motor racing of a certain age and vintage too. I do have certain particular tastes and areas of interest. I like post war, particularly 60's, British cars. Jags, Land Rovers, Morris are always on my radar. And I'll take notice of Nortons and Triumphs and TVRs, as well as MGs, Rovers, Austins, Astons and Sunbeams. With at least a passing awareness of Rolls, Alvis, Bently, Bristol, Daimler, Jensen and AC. This existed for me before James and I met. It was one of those "things we have in common" things - it's not what brought us together, but was one of the weird little bent things that made us twisted in just the same ways.
Back in 2008 when James finally moved to Canada, he was greatly unhappy with my 2001 Dodge Caravan (and who can blame him!?) He worried about my driving to my critical services work at all hours, in all weather, in it and wanted me to have something 4 Wheel Drive. So once his house sold we went hunting for my 'birthday present', something SUVish, and affordable, we budgetted about $15K. I had looked at KIA SUVs and crossovers as affordable, but he wasn't happy with the questions of quality and reliability and preferred something used, and older model but a more known quantity. We considered Subarus - I liked the Outback, but preferred a 6 cylinder, the Forrester was a possibility (we ended up buying one last year as a runabout) but couldn't find one we were happy with in our price point. Then he happened upon a Land Rover Discovery II in respected used car lot. There were other possibilities, including a big Blazer SUV, but the Disco really sang to me, as he knew it would. It wasn't just buying me 'a' car, but buying me 'my' car.
Bertie came to live with us.
It is kind of ironic. I didn't actually get to drive it much the first year I had it. Having picked it up in late August it had an oil cooler failure on Thanskgiving weekend which took him out of commission until December (when they finally found a replacement engine), and then there were drive train failures in February which resulted in another 12 weeks off the road. Fortunately we had bought a warranty with the car that cost us a chunk of change but probably saved us $5000 in the end. Bertie has run well ever since. But it did lead to a moment standing around waiting for parts at the local Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo dealership and my mooning over a new Aston Martin I thought would look stunning in our Seal Cove driveway parked next to the Disco (and it would have) and James very good naturedly rolling his eyes at me and saying "Good god woman, don't you want at least one vehicle that works?" He liked to pick on my fondness for British automotive engineering, but then promptly bought himself a 1989 Jaguar XJS project car that I'd had my eyes keenly fixed on. Bastid!
Time and us moved on to other things and places. Now 7 yrs later we're living in the wilds of Nova Scotia, and Bertie is parked in the driveway waiting on our mortgage application to acquire a donor vehicle to make him right for inspection and licensing here. Catherine is also still with us waiting on the same funds to acquire about $600 worth of parts to make her road worthy again, and probably another $2000 worth to make her 'finished'. As our lives have grown more rustic so too has my garage 'wish list'. For farm 'work' vehicles, I've set my sights on getting my hands on a pair of Morris Minor commercial vehicles. Specifically a panel delivery van, and a pick up truck with the canvas cover. Both of which, while rarer than the cars, can still be had brought to Canada and restored and North Americanized for about $10,000-$15,000 each.
Along that line I had had for a while, my eyes on the new Fiat 500 (because the old ones are hard to get) and I thought that they had done a better job than the Beetles and the Minis at staying true to the original. However, it really isn't the original 'Cinquecento' in style or spirit, but at least it's cute and not entirely yuppiefied. Saying all that, a Morris Minor convertible or cabriolet, would serve the niche that a Fiat 500 would as well and match nicely the other two MMs.
The final car in the Morris Minor line is the Traveller, an estate version.
Now I've always been of two thoughts here: 1. I love estate cars/shooting brakes/station wagons (whatever your particular culture calls them) 2. I'm really not all that fussed on 'woodies'. It was a bit of an internalized argument. Saved by the fact it's a Morris Minor, and that the wood is real ash and structural, not just crap for show. The love affair with station wagons came from growing up through the 70s when cars were still boats, and a wagon was a land yacht and I'd always envisioned doing a camper style conversion on one. I love camper conversions, that may be something else I inherited from my Dad - his Blue Bird Blunder Bus converted to take the family to Expo in 1967. I loved it, but it wasn't exactly a stylish or comfortable job, it was functional. Or it may just be my love affair with repurposing old junk into beautiful functional things. Or it may be that I grew up though the van conversion hay days of the 70s (air brush anyone?) Doesn't really matter why, what matters is I keep seeing campers out of everything. From big boat station wagons to the delivery trucks my ex used to drive, to my Morris Minor fandom, and was probably the thing that led me to lusting after a Volvo P1800E - the shooting brake version of Volvo's answer to the E-type Jag. Yes, my motoring passions keeping crossing wire with each other and coming up with some interesting frankenstiens.
(Volvo P1800E)
Now the whole camper conversion obsession falls into three categories as well. There is the small camper, two person roughing it, weekender, little more than a hard top tent, car conversion. There is the larger take the 3 of us family, and the 2-3 dogs, and the 7-12 cats, bug out vehicle. The current Shamrock camper can/will meet this criteria when we get the firewall fixed and the interior redone, but I'm still interested in doing a cool version in an old short school bus, or a hotel people mover van, or .... something. James has even suggested something retro cool like the original GMC Motorhome.
(Paddy O'Tiddslaine) or..
(Retro-Cool)
Lastly, I'd love a custom little tear drop trailer that could be towed by a decent sized motorcycle for camping type camping.
Ok.. back to the question at hand. Does the small camper, two person, hard top tent fit in the Morris Minor collection? Do I do that camper conversion on a Traveller? The biggest question (literally) in doing that vehicle conversion is the sleeping bed (which is really the whole of the thing); my hubby is 6' 4" tall, I can fold up and sleep anywhere pretty much, him not so much. To convert a Morris would mean doing a stretch on it by at least two feet. Doable, but it spoils the lines and there's still a host of other Minor issues, and a lot of work.
The P1800E Volvo? The back bed still isn't long enough. Really, we need about 7 ft behind the front door post to make it work. Oddly enough the Forrester we bought last summer as a quick cheap runabout would almost do the trick, but not quite, and it's not got quite the quirky style I'm after here - not enough converting.
(Sherwood)
I've considered a host of donor vehicles over the years. An old hearse? That would work, but it would still be obviously a hearse conversion. An old ambulance? Possible, but Ghostbusters made buying those suddenly cachet and expensive. Don't really want a van / SUV conversion, that's getting closer to the Bug Out vehicle project. In the end, a compromise has been found. It's been suggested by James, and I think it would probably work, that a classic Suburban would do the job nicely. Quirky? No, it's not. What it is is so plain, so ordinary, so white bread bland that it's a completely blank canvas on which to paint the quirky vision of my dreams. I can do anything I like to it, to create my own unique style. Yeah it's a compromise, it's not a Morris, or a shooting break, or a big boat station wagon, but there were used a lot as small ambulances by companies that couldn't afford bespoke ambulance designs like Hess and Eisenhardt. So yes, I think its been decided that what I want as a donor vehicle is a 1965-1975 (with 68'-72' being the preferred years) GMC or Chevy Suburban with a blown engine (because James will replace it with an LS1 or L76 engine and a 350 Turbo gear box).
This really brings the 'garage' bays up to 10. Yes, I know, no one needs 10 cars. However, that's not the point. Jay Leno doesn't need 130(+/-) cars either, but he collects them each for a reason, he loves them each individually. I don't want 130 cars, but each of the 10 vehicles on the list serves a purpose and a niche and a reason 'why'. I might even expand the space to be an even dozen, so there's room for some of the cars on James's list and in case I discover other niche that need filling. Some women collect shoes. Me? I want a car for every occasion.
So my virtual garage/wishlist/project plans include:
- 1. Bertie - the Disco II
- 2. Catherine - her Leyland cousin the Jaguar (known to her friends as Kitty)
- 3. Morris Minor Pick Up Truck - probably a Jeeves (known for rescuing Bertie from his messes)
- 4. Morris Minor Panel Delivery - definitely a Wallace (for obvious reasons)
- 5. A 100" Defender project - built on the left over chassis after the donor vehicle has Bertie running right (this is one of James's pet projects)
- 6. Volvo P1800E - likely he's an Anderson, the Swede who wants to be perceived as Chelsea British
- 7. Morris Minor Cabriolet - the car for me and my dog to go to the beach in (don't forget your doggles Buddy!)
- 8. The Suburban camper conversion
- 9. Paddy O'Tiddslaine - the bug out camper (no don't ask me what I'm gonna do when we have ponies and cows and sheep and alpacas and chickens and ducks)
- 10. Pair of mid powered (600-900cc) touring bikes, and a tear drop trailer.
That'll leave 2 spaces (or possibly only one as I think the big camper might take up two spaces) in the 12 car garage.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
What?
A cooking interlude...
Feb. 15th, 2015 05:21 pmOn the heels of last week's lost philosophical / political post, I am going to make a serious effort to recreate it, but in the meantime we're taking a little break to talk about cooking. Normally Sunday would be a Market Day post, but thanks to Friday night shifts I haven't made it to the market in a couple weeks. However, this weekend is the Feychild's annual Valentine's birthday dinner.
Her favourite foods have always been spagetti and chicken so her request for chicken parmesan for her celebratory dinner wasn't much of a surprise.
Honestly, neither was her choice of a 'store bought cake' a surprise either. She's still at that age (and having grown up in a asture household) where 'home made' still kinda feels 'poor' to her. I admit for a long time I too felt the same way, and then when we were a bit more flush I discovered that 'store bought' might be more middle class, but it doesn't taste better. She's also always been of the mind that those who get paid for stuff are 'experts', and she has a deep abiding faith in expertise. Ah to be 24 again.
Still it's her cake. I was after a Red Velvet cake for her, it's Valentine's appropriate and one of her favourites. I couldn't find one at work - so she ended up with home made anyway. She didn't mind, and it turned out well.
Soooooooooo chicken parmesan, I made this one up as I was going along. We started with 3 good sized boneless skinless chicken breasts cut in half. Soak the chcken pieces in buttermilk for 30 min or so. Drain and dredge them with flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Dip the floured chicken in beaten egg, and then toss with crushed cracker crumbs - I season my 1.5 cups of cracker crumbs with 1 tsp italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp paprika and 1/2 tsp dry mustard. Deep fry the chicken pieces in hot oil - 365°F for 5-7 mins till they're brown and crispy. Drain.
Cook 300 grams of spagetti to almost al dente, drain, toss with 1 tbsp of butter and a half cup of grated parmesan cheese. Layer in the bottom of a greased (I used bacon fat) casserole dish snuggle the chicken pieces into the pasta. Cover well with several cups of pasta sauce (I use my 1/1/1 sauce) and sprinkle liberally with a mix of mozzerella and parmesan cheeses. Bake at 350°F for 35 mins.
1/1/1 Sauce:
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 onion
1 sweet pepper
1 lb ground beef
1 bay leaf / 1 tsp italian seasoning / 1 tsp salt / 1/4 tsp pepper / 1 dried chili pepper (or season to taste)
I upsize or down size this as needed - the even ratios make that very simple. Catering size cans of tomatoes = 3 28 oz ones, and makes a month worth of pasta sauce in an 8 litre crock pot. I use this as the base of most of my pasta / red sauce dishes, from lasagna to stuffed shells to chicken parmesan and chili.
The last batch I made I added a bit of pancetta that was threatening to go off soon and that added a lovely smokey flavour to the chicken parmesan.
The cake was a red velvet cake from Joy of Baking's recipe. I find their cream cheese frosting recipe one of the nicest I've had.
I admit, I'm always a bit flumoxed by the instruction to cut the cake into two layers each. Not the instruction itself, but that even using the correct sized pans it never seems to come out tall enough to get two nicely thick layers out of it. But assembled it seems ok and tall enough, still I think I'd like to try it with a double recipe batch sometime.
I admit my decorating hand skills still leave something to be desired - especially when I'm rushing a bit at 8pm because I slept in till 3 in the afternoon. (I did work the night before so I can be forgiven for that.)
Good food, an excellent and surprising (and touching) movie - The Box Trolls (highly recommended) and a little 7" tablet (which has been an excellent little piece of kit for the price) so she doesn't have to feel badly about borrowing my Kobo .... and I'd say birthday #24 can be counted as a success.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Her favourite foods have always been spagetti and chicken so her request for chicken parmesan for her celebratory dinner wasn't much of a surprise.
Honestly, neither was her choice of a 'store bought cake' a surprise either. She's still at that age (and having grown up in a asture household) where 'home made' still kinda feels 'poor' to her. I admit for a long time I too felt the same way, and then when we were a bit more flush I discovered that 'store bought' might be more middle class, but it doesn't taste better. She's also always been of the mind that those who get paid for stuff are 'experts', and she has a deep abiding faith in expertise. Ah to be 24 again.
Still it's her cake. I was after a Red Velvet cake for her, it's Valentine's appropriate and one of her favourites. I couldn't find one at work - so she ended up with home made anyway. She didn't mind, and it turned out well.
Soooooooooo chicken parmesan, I made this one up as I was going along. We started with 3 good sized boneless skinless chicken breasts cut in half. Soak the chcken pieces in buttermilk for 30 min or so. Drain and dredge them with flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Dip the floured chicken in beaten egg, and then toss with crushed cracker crumbs - I season my 1.5 cups of cracker crumbs with 1 tsp italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp paprika and 1/2 tsp dry mustard. Deep fry the chicken pieces in hot oil - 365°F for 5-7 mins till they're brown and crispy. Drain.
Cook 300 grams of spagetti to almost al dente, drain, toss with 1 tbsp of butter and a half cup of grated parmesan cheese. Layer in the bottom of a greased (I used bacon fat) casserole dish snuggle the chicken pieces into the pasta. Cover well with several cups of pasta sauce (I use my 1/1/1 sauce) and sprinkle liberally with a mix of mozzerella and parmesan cheeses. Bake at 350°F for 35 mins.
1/1/1 Sauce:
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 onion
1 sweet pepper
1 lb ground beef
1 bay leaf / 1 tsp italian seasoning / 1 tsp salt / 1/4 tsp pepper / 1 dried chili pepper (or season to taste)
I upsize or down size this as needed - the even ratios make that very simple. Catering size cans of tomatoes = 3 28 oz ones, and makes a month worth of pasta sauce in an 8 litre crock pot. I use this as the base of most of my pasta / red sauce dishes, from lasagna to stuffed shells to chicken parmesan and chili.
The last batch I made I added a bit of pancetta that was threatening to go off soon and that added a lovely smokey flavour to the chicken parmesan.
The cake was a red velvet cake from Joy of Baking's recipe. I find their cream cheese frosting recipe one of the nicest I've had.
I admit, I'm always a bit flumoxed by the instruction to cut the cake into two layers each. Not the instruction itself, but that even using the correct sized pans it never seems to come out tall enough to get two nicely thick layers out of it. But assembled it seems ok and tall enough, still I think I'd like to try it with a double recipe batch sometime.
I admit my decorating hand skills still leave something to be desired - especially when I'm rushing a bit at 8pm because I slept in till 3 in the afternoon. (I did work the night before so I can be forgiven for that.)
Good food, an excellent and surprising (and touching) movie - The Box Trolls (highly recommended) and a little 7" tablet (which has been an excellent little piece of kit for the price) so she doesn't have to feel badly about borrowing my Kobo .... and I'd say birthday #24 can be counted as a success.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Yes, it's been two weeks since I sat down and put words into some kind of a cohesive order here.
I have about a half a dozen notes here on my desktop about 'blog posts I should be writing', or just plain things I'd like to share with you, and other rambling thoughts. So, the chances are very good that you're going to get all, or most, of them in one long in-cohesive post.
Michael Ruhlman wrote a very interesting article a little while back about bringing chefs into hospices, to create meals for the clients. I was deeply moved by and taken with the idea. As Ruhlman says, "because meals are about family as much as they are about food, and last meals are important." However, reading the article what i don't get a sense of is how often this is done. Are these event meals? Once a week special nights? Or have the created a system where every evening meal is this sort of family meal? What I think I'd like to see, what ought to be done (if it isn't what they're doing now) is bringing the chefs in to help create menus and planning and teaching cooking staff the techniques so that every evening meal in hospice care can be this kind of family moment. Sitting down for a meal as a family shouldn't have to be an occasion or event for those in hospice, but something that's just there, a quiet background thing that removes one more stress from the family, removes one more barrier from that feeling of 'home'.
I hope that's what they're doing.
Poverty. Kathleen Kerridge writes this article on the face of poverty today. And this follow up article about all the stupid things that get said when you start talking about poverty. While Kathleen is based in Britain these are still valuable and enlightening reads, the numbers and systems may differ some between our countries, but the truths don't. They're eye-opening if poverty isn't something you know; understand or have experienced. If poverty is something you have an intimate relationship with it's good to hear you're not alone.
For me, personally, aside from a period of about two years of my life, 'working poor' was the correct demographic description, but what it boiled down to was we were and are now, poor. We were and are exceptionally fortunate that James family was able and willing to help us out (albeit with a scolding), and that within a week of being turned down for social assistance I found part time work. Oddly enough we were denied assistance because I'd cashed in what meager retirement savings I had, and in playing shell games with credit accounts to stretch things out as best we could - we couldn't adequately explain later where/how that money was spent. The thing of it is, I read Kathleen's article I find myself more sympathetic to her poverty as "no fault of her own", after all she didn't choose to be ill. I'm less forgiving of myself and am inclined still to be embarrassed by and apologetic for our poverty, which can be directly attributed to certain choices I've / we've made over the years. My children grew up in poverty because I *chose* to leave my first marriage, oh I had hopes and dreams and potentials when I left, but the 'poor' came ultimately because of that choice, and choices I made later. Later on, our current situation is a direct result of my *choice* to leave my employer on March 3rd 2010 and thus effectively committed professional suicide. I didn't think it would turn out that way, however, it did, and it was a direct result of my choices. In the end the relationships I ended that landed us in this mess were abusive ones, but that doesn't make my abusers responsible for my choices. The thing of it is, I don't want it to sound all noble "I'm poor because I chose a higher moral ground', but nor do I want it to be "it's all your own damn fault!". In the end I did what I had to do for me, I didn't want it to turn out this way and we work daily to move forward from here, but it's neither to be commended or condemned - it simply is. I need to learn to be more forgiving of myself.
Writing. I've been thinking a lot of late of favourite phrases. I've long had a fairly short list of favourite words; turtle is one, I love the bumpy chewy texture of it in my mouth; but the list of favourite phrases is longer yet I haven't really written about that. Sometimes they're catchy and people (myself included) will use them as tag lines, but more often than not they just simply illustrate a point - succinctly or amusingly or with a particular panache. As a writer a well crafted phrase, an elegant painting of words, is a beautiful thing and I tend to collect them. I'll often laugh out loud a little in delight upon discovering them, some of them I've written, some I've collected elsewhere. So in no particular order:
He couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag without a lamp and a Labrador (mine)
She ain't pretty she just looks that way.(Northern Pikes)
A plethora of famished cliches. (Jack)
Quasi-superfluously noncommital. (Ken)
Sooooooooooo really not so very rambly.... there was a looooooooooooooong interesting bit that's been rambling around in my head for a while on art, artisans, arts and crafts, Ayn Rand, Pierre Berton and The Plan®........ but after 2 days of writing on it - the computer ATE that part. I know I know *sigh*, 'save your work, save your work often.'
Anyway, it eventually grew to a point where it really deserves a post of it's own, so I'll have to try and recapture the spirit of the thing again tomorrow :)
Til then.....
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I have about a half a dozen notes here on my desktop about 'blog posts I should be writing', or just plain things I'd like to share with you, and other rambling thoughts. So, the chances are very good that you're going to get all, or most, of them in one long in-cohesive post.
Michael Ruhlman wrote a very interesting article a little while back about bringing chefs into hospices, to create meals for the clients. I was deeply moved by and taken with the idea. As Ruhlman says, "because meals are about family as much as they are about food, and last meals are important." However, reading the article what i don't get a sense of is how often this is done. Are these event meals? Once a week special nights? Or have the created a system where every evening meal is this sort of family meal? What I think I'd like to see, what ought to be done (if it isn't what they're doing now) is bringing the chefs in to help create menus and planning and teaching cooking staff the techniques so that every evening meal in hospice care can be this kind of family moment. Sitting down for a meal as a family shouldn't have to be an occasion or event for those in hospice, but something that's just there, a quiet background thing that removes one more stress from the family, removes one more barrier from that feeling of 'home'.
I hope that's what they're doing.
Poverty. Kathleen Kerridge writes this article on the face of poverty today. And this follow up article about all the stupid things that get said when you start talking about poverty. While Kathleen is based in Britain these are still valuable and enlightening reads, the numbers and systems may differ some between our countries, but the truths don't. They're eye-opening if poverty isn't something you know; understand or have experienced. If poverty is something you have an intimate relationship with it's good to hear you're not alone.
For me, personally, aside from a period of about two years of my life, 'working poor' was the correct demographic description, but what it boiled down to was we were and are now, poor. We were and are exceptionally fortunate that James family was able and willing to help us out (albeit with a scolding), and that within a week of being turned down for social assistance I found part time work. Oddly enough we were denied assistance because I'd cashed in what meager retirement savings I had, and in playing shell games with credit accounts to stretch things out as best we could - we couldn't adequately explain later where/how that money was spent. The thing of it is, I read Kathleen's article I find myself more sympathetic to her poverty as "no fault of her own", after all she didn't choose to be ill. I'm less forgiving of myself and am inclined still to be embarrassed by and apologetic for our poverty, which can be directly attributed to certain choices I've / we've made over the years. My children grew up in poverty because I *chose* to leave my first marriage, oh I had hopes and dreams and potentials when I left, but the 'poor' came ultimately because of that choice, and choices I made later. Later on, our current situation is a direct result of my *choice* to leave my employer on March 3rd 2010 and thus effectively committed professional suicide. I didn't think it would turn out that way, however, it did, and it was a direct result of my choices. In the end the relationships I ended that landed us in this mess were abusive ones, but that doesn't make my abusers responsible for my choices. The thing of it is, I don't want it to sound all noble "I'm poor because I chose a higher moral ground', but nor do I want it to be "it's all your own damn fault!". In the end I did what I had to do for me, I didn't want it to turn out this way and we work daily to move forward from here, but it's neither to be commended or condemned - it simply is. I need to learn to be more forgiving of myself.
Writing. I've been thinking a lot of late of favourite phrases. I've long had a fairly short list of favourite words; turtle is one, I love the bumpy chewy texture of it in my mouth; but the list of favourite phrases is longer yet I haven't really written about that. Sometimes they're catchy and people (myself included) will use them as tag lines, but more often than not they just simply illustrate a point - succinctly or amusingly or with a particular panache. As a writer a well crafted phrase, an elegant painting of words, is a beautiful thing and I tend to collect them. I'll often laugh out loud a little in delight upon discovering them, some of them I've written, some I've collected elsewhere. So in no particular order:
Sooooooooooo really not so very rambly.... there was a looooooooooooooong interesting bit that's been rambling around in my head for a while on art, artisans, arts and crafts, Ayn Rand, Pierre Berton and The Plan®........ but after 2 days of writing on it - the computer ATE that part. I know I know *sigh*, 'save your work, save your work often.'
Anyway, it eventually grew to a point where it really deserves a post of it's own, so I'll have to try and recapture the spirit of the thing again tomorrow :)
Til then.....
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
A state of The Plan® address..
Jan. 25th, 2015 06:19 pmI know I know.. I already did a 'Polar Bear Season' post, and a 'New Year's' post another navel gazing post is just too much!
Too bad.
Gonna do it anyway.
I was trying to explain to someone recently how 'The Plan®' evolves. In the process scared her silly when I said, "James and I decided to take a bit of a break over the holidays" and she thought that was a polite euphemism for, "the relationship is on the rocks and we're having a trial separation". While we do have our moments, mostly related to stress and my depression, we are, fear not intrepid fellow traveller, still deeply in love. What I meant was "we are taking a little break from life and outside commitments and giving ourselves a couple days off - which I admit might be hard to follow when - we're 'retired' already.
However, that really is part of the process of how 'The Plan®' evolves. There is rarely that moment of epiphany when you suddenly wake up and decide to do something completely different. Rather it's more of an ongoing inner process of little things and little influences and subtle tweaks, over a period of time that ends in something that might seem surprising to those outside your own head. Yeah I know, I'm still explaining it badly.
There were a lot of influences that went into the whole decision four and a half years ago that we would up-stakes and move to Nova Scotia. We had a 5 year plan, but then we've always had a plan, we've always had 'The Plan®', and that came out of talking about the things we love, the things we wanted, how we saw our lives, but as they say, 'Life is what happens when you're busy making plans'. The place in our lives we're at now isn't where we envisioned five years ago, it isn't where we envisioned when we made that left hand turn decision in the summer of 2010. Recently a combination of subtle things, the sense of a possible turn in fortunes (alluded to in my previous post), the happenstance of a couple new diy documentary serieses from Britain (the £100,000 House and it's sequel "Tricks of the Trade' and it's prequel Restoration Home) and just taking a bit of time to relax and reconnect over the holidays. Even when you're retired and share each others' company 24/7 you can find yourself getting caught up in the mundanities of life.... meals and pets and cleaning and bills and chores. With the struggles of the past two years here, especially financially, we got bogged down in getting by. Life became about surviving, not building. So it is that this little combination of events didn't really change 'The Plan®', but rather brought us back to it. Reminded us what we set out to do in the first place, what it was we were dreaming of out of our new life in Nova Scotia, and rediscovered that what we want out of our lives together, here, hasn't really changed, it just got back burnered for a while. So, no, no great epiphany moments, but yes, a bit of an 'ah ha!', a feeling and moment of clarity of purpose.
We still want our little farm by the sea (and a lack of swamps would be really good), I still want my dog aquatic centre, we still want our workshops, we still want to be doing and learning and teaching and sharing. Taking all those eclectic things we love, from the art of food, to the art of technology, to the art of writing, to the art of painting, to the art of photography, to the art of music, to the art of building, to the art of teaching, to the art of hospitality. In short we want to be creating. That is what inspires us, but we also want to be sharing that creating, with like minded folks. The goal is a retreat and learning centre. A place of workshops and learning and creative spaces. To invite the friends and people we know and admire to teach the things that they do so well, and that we want to learn, and to make new friends and family along the way sharing the things we do and know. He is in his core a teacher, I am in my core a planner and organizer. I am the artist with the soul of a scientist, he's the scientist with the soul of an artist. It's a vision that FITS us, and we want to take our friends and community along for the ride.
It's a grand dream, honestly I don't know if we'll ever get there, but that's where we decided we were headed back in July 2010, that's where we confirmed we were still headed in January 2015, maybe we'll be a bit closer there in 2020, or maybe 'The Plan®' will evolve, morph, and become something different again.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Too bad.
Gonna do it anyway.
I was trying to explain to someone recently how 'The Plan®' evolves. In the process scared her silly when I said, "James and I decided to take a bit of a break over the holidays" and she thought that was a polite euphemism for, "the relationship is on the rocks and we're having a trial separation". While we do have our moments, mostly related to stress and my depression, we are, fear not intrepid fellow traveller, still deeply in love. What I meant was "we are taking a little break from life and outside commitments and giving ourselves a couple days off - which I admit might be hard to follow when - we're 'retired' already.
However, that really is part of the process of how 'The Plan®' evolves. There is rarely that moment of epiphany when you suddenly wake up and decide to do something completely different. Rather it's more of an ongoing inner process of little things and little influences and subtle tweaks, over a period of time that ends in something that might seem surprising to those outside your own head. Yeah I know, I'm still explaining it badly.
There were a lot of influences that went into the whole decision four and a half years ago that we would up-stakes and move to Nova Scotia. We had a 5 year plan, but then we've always had a plan, we've always had 'The Plan®', and that came out of talking about the things we love, the things we wanted, how we saw our lives, but as they say, 'Life is what happens when you're busy making plans'. The place in our lives we're at now isn't where we envisioned five years ago, it isn't where we envisioned when we made that left hand turn decision in the summer of 2010. Recently a combination of subtle things, the sense of a possible turn in fortunes (alluded to in my previous post), the happenstance of a couple new diy documentary serieses from Britain (the £100,000 House and it's sequel "Tricks of the Trade' and it's prequel Restoration Home) and just taking a bit of time to relax and reconnect over the holidays. Even when you're retired and share each others' company 24/7 you can find yourself getting caught up in the mundanities of life.... meals and pets and cleaning and bills and chores. With the struggles of the past two years here, especially financially, we got bogged down in getting by. Life became about surviving, not building. So it is that this little combination of events didn't really change 'The Plan®', but rather brought us back to it. Reminded us what we set out to do in the first place, what it was we were dreaming of out of our new life in Nova Scotia, and rediscovered that what we want out of our lives together, here, hasn't really changed, it just got back burnered for a while. So, no, no great epiphany moments, but yes, a bit of an 'ah ha!', a feeling and moment of clarity of purpose.
We still want our little farm by the sea (and a lack of swamps would be really good), I still want my dog aquatic centre, we still want our workshops, we still want to be doing and learning and teaching and sharing. Taking all those eclectic things we love, from the art of food, to the art of technology, to the art of writing, to the art of painting, to the art of photography, to the art of music, to the art of building, to the art of teaching, to the art of hospitality. In short we want to be creating. That is what inspires us, but we also want to be sharing that creating, with like minded folks. The goal is a retreat and learning centre. A place of workshops and learning and creative spaces. To invite the friends and people we know and admire to teach the things that they do so well, and that we want to learn, and to make new friends and family along the way sharing the things we do and know. He is in his core a teacher, I am in my core a planner and organizer. I am the artist with the soul of a scientist, he's the scientist with the soul of an artist. It's a vision that FITS us, and we want to take our friends and community along for the ride.
It's a grand dream, honestly I don't know if we'll ever get there, but that's where we decided we were headed back in July 2010, that's where we confirmed we were still headed in January 2015, maybe we'll be a bit closer there in 2020, or maybe 'The Plan®' will evolve, morph, and become something different again.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Happy New Year
Jan. 1st, 2015 02:30 pm... And a bright and shiny new year full of promise and possibility awakens, (complete with the first proper big fluffy flakes winter wonderland snowfall of the season). Seems like every year we seem all too glad to kick the old year out the door and welcome the new one. I don't think it was really 2014's fault it was a bit of a dud.... I think maybe we just wore it out, and by Dec 31st it's looking tired and shabby and 2015 feels much brighter.
It's true - 2014 was NOT the bright year we'd hoped for back on Jan 1st. If 2013 had been tough, 2014 was a slow descent from 'this doesn't look good, into some kind of scary places'. That said I can't completely knock '14, we have a roof over our heads - which while it is kinda scary the maintenance it needs that it isn't getting, it isn't falling in on our heads yet, and while tight finances and stress as a whole take their toll, we still have our health for the most part, and we have each other, and while we may have been a bit distant at times lost in our individual thoughts and worries, we've never wavered in our love and faith in each other.
We hit our deepest low in November when we were turned down for social assistance. However, The Feychild's application was approved (hers being separate as she's an adult now, and technically qualifies for Room and Board), and then shortly thereafter I found part time work. The business at the Market wasn't quite as grand for the holiday season as we'd hoped, but it was steady and it was growing, even if not in leaps and bounds, and there are still a few pieces on the table for January so we're hoping it continues to progress. All that and another helping hand from the parents (hopefully for the last time) and we had a more comfortable holiday than we thought we would, and we start 2015 feeling a bit like we've turned a corner and it may just get better from here.
Cautiously optimistic.
A friend recently said, her only New Year's Resolution in 2014 was to finish the year healthier than when it started, and would be putting the same Resolution forward for 2015. That seems right to me ... that all I really want out of 2015 is to end it in a better place then we're starting it.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
It's true - 2014 was NOT the bright year we'd hoped for back on Jan 1st. If 2013 had been tough, 2014 was a slow descent from 'this doesn't look good, into some kind of scary places'. That said I can't completely knock '14, we have a roof over our heads - which while it is kinda scary the maintenance it needs that it isn't getting, it isn't falling in on our heads yet, and while tight finances and stress as a whole take their toll, we still have our health for the most part, and we have each other, and while we may have been a bit distant at times lost in our individual thoughts and worries, we've never wavered in our love and faith in each other.
We hit our deepest low in November when we were turned down for social assistance. However, The Feychild's application was approved (hers being separate as she's an adult now, and technically qualifies for Room and Board), and then shortly thereafter I found part time work. The business at the Market wasn't quite as grand for the holiday season as we'd hoped, but it was steady and it was growing, even if not in leaps and bounds, and there are still a few pieces on the table for January so we're hoping it continues to progress. All that and another helping hand from the parents (hopefully for the last time) and we had a more comfortable holiday than we thought we would, and we start 2015 feeling a bit like we've turned a corner and it may just get better from here.
Cautiously optimistic.
A friend recently said, her only New Year's Resolution in 2014 was to finish the year healthier than when it started, and would be putting the same Resolution forward for 2015. That seems right to me ... that all I really want out of 2015 is to end it in a better place then we're starting it.
Ain't no miracle bein' born
People doin' it everyday
Ain't no miracle growin' old
People just roll that way
So it goes like it goes and the river flows
And time it rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
Bless the child of the workin' man
She knows too soon who she is
And bless the hands of a workin' man
He knows his soul is his
So it goes like it goes and the river flows
And time it rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
Yeh it goes like it goes like the river flows
And time keeps rollin' on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone
David L. Shire / Norman Gimbel
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Another Market Day has come and gone, and this time of year root veg is the name of the game. Admttedly this past week has been unseasonably warm but it's still chill enough to crave thick rich warm soups.
So when Canadian Gardening's weekly email came across my desktop with Fall Root Vegetable Soup well it just filled a natural niche and even the idea of it was emotionally satisfying.
The secret to it's lovely heart and soul warming flavour is roasting the vegetables first, giving it that deep sweet caramel flavour that's so lovely in roasted root vegetables. Of course Market fresh vegetables certainly help! Our local veg seller, Riverview Produce Farms, had it all, sweet parsnips, carrots, lovely squash, turnips, sweet potato, celeriac (aka celery root). The roasted root vegetable is enhanced beautifully by the south east asian flavour profile of ginger, garlic, cumin, and coconut milk. For the vegans among you, you can easily switch out the chicken stock for vegetable stock
Definitely warming my winter evening, with left overs for lunch in the afternoon!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
So when Canadian Gardening's weekly email came across my desktop with Fall Root Vegetable Soup well it just filled a natural niche and even the idea of it was emotionally satisfying.
The secret to it's lovely heart and soul warming flavour is roasting the vegetables first, giving it that deep sweet caramel flavour that's so lovely in roasted root vegetables. Of course Market fresh vegetables certainly help! Our local veg seller, Riverview Produce Farms, had it all, sweet parsnips, carrots, lovely squash, turnips, sweet potato, celeriac (aka celery root). The roasted root vegetable is enhanced beautifully by the south east asian flavour profile of ginger, garlic, cumin, and coconut milk. For the vegans among you, you can easily switch out the chicken stock for vegetable stock
Definitely warming my winter evening, with left overs for lunch in the afternoon!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Something to make you smile....
Dec. 7th, 2014 11:16 amI don't get to meet and greet pilots, or hang out at airports, or even hug the puppies or see the smiling faces...
But this news story from CBC Ottawa, tells all the reasons I love the work I do for Pilots N Paws Canada so much, and the difference it makes to lives.
PETSCORT might not be quite as glamourous, but we make a difference :)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
But this news story from CBC Ottawa, tells all the reasons I love the work I do for Pilots N Paws Canada so much, and the difference it makes to lives.
PETSCORT might not be quite as glamourous, but we make a difference :)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
A plug for your nickle..
Dec. 2nd, 2014 05:53 pmThe marvellous organization I work with - Pilots N Paws Canada is asking for your support in the Aviva Fund Challenge ....
15 days of voting, you have one vote each day...
Help us help the animals?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
15 days of voting, you have one vote each day...
Help us help the animals?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Well now...
Nov. 25th, 2014 11:54 amI know it's been over a month since I last updated..... it might be a while more.
We are, now, as broke as I've ever been. We've made every effort over the last 2 years to keep this day from coming, apparently THAT has worked against us. When we got to the point we were desperate enough to apply for government assistance, we've been rejected.
Back in March I cashed in what there was of my 10 yrs of RRSP contributions. $16,000. Half of that went to Australia to pay off mounting credit cards that had been keeping us going for 6 months before that. Yes, it was a bit of a shell game with the cash, but it was one way to keep the wolves from the door and I never expected to have to explain what we were doing. But because those explanations are inadequate, our application for assistance has been rejected. They suggested James apply for an Australian pension scheme he is ineligible for.
There is $2.52 in the bank.
The Feychild, as an adult will be receiving a small cheque every month as a 'boarder', that will be sufficient to buy the supplies James needs for the orders he has outstanding, and we'll have to make an executive decision to spend some of it on more time for my cell, and to reinstate the phone.... we need connectivity if there's any hope of me finding work ... ever. We might be able to keep the lights on and diesel in the oil tank if the china cabinet sells. Or any of the other pieces we have up for sale. We have about $300 worth of market orders to deliver.
I don't know what, if anything, we're going to be able to do to continue with the web hosting, but we'll keep the lights on here as long as we can, we owe that much to the good folks of the comic community whose donations back in June kept us going. If you are at all inclined to order something special, custom, or bespoke for a loved one for the holidays, we'd be very pleased for the business. ( http://www.novascotialaser.ca )
We haven't hit the end of our rope, but it's as close as anyone ever would want to be.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
We are, now, as broke as I've ever been. We've made every effort over the last 2 years to keep this day from coming, apparently THAT has worked against us. When we got to the point we were desperate enough to apply for government assistance, we've been rejected.
Back in March I cashed in what there was of my 10 yrs of RRSP contributions. $16,000. Half of that went to Australia to pay off mounting credit cards that had been keeping us going for 6 months before that. Yes, it was a bit of a shell game with the cash, but it was one way to keep the wolves from the door and I never expected to have to explain what we were doing. But because those explanations are inadequate, our application for assistance has been rejected. They suggested James apply for an Australian pension scheme he is ineligible for.
There is $2.52 in the bank.
The Feychild, as an adult will be receiving a small cheque every month as a 'boarder', that will be sufficient to buy the supplies James needs for the orders he has outstanding, and we'll have to make an executive decision to spend some of it on more time for my cell, and to reinstate the phone.... we need connectivity if there's any hope of me finding work ... ever. We might be able to keep the lights on and diesel in the oil tank if the china cabinet sells. Or any of the other pieces we have up for sale. We have about $300 worth of market orders to deliver.
I don't know what, if anything, we're going to be able to do to continue with the web hosting, but we'll keep the lights on here as long as we can, we owe that much to the good folks of the comic community whose donations back in June kept us going. If you are at all inclined to order something special, custom, or bespoke for a loved one for the holidays, we'd be very pleased for the business. ( http://www.novascotialaser.ca )
We haven't hit the end of our rope, but it's as close as anyone ever would want to be.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Mornings with CBC Radio 3
Oct. 17th, 2014 03:11 pmheheh.... I *love* this...
The David Bowie Paper Doll
If that doesn't float your boat, try a little Freddie Mercury in a Habs Hat
But in other news.... I feel old.
Looked this morning at the full line up for the Halifax Pop Explosion: "The biggest music event east of Montreal kicks off next week, and features a solid mixture of big-name international touring acts, beloved Canadian staples and interesting up-and-comers."
And I don't recognize a single name on the list.
<--------- old phart
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
The David Bowie Paper Doll
If that doesn't float your boat, try a little Freddie Mercury in a Habs Hat
But in other news.... I feel old.
Looked this morning at the full line up for the Halifax Pop Explosion: "The biggest music event east of Montreal kicks off next week, and features a solid mixture of big-name international touring acts, beloved Canadian staples and interesting up-and-comers."
And I don't recognize a single name on the list.
<--------- old phart
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Fingers crossed...
Oct. 16th, 2014 07:24 pmI think the interview this morning went well ... but then I'm never *sure* about these things.
Despite the familiarity with the questions, I did struggle with at least one key point "Can you give an example of a time when you exceeded expectations?" "Umm no, I have exceptionally high expectations of myself, I set the bar pretty high, I achieve what I expect of myself. I'm pretty sure those achievements exceed other people's expectations, but since those are rarely spelled out - I'm sure I exceeded them, but I'm not sure what their expectations were since I know mine are different that that." I definitely struggled trying to find the words for that one... same as "Can you name a time when you set a goal for yourself, and how you went about meeting that goal?" Well bugga. What I said was, "I'm always constantly setting challenges and goals for myself - every day strive towards things, it's what I do.... this week I decided I was going to learn to hand code drop down menus - not a big thing, sure I could have downloaded a widget or.... cut and pasted a bit of code from someone else, but I set out to learn it, and in 24 hours I had that puppy working." What I should have said was, "17 yrs ago I decided I needed a future, a career, not just a job ... I set out to learn to fly and become a professional pilot - that never happened, but along the way I learned a great deal more and it led me into a challenging and fruitful career I am really good at" It's hard to give those sorts of examples because I just don't think of it in those terms.
There were 12 questions, in total, I think I did OK on most of them, it's a scored system (60% is a pass - I'd find it hard to believe I didn't at least do that well, but then again I wouldn't find it hard to believe that one of the other 3 candidates did better either.... or at least 'smoother' answers.
But I enjoyed meeting them all, and the HR person was quite personable and chatty and asked a lot of interesting 'aside' questions about airline dispatch and what the heck I was doing in Corberrie NS.
Hope springs eternal.
Spent the rest of the day futzing with malwarebytes support - still trying to figure out what went wrong with the latest update install......
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Despite the familiarity with the questions, I did struggle with at least one key point "Can you give an example of a time when you exceeded expectations?" "Umm no, I have exceptionally high expectations of myself, I set the bar pretty high, I achieve what I expect of myself. I'm pretty sure those achievements exceed other people's expectations, but since those are rarely spelled out - I'm sure I exceeded them, but I'm not sure what their expectations were since I know mine are different that that." I definitely struggled trying to find the words for that one... same as "Can you name a time when you set a goal for yourself, and how you went about meeting that goal?" Well bugga. What I said was, "I'm always constantly setting challenges and goals for myself - every day strive towards things, it's what I do.... this week I decided I was going to learn to hand code drop down menus - not a big thing, sure I could have downloaded a widget or.... cut and pasted a bit of code from someone else, but I set out to learn it, and in 24 hours I had that puppy working." What I should have said was, "17 yrs ago I decided I needed a future, a career, not just a job ... I set out to learn to fly and become a professional pilot - that never happened, but along the way I learned a great deal more and it led me into a challenging and fruitful career I am really good at" It's hard to give those sorts of examples because I just don't think of it in those terms.
There were 12 questions, in total, I think I did OK on most of them, it's a scored system (60% is a pass - I'd find it hard to believe I didn't at least do that well, but then again I wouldn't find it hard to believe that one of the other 3 candidates did better either.... or at least 'smoother' answers.
But I enjoyed meeting them all, and the HR person was quite personable and chatty and asked a lot of interesting 'aside' questions about airline dispatch and what the heck I was doing in Corberrie NS.
Hope springs eternal.
Spent the rest of the day futzing with malwarebytes support - still trying to figure out what went wrong with the latest update install......
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Ooooooooooo and I almost forgot...
There's a shiny new website... Arthcwtch is home, right now it's the hub of all our various activities, as it grows we'll add friends and neighbours and interesting things in.
(and I'm terribly proud of myself for learning how to hand code drop down menus with css ... yeah W3C counts 26 problems - I suspect that's the use of tables for separation, I'll fix it. But for the moment - it's shiny! and I'm hella proud of myself *preens*)
... and
This is the latest property I'm dreaming about. Barns and workshops and garages galore which I need more than I need house space. House is smaller - easier to clean without being tiny. And acres and acres of fields for sheep and alpacas and heeland coos. And beautiful beach ocean frontage for my beloved dog. All for an exceptionally good price - even for Nova Scotia.
Now I think there should be pie with the soup....
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
There's a shiny new website... Arthcwtch is home, right now it's the hub of all our various activities, as it grows we'll add friends and neighbours and interesting things in.
(and I'm terribly proud of myself for learning how to hand code drop down menus with css ... yeah W3C counts 26 problems - I suspect that's the use of tables for separation, I'll fix it. But for the moment - it's shiny! and I'm hella proud of myself *preens*)
... and
This is the latest property I'm dreaming about. Barns and workshops and garages galore which I need more than I need house space. House is smaller - easier to clean without being tiny. And acres and acres of fields for sheep and alpacas and heeland coos. And beautiful beach ocean frontage for my beloved dog. All for an exceptionally good price - even for Nova Scotia.
Now I think there should be pie with the soup....
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Polar Bear Season - the 2014 Edition
Oct. 15th, 2014 05:25 pmWell life continues on here.... fall has arrived, as usual I'm moody and melancholy, but not in a bad way, just in a grey fall being reflective way. Yep, it's Polar Bear Season again.
Usually major life changes, switches in direction, begin formulating in September and fruition happens the first week of October. Of course there's no hard fast rule about that. For which I'm very glad. I got the call yesterday for an interview for the job I mentioned a couple weeks back. I know I'm qualified, I know I'd be good at it, I know my experience in airline dispatch isn't all that far a throw away from "Dept of Transportation and Infrastructure Base Person I" - snow plow dispatch. Despite my glowing resumé and experience and excellent references - well there's a lot of very qualified people, with experience and references around these days. I just hope for the best. With any luck at least one of the interviewers will be one of the same people from the 3 person panel in Shelburne last November and they'll remember me fondly - that interview went well as well.
A friend turned me on to a possible copy writing gig, sent off an email regarding that late last Friday - that too would be a great thing if it pans out. Lots of crossed fingers.
Spent the morning dealing with complaining......
Complaining to Malwarebytes that the latest updated version is broken, that was a handful of hoops to jump through.
Complaining to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada that the information they gave me over the phone yesterday regarding my dilemma with Facebook doesn't entirely apply. I suspect I'm spending a lot of effort making myself unpopular with 'Barry' and I won't get anywhere, but I am trying. There are a few people on Facebook I deeply miss, had a quick chat with one of them last night via James's account, and then emailed her this morning, there's also one of my sisters, as much as Facebook was pretty much my only contact with her, she didn't post often, and its limited in it's information. I tried emailing her, but she's had some issues of her own and her mailbox is full and emails are bouncing. I hope she's ok. What does come through from her - James will let me know.
I missed making an appointment with the provincial social services office today - admittedly this is something I've been putting off, avoiding, generally burying my head in the sand about for a while now. But we cannot continue to avoid it. Even if the job interview goes well tomorrow, it'll still be weeks before we see any money from it, and frankly I can live without the phone, and the credit card bills are what they are, the market is providing us with sufficient to eat - not well, but every day, so we've avoided it, but I'm starting to fear we may lose the power - and that'd be a huge problem. Technically The Feychild should be getting a disability payment at the very least anyway. Still I keep putting it off one more day.
The stress has had it moments of taking it's toll on James and I, but in the end, ultimately I think, I hope, it might all be good for us ... it's certainly poked us both in some very tender places, and we are trying to pull together more than pull apart so I think we'll survive this.
A little change in luck, a sold snow blower, the wood stove selling, the property in Newfoundland finally finding a buyer...... it won't take much to turn things around. We're starting to make orders at the market, and *do* live in hope of one day seeing those 100-150 orders a year... maybe more. If we can do that, and I can be working again, we'll find our way through to the other side of this. After all .. it's only money and I've been broke before. What it won't break is our love and commitment to each other.
We did get a marvellous Thanksgiving dinner - thanks to a little help from James' parents, and the market, and a good week on the tables. And left over turkey is holding us over this week well. They're still irate with us, but we're doing all we can, can't do any more than that.
I'll make some soup for tonight - The Feychild's request, there's fresh bread to go with it. I may be tired of complaining and tired of struggling, but we're battening down the hatches and holding on, it may be a long hard winter, or maybe we'll catch a break, but whatever happens we have each other, and we have you gentle reader. So nothing is really all that awful.
Here ... have a puppy.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Usually major life changes, switches in direction, begin formulating in September and fruition happens the first week of October. Of course there's no hard fast rule about that. For which I'm very glad. I got the call yesterday for an interview for the job I mentioned a couple weeks back. I know I'm qualified, I know I'd be good at it, I know my experience in airline dispatch isn't all that far a throw away from "Dept of Transportation and Infrastructure Base Person I" - snow plow dispatch. Despite my glowing resumé and experience and excellent references - well there's a lot of very qualified people, with experience and references around these days. I just hope for the best. With any luck at least one of the interviewers will be one of the same people from the 3 person panel in Shelburne last November and they'll remember me fondly - that interview went well as well.
A friend turned me on to a possible copy writing gig, sent off an email regarding that late last Friday - that too would be a great thing if it pans out. Lots of crossed fingers.
Spent the morning dealing with complaining......
Complaining to Malwarebytes that the latest updated version is broken, that was a handful of hoops to jump through.
Complaining to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada that the information they gave me over the phone yesterday regarding my dilemma with Facebook doesn't entirely apply. I suspect I'm spending a lot of effort making myself unpopular with 'Barry' and I won't get anywhere, but I am trying. There are a few people on Facebook I deeply miss, had a quick chat with one of them last night via James's account, and then emailed her this morning, there's also one of my sisters, as much as Facebook was pretty much my only contact with her, she didn't post often, and its limited in it's information. I tried emailing her, but she's had some issues of her own and her mailbox is full and emails are bouncing. I hope she's ok. What does come through from her - James will let me know.
I missed making an appointment with the provincial social services office today - admittedly this is something I've been putting off, avoiding, generally burying my head in the sand about for a while now. But we cannot continue to avoid it. Even if the job interview goes well tomorrow, it'll still be weeks before we see any money from it, and frankly I can live without the phone, and the credit card bills are what they are, the market is providing us with sufficient to eat - not well, but every day, so we've avoided it, but I'm starting to fear we may lose the power - and that'd be a huge problem. Technically The Feychild should be getting a disability payment at the very least anyway. Still I keep putting it off one more day.
The stress has had it moments of taking it's toll on James and I, but in the end, ultimately I think, I hope, it might all be good for us ... it's certainly poked us both in some very tender places, and we are trying to pull together more than pull apart so I think we'll survive this.
A little change in luck, a sold snow blower, the wood stove selling, the property in Newfoundland finally finding a buyer...... it won't take much to turn things around. We're starting to make orders at the market, and *do* live in hope of one day seeing those 100-150 orders a year... maybe more. If we can do that, and I can be working again, we'll find our way through to the other side of this. After all .. it's only money and I've been broke before. What it won't break is our love and commitment to each other.
We did get a marvellous Thanksgiving dinner - thanks to a little help from James' parents, and the market, and a good week on the tables. And left over turkey is holding us over this week well. They're still irate with us, but we're doing all we can, can't do any more than that.
I'll make some soup for tonight - The Feychild's request, there's fresh bread to go with it. I may be tired of complaining and tired of struggling, but we're battening down the hatches and holding on, it may be a long hard winter, or maybe we'll catch a break, but whatever happens we have each other, and we have you gentle reader. So nothing is really all that awful.
Here ... have a puppy.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Market Day...
Oct. 12th, 2014 10:15 amOur local farmer's market isn't the biggest, but it's a bright vibrant place with great vendors and a nice selection of offerings.
Farmer's Markets are usually the first thing we check out when we're new to an area, or even just visiting... so we've been heading out to the market every few weeks since we first arrived at Arthcwtch. Is it any surprise that one of the first friends we made was with chocolate seller Weez Coburn - Carino Confections?
A few weeks back, we decided to give Fractal Coffee a go at the market. Honestly we'd been holding back some because we weren't terribly sure how well the high tech laser crafted arts we were doing would fit into the general farmer's market theme of handicrafts. We shouldn't have worried, we were welcomed with open arms and joyous greets, and a few weeks in we do feel like market 'family'. Moreso, the work is being well received by market patrons, the general wares out on the table aren't flying off, but it's introducing us to a wider community and the custom orders are starting to come, and it's starting to build. We have a goal of 200 orders a year, or 15-17 orders per month for novascotialasers.ca to be self sufficient. We're still a long way to go to that goal, but we've definitely made some inroads. (As an aside - yeah I know we have too many names / domains - but no one understood the Fractal Coffee thing, and the Café Newf thing was a bit of an inside joke. Eventually novascotialasers.ca will encompass all the laser/technical crafts, and be connected to Arthcwtch which is Home and encompasses all that we do; laser crafts, and Ocean's Edge home crafts, and veggie growing and baking and fabric crafts, blogging that I'm doing.)
This week's Market Day treat was Roasted Tomatoes and Goat Cheese:
Fresh cherry tomatoes from the veggies stand cut in half, laid cut side up in a non reactive pan (steel or porcelain is best - cast iron or aluminum will impart a metal taste to your tomatoes). Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with course sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, a bit of fresh thyme, a few whole leaves of basil (from our own herb gardens) and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.
Roast in a 400°F oven for 15 mins.
Allow to cool slightly.
Serve with kalamata olives, and good goat cheese (from our favourite cheese seller!). This week we had a lovely feta marinaded in olive oil, rosemary and cranberry. And chunks of good bread to sop up the juices.
Personally I like to toss the tomatoes and olives and cheese together and let the favours mix and marinate together, others prefer to set the elements out on their own. Either way, a delicious and delightful salad on the side for grilled or roasted meats, or as a nibbly appetizer before dinner.
And yes, it all got scarfed down before I could get pictures.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Farmer's Markets are usually the first thing we check out when we're new to an area, or even just visiting... so we've been heading out to the market every few weeks since we first arrived at Arthcwtch. Is it any surprise that one of the first friends we made was with chocolate seller Weez Coburn - Carino Confections?
A few weeks back, we decided to give Fractal Coffee a go at the market. Honestly we'd been holding back some because we weren't terribly sure how well the high tech laser crafted arts we were doing would fit into the general farmer's market theme of handicrafts. We shouldn't have worried, we were welcomed with open arms and joyous greets, and a few weeks in we do feel like market 'family'. Moreso, the work is being well received by market patrons, the general wares out on the table aren't flying off, but it's introducing us to a wider community and the custom orders are starting to come, and it's starting to build. We have a goal of 200 orders a year, or 15-17 orders per month for novascotialasers.ca to be self sufficient. We're still a long way to go to that goal, but we've definitely made some inroads. (As an aside - yeah I know we have too many names / domains - but no one understood the Fractal Coffee thing, and the Café Newf thing was a bit of an inside joke. Eventually novascotialasers.ca will encompass all the laser/technical crafts, and be connected to Arthcwtch which is Home and encompasses all that we do; laser crafts, and Ocean's Edge home crafts, and veggie growing and baking and fabric crafts, blogging that I'm doing.)
This week's Market Day treat was Roasted Tomatoes and Goat Cheese:
Fresh cherry tomatoes from the veggies stand cut in half, laid cut side up in a non reactive pan (steel or porcelain is best - cast iron or aluminum will impart a metal taste to your tomatoes). Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with course sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, a bit of fresh thyme, a few whole leaves of basil (from our own herb gardens) and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.
Roast in a 400°F oven for 15 mins.
Allow to cool slightly.
Serve with kalamata olives, and good goat cheese (from our favourite cheese seller!). This week we had a lovely feta marinaded in olive oil, rosemary and cranberry. And chunks of good bread to sop up the juices.
Personally I like to toss the tomatoes and olives and cheese together and let the favours mix and marinate together, others prefer to set the elements out on their own. Either way, a delicious and delightful salad on the side for grilled or roasted meats, or as a nibbly appetizer before dinner.
And yes, it all got scarfed down before I could get pictures.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Hurrrmmmmm....
Oct. 10th, 2014 11:07 amI suspect someone's internet prank has gotten a little out of hand?
At least that's what it smells like to me.
Amaruk Wilderness: Questions raised about company at centre of anti-Christian attack
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
At least that's what it smells like to me.
Amaruk Wilderness: Questions raised about company at centre of anti-Christian attack
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
An artist and their tools....
Oct. 9th, 2014 02:33 pmDigging out a couple old entries that somehow got saved in 'Drafts' but never actually published.
This one on 'stoves' got saved for wanting to add what some of these much desired items are...
Every artist has a thing about their tools ... it took me a while for it to 'click' and for me to understand my own madness for the odd things I collect....
I have things about paper, pens, file folders, stationary, coloured post it notes, markers, flags, ... this makes sense I'm a writer, and I'm an organizer ... the tools of that lend the promise of art to come, so I fondle them, moon over them a little .... sniffle a bit as I put stuff back on the shelf and wander away. It's a bit weird, but it makes sense.
My similar love affair for kitchen wares made less sense to me. However, I think, perhaps, it's still about the 'art', art is always, just a little bit obsessive. The culinary arts, appealing to our sense of taste and smell and touch, and appealing to our lizard survival brain, is no different from the other arts in that sense, perhaps even more so. All hold the promise of food, and art, to come, and the comfort of lack of starvation shouldn't be discluded. Little shiny enamel Le Cruset pots, endless cases of glassware, and dinner plates and tea pots sighing wistfully at the Portmeiron Botanic Garden catalogue and...
Stoves.
I have such a hard time with this one.
I don't know how many of you might know artists intimately well, but they can do really silly things. I knew a keyboard player once who couldn't resist buying a the best new keyboard whenever his will power broke down and he wandered into a music shop. Including spending the mortgage payment. It cost him his marriage. I've watched guitar players moon over vintage instruments. Luckily for my husband, I can pretty much resist going quite that far. If only because my sickness is THAT expensive and we don't have THAT kind of money. And really how many stoves does any ONE cook need? But like any artist beautiful tools, well crafted tools, that promise of art to come; the lure is strong.
Most cooks, even professional ones, have ONE stove, one cooking medium they love. Alas for me I flirt like an unfaithful lover from one "be still my beating heart" to another and back again. For the moment, its an affair like a teenaged girl with a movie magazine, as I post picture after picture of my various changing heart throbs on the office wall. Harmless enough.
Alas the day will come when I have more cash in my hands than good sense and we'll redo this kitchen - not for resale, but for ME. This is a proposition that scares my husband.
This is proposition scares me because I will have to make a choice ... or choices.
My Lunenburg Foundry Wood Burning Peacock Cookstove - honestly I've always had a love affair with wood burning cookstoves. One of the joys of wood fired is what it does for baked goods. While not quite a wood burning bake oven (as in brick in the fireplace), it's still a damp heat that is amazing for breads! I got a *hella* good deal on this when I bought it. While the nickle trims need replating and the enamel could use some touch ups the interior workings - the oven and firebox have all be factory refurbished. (the foundry only quit making them in the 80's, and will still do repairs and refurbishment - the owner himself had a love affair with these stoves and collected them for a while)
Magic Chef 6300. These gas burning behemoths were the stove of the pre-war era. Big and Beautiful as a 6 burner model, they are just *sick* in the 8 burner version. But oh my love! 8 burners, 2 ovens, 2 thermostatically controlled broilers, and a warming cabinet? Gas is the preferred cooking medium of the pros. Yes, I tend to babble about this one.
Aga - 4 Oven
Aga stoves have long been popular in the U.K., but less common on this side of the pond. Beautiful cast iron heavy weights, in beautiful enamel finishes, they combine all the things I love about wood cookstoves, with the convenience of gas fired. Like wood stoves, these are 'always' on, and you control the temperature by where you cook. Available in 2 oven, 4 oven, and companion models, they can also be had with electric cooktops - but why? Also it's nice that there's available matching companion kitchen pieces. I do love these - for the jewel colours, the warmth and solidity they bring to a farm house kitchen. Added advantage, you're not futzing about with antique workings and whether or not your insurance agent will still talk to you. Me? I love it in the deep cobalt blue, but I'll post the ivory picture so you can see the details.
And then there's this.
There are no words for this. An unbelievable giant of a stove, wood and coal fired, out of some classic hotel somewhere in Europe, this was wood/coal burning stove of the professional chefs and Grand Homes of Europe. Exceptionally rare (the last one found made the national news in Britain). I will never in a million years have the room, or use, or be able to find and afford such a treasure, but oh my word, it's lovely to look at and imagine.
Last but not least, as a serious cook I can't really talk about Kitchen Appliance P0rn, without lusting over 48" and 60" pro, and prosumer ranges and cooktops and wall ovens like Wolfs and Garlands and GE Monograms. Although, I've been surprised the prosumers have not been well rated. I suspect it has something to do with the average home not having the 3 phase electrical systems that professional kitchens do.
Fortunately my tastes in Antique refrigerators is a lot less complex:
McCray and Fridgidair Oak Commercial Units - 6 ft tall, 7 feet long, I want 3 of them - one to be refurbished as a fridge unit, one to be refurbished as a freezer unit, and one to be refurbished as a pantry. And maybe a small one to be refitted as a wine cabinet. Fortunately these (and similar animals like the Banta) can be had for a not ungodly amount of money and while not common, aren't too hard to find.
Next up - vintage enamel, pyrex and ceramic dishware..........
Naw... we'd be here till a week from next Christmas if I tried to write that one up!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
This one on 'stoves' got saved for wanting to add what some of these much desired items are...
Every artist has a thing about their tools ... it took me a while for it to 'click' and for me to understand my own madness for the odd things I collect....
I have things about paper, pens, file folders, stationary, coloured post it notes, markers, flags, ... this makes sense I'm a writer, and I'm an organizer ... the tools of that lend the promise of art to come, so I fondle them, moon over them a little .... sniffle a bit as I put stuff back on the shelf and wander away. It's a bit weird, but it makes sense.
My similar love affair for kitchen wares made less sense to me. However, I think, perhaps, it's still about the 'art', art is always, just a little bit obsessive. The culinary arts, appealing to our sense of taste and smell and touch, and appealing to our lizard survival brain, is no different from the other arts in that sense, perhaps even more so. All hold the promise of food, and art, to come, and the comfort of lack of starvation shouldn't be discluded. Little shiny enamel Le Cruset pots, endless cases of glassware, and dinner plates and tea pots sighing wistfully at the Portmeiron Botanic Garden catalogue and...
Stoves.
I have such a hard time with this one.
I don't know how many of you might know artists intimately well, but they can do really silly things. I knew a keyboard player once who couldn't resist buying a the best new keyboard whenever his will power broke down and he wandered into a music shop. Including spending the mortgage payment. It cost him his marriage. I've watched guitar players moon over vintage instruments. Luckily for my husband, I can pretty much resist going quite that far. If only because my sickness is THAT expensive and we don't have THAT kind of money. And really how many stoves does any ONE cook need? But like any artist beautiful tools, well crafted tools, that promise of art to come; the lure is strong.
Most cooks, even professional ones, have ONE stove, one cooking medium they love. Alas for me I flirt like an unfaithful lover from one "be still my beating heart" to another and back again. For the moment, its an affair like a teenaged girl with a movie magazine, as I post picture after picture of my various changing heart throbs on the office wall. Harmless enough.
Alas the day will come when I have more cash in my hands than good sense and we'll redo this kitchen - not for resale, but for ME. This is a proposition that scares my husband.
This is proposition scares me because I will have to make a choice ... or choices.
My Lunenburg Foundry Wood Burning Peacock Cookstove - honestly I've always had a love affair with wood burning cookstoves. One of the joys of wood fired is what it does for baked goods. While not quite a wood burning bake oven (as in brick in the fireplace), it's still a damp heat that is amazing for breads! I got a *hella* good deal on this when I bought it. While the nickle trims need replating and the enamel could use some touch ups the interior workings - the oven and firebox have all be factory refurbished. (the foundry only quit making them in the 80's, and will still do repairs and refurbishment - the owner himself had a love affair with these stoves and collected them for a while)
Magic Chef 6300. These gas burning behemoths were the stove of the pre-war era. Big and Beautiful as a 6 burner model, they are just *sick* in the 8 burner version. But oh my love! 8 burners, 2 ovens, 2 thermostatically controlled broilers, and a warming cabinet? Gas is the preferred cooking medium of the pros. Yes, I tend to babble about this one.
Aga - 4 Oven
Aga stoves have long been popular in the U.K., but less common on this side of the pond. Beautiful cast iron heavy weights, in beautiful enamel finishes, they combine all the things I love about wood cookstoves, with the convenience of gas fired. Like wood stoves, these are 'always' on, and you control the temperature by where you cook. Available in 2 oven, 4 oven, and companion models, they can also be had with electric cooktops - but why? Also it's nice that there's available matching companion kitchen pieces. I do love these - for the jewel colours, the warmth and solidity they bring to a farm house kitchen. Added advantage, you're not futzing about with antique workings and whether or not your insurance agent will still talk to you. Me? I love it in the deep cobalt blue, but I'll post the ivory picture so you can see the details.
And then there's this.
There are no words for this. An unbelievable giant of a stove, wood and coal fired, out of some classic hotel somewhere in Europe, this was wood/coal burning stove of the professional chefs and Grand Homes of Europe. Exceptionally rare (the last one found made the national news in Britain). I will never in a million years have the room, or use, or be able to find and afford such a treasure, but oh my word, it's lovely to look at and imagine.
Last but not least, as a serious cook I can't really talk about Kitchen Appliance P0rn, without lusting over 48" and 60" pro, and prosumer ranges and cooktops and wall ovens like Wolfs and Garlands and GE Monograms. Although, I've been surprised the prosumers have not been well rated. I suspect it has something to do with the average home not having the 3 phase electrical systems that professional kitchens do.
Fortunately my tastes in Antique refrigerators is a lot less complex:
McCray and Fridgidair Oak Commercial Units - 6 ft tall, 7 feet long, I want 3 of them - one to be refurbished as a fridge unit, one to be refurbished as a freezer unit, and one to be refurbished as a pantry. And maybe a small one to be refitted as a wine cabinet. Fortunately these (and similar animals like the Banta) can be had for a not ungodly amount of money and while not common, aren't too hard to find.
Next up - vintage enamel, pyrex and ceramic dishware..........
Naw... we'd be here till a week from next Christmas if I tried to write that one up!
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Your support is deeply appreciated
Oct. 7th, 2014 12:21 amPilots N Paws Canada - that amazing organization I work for - connects rescues and shelters together with pilots willing to volunteer their time and aircraft to help transport rescue animals in need.... many of them
Now we're reaching out with a new project - and we're hoping that you can help us make it happen by voting for us every day in this year's Aviva Community Fund competition.
Your support is deeply appreciated by us, but even more so by the rescues, and the animals you help us help.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Now we're reaching out with a new project - and we're hoping that you can help us make it happen by voting for us every day in this year's Aviva Community Fund competition.
Your support is deeply appreciated by us, but even more so by the rescues, and the animals you help us help.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
50% of the world's beers are brewed by six conglomerates. It just keeps getting more and more homologous.
Fortunately, the nice thing about beer becoming more and more, dare I say it, 'hipster' is that one can now get craft brews, small local brewery, micro-brewery and artisan beers far more easily. No longer confined to certain areas around Berkeley, craft and artisan beverages can be found pretty much anywhere and everywhere. Their popularity has even convinced the 'Big Boys' to start trying to crack the artisan markets. I have mixed feelings about this. I am really not terribly thrilled about smaller localized breweries being bought out by the larger conglomerates, although I can understand why and how a small brewer might do so. After all, there will always be a new, inspired craft brewer willing to come along and fill the vacuum and perhaps it will lead to more and better choices from the mass market breweries. However, I suspect not. Or at least not the artisan beers one might want. Smaller breweries can afford to cater to niche markets of particular flavour profiles, mass market brewers need to appeal to much wider markets and one ends up with that same mass production middle of the road, limited selection, of flavours.
Brewing is an art. I like art. Support local artisans. And maybe find a brew worth paying $5 / bottle for
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Fortunately, the nice thing about beer becoming more and more, dare I say it, 'hipster' is that one can now get craft brews, small local brewery, micro-brewery and artisan beers far more easily. No longer confined to certain areas around Berkeley, craft and artisan beverages can be found pretty much anywhere and everywhere. Their popularity has even convinced the 'Big Boys' to start trying to crack the artisan markets. I have mixed feelings about this. I am really not terribly thrilled about smaller localized breweries being bought out by the larger conglomerates, although I can understand why and how a small brewer might do so. After all, there will always be a new, inspired craft brewer willing to come along and fill the vacuum and perhaps it will lead to more and better choices from the mass market breweries. However, I suspect not. Or at least not the artisan beers one might want. Smaller breweries can afford to cater to niche markets of particular flavour profiles, mass market brewers need to appeal to much wider markets and one ends up with that same mass production middle of the road, limited selection, of flavours.
Brewing is an art. I like art. Support local artisans. And maybe find a brew worth paying $5 / bottle for
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Thinking about work
Sep. 30th, 2014 02:32 pmDoing the job hunt thing this morning via various online job boards... a weekly/twice weekly thing
Every so often I do a troll through my old aviation job haunts - thing is, after 18 months of serious job searching, a goodly number of very promising interviews and nadda.... well I wonder sometimes if it isn't time to go and rewrite my dispatch exams, and start applying for dispatch jobs again. It was after all - the one thing I was truly outstandingly good at.
Writing the exams again, applying again, not such a big deal, but there are ... issues. It's a little tough explaining the 4.5 yr gap in my resume, it's a bit tough starting all over again at the bottom, it's a bit tough selling that I'm willing to start all over again at the bottom after having been Chief Dispatcher.
Then the internal thought processes - am I willing to leave my husband and family and commute (probably only sporadically) across the country for .. aviation industry wages? There was a time 15 yrs ago I was excited and enthused about the airline industry I loved the work, I loved the idea of moving 5000 miles to start out on this grand and glorious and exciting path. I'm more tired and jaded than I was in 1999. A spark of that old enthusiasm still burns somewhere in me, but the industry beat enough of that fire out of me... I do wonder if there is any place for me in the airline world anymore. That fire also earned me a reputation (at least at the last position, and on some aviation forums) of being 'difficult', because I believed in doing things right, because I believed in standards; not just regulatory ones, but personal ones as well. And apparently pilots thought I was damned uppity because I believed that co-authority actually meant something.
The ember still burns, but I'm not sure I have it in me to try and rebuild that old flame into a new fire.
Sometimes, something is just past, and done, and it didn't work out the way you expected, and there is no going back and 'fixing' it.
OTOH - I really need a job. But is that reason enough to try and revive a dead career and up end my family and stir up all that old 'stuff'?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Every so often I do a troll through my old aviation job haunts - thing is, after 18 months of serious job searching, a goodly number of very promising interviews and nadda.... well I wonder sometimes if it isn't time to go and rewrite my dispatch exams, and start applying for dispatch jobs again. It was after all - the one thing I was truly outstandingly good at.
Writing the exams again, applying again, not such a big deal, but there are ... issues. It's a little tough explaining the 4.5 yr gap in my resume, it's a bit tough starting all over again at the bottom, it's a bit tough selling that I'm willing to start all over again at the bottom after having been Chief Dispatcher.
Then the internal thought processes - am I willing to leave my husband and family and commute (probably only sporadically) across the country for .. aviation industry wages? There was a time 15 yrs ago I was excited and enthused about the airline industry I loved the work, I loved the idea of moving 5000 miles to start out on this grand and glorious and exciting path. I'm more tired and jaded than I was in 1999. A spark of that old enthusiasm still burns somewhere in me, but the industry beat enough of that fire out of me... I do wonder if there is any place for me in the airline world anymore. That fire also earned me a reputation (at least at the last position, and on some aviation forums) of being 'difficult', because I believed in doing things right, because I believed in standards; not just regulatory ones, but personal ones as well. And apparently pilots thought I was damned uppity because I believed that co-authority actually meant something.
The ember still burns, but I'm not sure I have it in me to try and rebuild that old flame into a new fire.
Sometimes, something is just past, and done, and it didn't work out the way you expected, and there is no going back and 'fixing' it.
OTOH - I really need a job. But is that reason enough to try and revive a dead career and up end my family and stir up all that old 'stuff'?
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
heh ... this should be interesting.
Sep. 29th, 2014 12:35 pmI have upped the ante just a smidge in the battle with Facebook and fired a shot across their bow...
A formal complaint has been lodged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I have requested their intervention in obtaining a satisfactory solution to this impasse; either:
Provide me with access to my account and my data without demand for government issued photo ID, which was never required to activate an account in the first place
OR
Provide me with recourse to remove my data, and end all further spam emails
I sent 'Barry' an email to let him know ... because I'm just polite like that :)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
A formal complaint has been lodged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I have requested their intervention in obtaining a satisfactory solution to this impasse; either:
Provide me with access to my account and my data without demand for government issued photo ID, which was never required to activate an account in the first place
OR
Provide me with recourse to remove my data, and end all further spam emails
I sent 'Barry' an email to let him know ... because I'm just polite like that :)
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Croissants, proof that God really did love the French after all...
I've struggled a little with croissants, and by struggle I mean this is only the third time I've made them, but the first time I'd call them an unqualified success.
Bought a new pan this past weekend. I admit a unreasonable fondness for speciality pans - I was lusting after the Christmas train one for a long time, and then there was a lovely fall acorn one ... they're a nice heavy cast pan - glorious. This one isn't quite the acorn one, but still a nice fall theme. Acorns, pinecones, pumpkins ... normally they're $25 but it was on sale at $4.44 - I couldn't pass it up.
Tried the recipe that came with it Hazelnut Financiers called for butter, but tried olive oil instead, turned out a little a bit tough, but tastey, they need chocolate filling I think.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I've struggled a little with croissants, and by struggle I mean this is only the third time I've made them, but the first time I'd call them an unqualified success.
Bought a new pan this past weekend. I admit a unreasonable fondness for speciality pans - I was lusting after the Christmas train one for a long time, and then there was a lovely fall acorn one ... they're a nice heavy cast pan - glorious. This one isn't quite the acorn one, but still a nice fall theme. Acorns, pinecones, pumpkins ... normally they're $25 but it was on sale at $4.44 - I couldn't pass it up.
Tried the recipe that came with it Hazelnut Financiers called for butter, but tried olive oil instead, turned out a little a bit tough, but tastey, they need chocolate filling I think.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Once more into the breach....
Sep. 22nd, 2014 06:07 pmI applied last November to this same position, but at a different base ...
Shelburne Base was a 90 minute drive - in good weather, but it was a commute I was willing to make for the position, and I did get an interview and interviewed very well.
But I didn't get the job
Saulnierville Base is less than 20 minutes away
While airline dispatch might have been a very different industry, the skill sets and work environments really shouldn't be all that terribly different. Obviously there's not a lot of airline jobs down this end of Nova Scotia, this is about as close to my particular skill set as any job gets. Damn it all - I'm GOOD at this.
I could really use a bit of good mojo right now.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Shelburne Base was a 90 minute drive - in good weather, but it was a commute I was willing to make for the position, and I did get an interview and interviewed very well.
But I didn't get the job
Saulnierville Base is less than 20 minutes away
While airline dispatch might have been a very different industry, the skill sets and work environments really shouldn't be all that terribly different. Obviously there's not a lot of airline jobs down this end of Nova Scotia, this is about as close to my particular skill set as any job gets. Damn it all - I'm GOOD at this.
I could really use a bit of good mojo right now.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Well - there go the vegetables....
Sep. 20th, 2014 05:15 pmAn early frost this week has put a quick end to what was left of the vegetables coming in.
One ear of corn, there were still 2 doz or so on the stalks not quite ready
All the squash and pumpkins were flowering nicely but no actual fruit yet.
Same with the watermelon
Pole beans had been doing well - got about a kg of them but they're done now
The two turnips I pulled the other day were kinda small, but nicely formed, I'll pull the rest and see where we are with that.
No popping corn, or baking beans I fear
Potatoes are probably going to be OK, it was a light frost - but they'll need harvesting this week
I need to go up and check on the grape vines
Everything desperately needs mowing, but still no cash for a new mower belt
I'll need to cover the strawberry beds
All in all kinda frustrating and annoying and I just kinda wanna cry - but I know I was late getting stuff in, and I was pushing it. Next year I think the corn at least, needs to go in a month earlier.
On the upside, we had a fabulous market day - with a certain hope and promise for the future, including a contact for a possible ongoing contract - he should be back next week with further details. One contract alone won't dig us out of the hole we're in, but at least it's one step up. And we're moving into the Christmas season at the market, lots more talk of ordering custom stuff for the holidays.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
One ear of corn, there were still 2 doz or so on the stalks not quite ready
All the squash and pumpkins were flowering nicely but no actual fruit yet.
Same with the watermelon
Pole beans had been doing well - got about a kg of them but they're done now
The two turnips I pulled the other day were kinda small, but nicely formed, I'll pull the rest and see where we are with that.
No popping corn, or baking beans I fear
Potatoes are probably going to be OK, it was a light frost - but they'll need harvesting this week
I need to go up and check on the grape vines
Everything desperately needs mowing, but still no cash for a new mower belt
I'll need to cover the strawberry beds
All in all kinda frustrating and annoying and I just kinda wanna cry - but I know I was late getting stuff in, and I was pushing it. Next year I think the corn at least, needs to go in a month earlier.
On the upside, we had a fabulous market day - with a certain hope and promise for the future, including a contact for a possible ongoing contract - he should be back next week with further details. One contract alone won't dig us out of the hole we're in, but at least it's one step up. And we're moving into the Christmas season at the market, lots more talk of ordering custom stuff for the holidays.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Guess you'll be seeing more of me here
Sep. 16th, 2014 01:02 pmSo the last couple years my blogging - either here or on my mirror sites at Dreamwidth and Livejournal have been pretty sporadic, and my reading over there almost nil. This was in part thanks to the arrival of Facebook in my life. It's not a site I've ever entirely 'enjoyed', per se, I really like the people I stay in touch with and some of the ones I've met there, but the signal to noise ratio has never been very conducive to thoughtful discourse. Frankly I always preferred my journals - but Facebook did have the advantage of instant feedback - it was sort of an almost happy medium between blogging and instant messengers. That said I always viewed it largely as a public coffee shop on a busy corner of town, and my blogs as my 'home', quieter and more private. They both had their place. Unfortunately FB kinda took over in large part because I was also managing my part time volunteer work through that medium ....
Ahh well neither here nor there. Just a little background to the following story which unfolded yesterday
So while managing my role as PETSCORT Coordinator is now going to change a little, it's not the end of the world, and I'm not panicking or freaking out, or even entirely disappointed. People will either find me or they won't. Those I came to FB to stay in touch with will be missed if they don't email once in a while, but really I should be worth the effort, and if I'm not? Well I guess it's not a huge loss?
Oh and yes, I tried in vain to send the same missive to Facebook staff this morning (with a few minor tweaks and a couple of references to Canadian privacy law for Private enterprises. Specifically:
I discovered that the only way to send them that information / discussion, without providing them with the very information I refuse to give them. Brilliant scheme they have. Try as I might I can't find an email address anywhere on the site to send my complaint to either. Oh. Well. Frankly it's all a tempest in a teacup - not worth my worrying about.
So I'm back to daily blogging here, and that overall is a good thing. There's probably a 1000 little things I'd have shared over there, memes and humourous pictures, and quizzes and nonsense that won't get shared here - but really did they add anything to the signal to noise ratio? Or put any good out in the world? Perhaps not.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Ahh well neither here nor there. Just a little background to the following story which unfolded yesterday
Hello folks,
Back when I originally signed up a Facebook account in 2008? (09?) there were no rules regarding name usage. I created my account with the name I've been known online as since 1995, in all sectors, and all segments of cyber space this has been my identity. When Google+ suspended by account for not being a 'real name' I said 'fine.' and walked away.
Without getting into a huge philosophical discussion of what is a 'real name' the common law of the U.S. Canada (except Quebec), Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Hong Kong..... all pretty much are in agreement. For informal purposes I can call myself anything I like.
Sometime since 2008 Facebook changed their policy - and while I've done my best to keep abreast of SRR (Statement of Rights and Responsibilities) changes, I was not aware of the change to the use of names policy. It now reads:
"Registration and Account Security
Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:
1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal account.
3. If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.
4. You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.
5. You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.
6. You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.
7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.
8. You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.
9. You will not transfer your account (including any Page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.
10. If you select a username or similar identifier for your account or Page, we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe it is appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user's actual name)."
Apparently it is their contention that I am in violation. Late this afternoon my account was unceremoniously suspended, and I was logged out, attempts to log back in were greeted with:
"Update your name
Your account has been temporarily suspended because it looks like you’re not using your real name. Facebook is a community where people use their real identities. We require everyone to provide their full name so you always know who you’re connecting with.
Don't worry — you’ll be able to get back into your timeline with your full, real name. If you're using a nickname, you can always add it back into your account later as an alternate name."
As I was given no warning, no email, no recourse to debate the question or issue, I'm currently accountless. I understand that in order to retrieve my account I will be required to change the account name to my 'Legal Name', identification proving such, a cell phone verification number.... frankly it's a identity thief's wet dream.
I know a lot of people are quiet content with their Facebook real name etc., but in this day and age when photos are being hacked and stolen from a private iCloud and Apple and others are saying "*shrug*, not our problem, you shouldn't have uploaded private materials", and gmail had a huge number of passwords stolen last week (someone tried to hack into our PETSCORT email!). Yes I do participate in online banking and credit card access, and I'm always careful that those sites are secure, and even they don't have my name (although they do have my bank card number). I'm sorry but Facebook just isn't secure and I'm not prepared to give them greater access to my 'Real Life' than my bank has, or that the laws of many collective governments in the western world require. Maybe I'm being paranoid, maybe I'm being a Luddite, or maybe I'm just personally drawing a line in regards to how much I trust Facebook and asking do I really need to provide them with this information to participate in what amounts to a coffee shop/cafe culture?
So, barring Facebook reversing their enforcement of this policy (and I really don't see that happening for one little ol' crazy canuck), I am accountless. It's been a pleasure knowing you all, you are as always welcome to stop by the blog (either our own server or livejournal) and chat, or gasp even drop me an email oceans @ oceans-edge.com if you wish. It's been fun while it's lasted, I really do like you all (well most of you *grins*) and some of you I love and will truly miss. Truth be told though, I was getting to a point where I wasn't entirely sure that Facebook wasn't becoming a thing who'd worn out it's welcome in my life. I love you all but Facebook comes with a lot of *stuff* I don't need.
I will continue to provide what services I can to the PETSCORT project via email and the forum and we''ll figure this out. It might put a bit of a crimp in things for a little while. But *snicker* there's more than one way to skin a cat, that doesn't involve FB skinning me!
Love ya,
OE.
So while managing my role as PETSCORT Coordinator is now going to change a little, it's not the end of the world, and I'm not panicking or freaking out, or even entirely disappointed. People will either find me or they won't. Those I came to FB to stay in touch with will be missed if they don't email once in a while, but really I should be worth the effort, and if I'm not? Well I guess it's not a huge loss?
Oh and yes, I tried in vain to send the same missive to Facebook staff this morning (with a few minor tweaks and a couple of references to Canadian privacy law for Private enterprises. Specifically:
In short I would refer you to Appendix A - Section 8: http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/prb0744-e.htm#appendixa
"Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes". My 'legal name' and government issued ID identifying me as such is not relevant or necessary to my participation in the greater Facebook community, as my participation over the past 5 yrs has shown.
I discovered that the only way to send them that information / discussion, without providing them with the very information I refuse to give them. Brilliant scheme they have. Try as I might I can't find an email address anywhere on the site to send my complaint to either. Oh. Well. Frankly it's all a tempest in a teacup - not worth my worrying about.
So I'm back to daily blogging here, and that overall is a good thing. There's probably a 1000 little things I'd have shared over there, memes and humourous pictures, and quizzes and nonsense that won't get shared here - but really did they add anything to the signal to noise ratio? Or put any good out in the world? Perhaps not.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Science....
Aug. 14th, 2014 04:01 pmTrying to break down some complicates science concepts into easily understood and digestible reading using everyday examples and analogies:
DNA - they're building blocks, just like LEGO. A 4 dot square brick is a 4 dot square brick whether you use it to build a space ship or you use it to build a house. It is not a 'space ship brick' and you didn't build your house outta space ships! There are no fish in your tomatoes, no humans in your rice. Just a pretty blue building block.
Traditional hybriding techniques are basically taking two LEGO houses, throwing them together and hoping you get a better house out of it because one of them has the blue bricks you wanted for the window wells in your yellow house. Genetic engineering in a lab is finding blue bricks in a space ship and saying "oh those will make my yellow house so much better, so you dismantle the space ship to add the yellow bricks in.
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Bt corn - Bt is a pesticide - naturally occurring in the soil, it's poisonous to corn borers, by adding Bt to corn genetics they make their own Bt and corn borers die. It is not poisonous to people. In fact it's so natural and safe, that it's approved for organic farming as a spray. Adding it to the corn structure just means that it doesn't kill the beneficial bugs like aphids and praying mantises while getting rid of corn borers.
Things that are poisonous to one species while being completely harmless to others is not a new concept. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs, so are grapes, so are lots of things that are completely fine for us. I couldn't get through certain times of the month without chocolate and fermented grapes. Dogs being mammals and all are a whole lot more similar, biologically speaking, to people than bugs are. Just because it kills bugs, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for you.
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Chemicals. Chemicals aren't bad or good or ... they just are. Like DNA (which is made of chemicals) the whole world, and everything in it, is a chemical. Everything we know and touch and eat and are is a chemical. And it even has a chemical name. Everyone knows the Dihydrogen Monoxide joke, but then there's citric acid and sodium bicarbonate these are harmless things we use every day. Lots of other things we may find hard to pronounce or don't immediately recognize are on the labels of foods, that doesn't automatically make them 'bad'. The hype over the yoga mat chemical was a perfect example of that. Yellow bricks and red bricks and blue bricks - just because a blue brick was used to make the yoga mat, doesn't mean it isn't perfectly fine to use it in your bread. There was an excellent British TV documentary series called 'E-Numbers" (in Europe all food additives are given an 'e-number') that talks about how some of those things that sound scary because we don't necessarily understand what they are, are not only useful, and safe, but some time absolutely necessary. It's an excellent watch - all the episodes - for demystifying some of the misinformation around food additives.
As an addendum - just because it was built in a laboratory doesn't mean it's bad, and just because it's 'natural' doesn't make it good. Hemlock is natural, I don't want to be drinking hemlock tea. That may be over simplified and I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence, I'm just saying that the same principals of truth that apply to "I don't want to drink hemlock tea, and tea tree oil will kill your dog." also applies to other things that are more complicated. Valarian tea is really good for some people, so is digitalis, but they can also be extremely dangerous used indiscriminately.
Darkness is scary, fear of the unknown is the core of all human fear. Education, information, is enlightenment and the way out of fear. Whatever your particular concern or fear, or issue is, there is information out there - LOADS of it, some of it's a bit confusing, most of it isn't really if you read it with an open and inquiring mind. We live in a time where almost the entire sum total of human knowledge is there available at our fingertips! That's a really amazing thing, and we shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
DNA - they're building blocks, just like LEGO. A 4 dot square brick is a 4 dot square brick whether you use it to build a space ship or you use it to build a house. It is not a 'space ship brick' and you didn't build your house outta space ships! There are no fish in your tomatoes, no humans in your rice. Just a pretty blue building block.
Traditional hybriding techniques are basically taking two LEGO houses, throwing them together and hoping you get a better house out of it because one of them has the blue bricks you wanted for the window wells in your yellow house. Genetic engineering in a lab is finding blue bricks in a space ship and saying "oh those will make my yellow house so much better, so you dismantle the space ship to add the yellow bricks in.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bt corn - Bt is a pesticide - naturally occurring in the soil, it's poisonous to corn borers, by adding Bt to corn genetics they make their own Bt and corn borers die. It is not poisonous to people. In fact it's so natural and safe, that it's approved for organic farming as a spray. Adding it to the corn structure just means that it doesn't kill the beneficial bugs like aphids and praying mantises while getting rid of corn borers.
Things that are poisonous to one species while being completely harmless to others is not a new concept. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs, so are grapes, so are lots of things that are completely fine for us. I couldn't get through certain times of the month without chocolate and fermented grapes. Dogs being mammals and all are a whole lot more similar, biologically speaking, to people than bugs are. Just because it kills bugs, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chemicals. Chemicals aren't bad or good or ... they just are. Like DNA (which is made of chemicals) the whole world, and everything in it, is a chemical. Everything we know and touch and eat and are is a chemical. And it even has a chemical name. Everyone knows the Dihydrogen Monoxide joke, but then there's citric acid and sodium bicarbonate these are harmless things we use every day. Lots of other things we may find hard to pronounce or don't immediately recognize are on the labels of foods, that doesn't automatically make them 'bad'. The hype over the yoga mat chemical was a perfect example of that. Yellow bricks and red bricks and blue bricks - just because a blue brick was used to make the yoga mat, doesn't mean it isn't perfectly fine to use it in your bread. There was an excellent British TV documentary series called 'E-Numbers" (in Europe all food additives are given an 'e-number') that talks about how some of those things that sound scary because we don't necessarily understand what they are, are not only useful, and safe, but some time absolutely necessary. It's an excellent watch - all the episodes - for demystifying some of the misinformation around food additives.
As an addendum - just because it was built in a laboratory doesn't mean it's bad, and just because it's 'natural' doesn't make it good. Hemlock is natural, I don't want to be drinking hemlock tea. That may be over simplified and I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence, I'm just saying that the same principals of truth that apply to "I don't want to drink hemlock tea, and tea tree oil will kill your dog." also applies to other things that are more complicated. Valarian tea is really good for some people, so is digitalis, but they can also be extremely dangerous used indiscriminately.
Darkness is scary, fear of the unknown is the core of all human fear. Education, information, is enlightenment and the way out of fear. Whatever your particular concern or fear, or issue is, there is information out there - LOADS of it, some of it's a bit confusing, most of it isn't really if you read it with an open and inquiring mind. We live in a time where almost the entire sum total of human knowledge is there available at our fingertips! That's a really amazing thing, and we shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Unless you've been living under an internet rock sometime in the last couple weeks you've seen this indiegogo campaign to build solar roadways. It took off, it went viral, people are clamouring over it, and as of this morning, it had raised $1.6 million dollars.
Almost as quickly, there sprung up blogs and arguments and discussions on why mostly the whole thing is quackery. From thorough breakdown of the dollars and cents of it. (Which is really the biggest impracticality to the whole thing), to discussions of the engineering. The upshot is that while the technology is possible, the whole plan is completely impractical - and they've still raised $1.6 million dollars. Raised in in little $5, and $10, and $20 increments that is crowd sourcing.
I really do think crowd sourcing is a brilliant concept, one that in this age of internet, has been a perfect and natural evolution in social change. The thing is crowd sourcing works best for small indie projects, niche markets and niche ideas that don't appeal to a large enough consumer market to attract big investment dollars. Huge infrastructure projects like roadways would indeed see investment funding, if there were practical applications. You don't build the roadways of the world on $5 and $10 donations thrown into the kitty. There are occasional exceptions to this generalization.... LeVar Burton raised $1.0 million in 11 hours to reboot Reading Rainbow. I think in that case the difference is that he would have found the investor funding for doing this through whatever medium he wanted to present it through. As it's going to be an internet project, the internet funded it. Makes sense. Solar roadways don't.
So the question is 'why?' Why, if the whole idea is so hair brained, impractical, and more faery tale than science did the whole thing take off? Why did it go viral? Why have 100's and 1000's of people donated their hard earned cash to such a wholly impractical idea? Honestly I don't know, but I have some suspicions.
Firstly there's the shiny. Lights! L.E.D.s! Glass, Sparkle! There's nothing attractive about cement and asphalt, but glass and lights are pretty, and we like pretty. Technology. We largely as a society have this love / hate relationship with technology. We love the hardware and the convenience and the things it's brought to our lives almost seamlessly. I was watching Godzilla (the 1998 version with Matthew Broderick) a couple weeks back and was actually kind of startled by how conspicuously absent smart phone were. In under 10 years this technology has so integrated itself in our society and how it functions that you notice it missing. However, its also magic. We've become so reliant on this and yet most people couldn't tell you how it works, from the cell phone signals, to wifi, to the ever shrinking semi-conductors that allow more computing power in a 3" x 5" hand held device than I had in my first windows computer back in 1994. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - it's all magic to us, and magic is a little bit scary. If we don't understand how something works, we tend to have a visceral fear of it. We can overcome that fear with it's convenience and shiny, but we still don't understand how we can put solar chargers on the roof of our campers to charge our cell phone, but we can't put them in 100,000,000 miles of roadway.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Almost as quickly, there sprung up blogs and arguments and discussions on why mostly the whole thing is quackery. From thorough breakdown of the dollars and cents of it. (Which is really the biggest impracticality to the whole thing), to discussions of the engineering. The upshot is that while the technology is possible, the whole plan is completely impractical - and they've still raised $1.6 million dollars. Raised in in little $5, and $10, and $20 increments that is crowd sourcing.
I really do think crowd sourcing is a brilliant concept, one that in this age of internet, has been a perfect and natural evolution in social change. The thing is crowd sourcing works best for small indie projects, niche markets and niche ideas that don't appeal to a large enough consumer market to attract big investment dollars. Huge infrastructure projects like roadways would indeed see investment funding, if there were practical applications. You don't build the roadways of the world on $5 and $10 donations thrown into the kitty. There are occasional exceptions to this generalization.... LeVar Burton raised $1.0 million in 11 hours to reboot Reading Rainbow. I think in that case the difference is that he would have found the investor funding for doing this through whatever medium he wanted to present it through. As it's going to be an internet project, the internet funded it. Makes sense. Solar roadways don't.
So the question is 'why?' Why, if the whole idea is so hair brained, impractical, and more faery tale than science did the whole thing take off? Why did it go viral? Why have 100's and 1000's of people donated their hard earned cash to such a wholly impractical idea? Honestly I don't know, but I have some suspicions.
Firstly there's the shiny. Lights! L.E.D.s! Glass, Sparkle! There's nothing attractive about cement and asphalt, but glass and lights are pretty, and we like pretty. Technology. We largely as a society have this love / hate relationship with technology. We love the hardware and the convenience and the things it's brought to our lives almost seamlessly. I was watching Godzilla (the 1998 version with Matthew Broderick) a couple weeks back and was actually kind of startled by how conspicuously absent smart phone were. In under 10 years this technology has so integrated itself in our society and how it functions that you notice it missing. However, its also magic. We've become so reliant on this and yet most people couldn't tell you how it works, from the cell phone signals, to wifi, to the ever shrinking semi-conductors that allow more computing power in a 3" x 5" hand held device than I had in my first windows computer back in 1994. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - it's all magic to us, and magic is a little bit scary. If we don't understand how something works, we tend to have a visceral fear of it. We can overcome that fear with it's convenience and shiny, but we still don't understand how we can put solar chargers on the roof of our campers to charge our cell phone, but we can't put them in 100,000,000 miles of roadway.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
20 Years the internet....
Apr. 29th, 2014 02:56 pmIn April of 1994 I got my first internet account.
No I wasn't the first kid on the block. But the options were pretty limited in those days. You had local Bulletin Boards, which you had to have the actual correct phone number for your modem to dial into, or there were usenet groups, or brand spanking new were things like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy Online. Not entirely the internet as we know it now, but some semblence there of. You could build a website at AOL ... oh I remember corporate businesses and celebrities having AOL addresses (Oprah had an AOL address in those days).
But I was on Prodigy Online, a free install disc in the mail, my sister in law's boyfriend installed it for me over Christmas, but I poked and puttered with it a bit, but it didn't really 'catch' me. Then I happened on a room where I made a few connections with like minded and interesting people. And an internet addiction was born. I was a social person, always have been, but socially awkward, and a young suburban mom, in an abusive relationship and ... I didn't get out much, didn't have many friends. For a 'shut in' like me it was a glorious discovery.
The technology was moving fast in those days, and my life with it. It wasn't long before my second internet romance broke up my marriage (or that's the tale if you listen to my ex tell it). I was out on my own, with a painfully outrageous Prodigy bill following me, so I moved on to unlimited dial up ISP services, and a second phone line because I had a 'telecommuting job', but the boredom of pizza order phones, and the excitement of online friends in IRC (internet relay chat) undernet chat rooms was too great and the job went away. My life went on and undernet was there for a long time. However time moves on and so did I.
I finished school, started work, there was little time for hanging around in chat rooms waiting for people I knew to wander by. Another bad, failed internet relationship later I had a LiveJournal account, and I entered the Blog-o-sphere. It was a good place for me. My friends were there, we could talk and follow each other's lives without having to wait for one another to pop into a chat room. Oh yeah there were memes and quizzes and non content, but for the most part we wrote opinion, we wrote about what was happening in our lives and we shared. I think still LiveJournal is still where I'm most comfortable. Still around this period of 2003-2010 everyone was getting a blog, everyone was talking, anyone with an opinion could freely express it, and it was wonderful, no longer could minority opinion be suppressed, no longer was information hidden, everyone was sharing. The artistic freedom was amazing.
Still, life and technology changes and blogs went from communities to self publishing. Every nutter no matter how nuts could shout out their theory and ideas without ever having to establish any basis of knowledge or vetting of reputation or even grounding in rationalization. And along came Facebook and Twitter and sound bite socialization. I can't say I liked it much. However it was bright and shiny and there were a handful of friends and family I cared for deeply that I only saw there. I always viewed LiveJournal as my home, it was my base, my space, and my voice, and those who commented were friends invited in for tea or coffee and cake and a chat. Facebook was like the coffee shop on the corner of a busy street, I'd see a lot of people I kinda knew passing by and I'd wave and give a shout hello, and sometimes one of those friends and family I really liked would stop by my cafe table and chat for a bit. Groups became like the social clubs we used to join.
Thing is cosmopolitan cities have gotten harder and harder for me as I've gotten older. I prefer my quiet space in the country. The noise and the excitement and the hustle and bustle of the busy world is fun for a while, but eventually I need the simplicity of my home and my friends and to turn off the TV and avoid the world out there.
The world is becoming an increasingly mad place daily. Everyone with a cause to spout is spouting it. Used to be to get published you had to have a publisher, you had to break in with credentials and talent and you had to show you knew what you were talking about. That did keep some ideas and knowledge from being published, but it kept the crazy stuff to a minimum. Oh sure some got through, Timothy Leary managed to find himself an outlet or two. The thing was we got used to more or less trusting what we read or heard on the news, we knew publishers and journalists to at least take some care with their research so we didn't have to go to the library and do the research ourselves. The great blessing of the free flowing of information has also become a curse. (McLuhan ... I don't know if he's rolling over in his grave, or doing a head desk, or just rolling his eyes saying "I told you so", but yeah, he told us so.) Problem is most of us have grown up in a world where we trust what we read has been vetted, and so now we share it with impunity because we're social creatures. Every nutter with an internet connection can throw up a page or a blog with a couple ads and self referencing references and shares it and the more outrageous the idea the more we're inclined to share it because it outrages us.
The ZenMastr said to me, back in 2003 or so that "anything sufficiently cool will ultimately be discovered by the masses and ultimately ruined. All of us who have something worthwhile to say should just leave the internet to the masses and go back to 128 bit encrypted languages." Yeah he could be arrogant like that, it was one of his charms, but there are days I think he was right.
Facebook has given me the wonderful opportunity to do a lot of good in the world and I love the work I do and the people I do it with. I also hate it. I hate the noise to signal ratio. The sheer volume of the noise and misinformation and people sharing what they believe honestly and truly to be 'truth' without reading, understanding, appreciating or even discussing these ideas. There's no room for discussion in the noise any more. Trying to stem the tide of crazy shouting protests in my news feed and in my life is exhausting. Yeah I can be arrogant like that, it's one of my charms. Yet to do the work I do requires me to be here, and not just be here but participate with people.
The time will come, and I wonder how far off perhaps, when even so, I'll retire from Facebook and the noise and abandon my table in this giant coffee shop of the internet and retire home here to my LiveJournal and personal blog and .... you know you'll always be welcome to stop in and have a coffee and a cake here with me. I keep wanting to retreat further and further from the world not because I'm afraid of some big bad mega menace out there, but because I'm tired of the noise of the people warning me about the big bad mega menace out there.
However, if I can leave you with one small bit of advice, it's this: don't trust anything you read on the internet. The other day I was doing a quick little research on "How Many Seed Companies Does Monsanto own?" and the first two pages of google results, all self referenced the original, incorrect and misleading headline. How many of us have time to read and reference and research into page 3 or 4 of google in answer to ANY meme we've seen on the internet? This is how misinformation spreads like a virus - we hear 4000 times a day about how vaccines have mercury in them and cause autism or how contrails are the government controlling our minds with chemicals, or how corn is gonna give us all brain cancer and turn us into zombies, we hear it enough times it seeps into our brains, and without educating ourselves differently it becomes part of our mindset. In the 50s' socially we trusted our government and our corporations, then the 60's and 70's happened and we learned we couldn't trust them, and the 80's happened and we learned we couldn't trust each other, by the 2000's we trusted no one, and now we're all busy screaming at each other about how we're all out to get each other and. We've (as a society) become almost schizoid, the science and the research and the technology that we developed to help protect ourselves from the things we didn't know are the very things we don't trust today. As the joke went way back when "ridding the world of every single substance known to have ever caused cancer in rats, only means we'll soon be confronted by a lot of healthy robust rats". The nice thing about knowing the world is on a collision course with hell via a handbasket? It's easy to say 'f**kitall, lets just relax and enjoy life'. Maybe that's the real lesson of having grown out of the 80's, we were all on a collision course with our deaths because we lived in the shadow of the bomb, but then we grew up and realized there was no joy in excess either.
I believe there is good in trying to live ethically, but I also know that you cannot fight and win every battle out there. You only make yourself, and others, crazy trying. I believe that science and technology are good for me, that the world and the universe have learned a few things in the last 40 years, and that if a subject is really truly important enough a fight for me to want to fight it, I need to go out and learn and research and understand and stop shouting made up soundbites at my nieghbours.
Oddly enough the thing that IS truly important enough for me to want to fight it is the cause of misinformation, which means I'm pretty much living in a state of perpetual annoyance. So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. I can't fix the world, I can't fix the misinformation in it, I can't even fix the misinformation that comes across my own news feed. So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. This is me taking a step back and saying "nope, I don't believe one single meme, or argument or outrage you've passed along in the spirit of "omg someone has to stop this!!" So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. Going back to my life here at home, in my own four walls, and my own family, and my own work, and my blog and journals. Maybe it makes me a bit of a coward, but ya know I was never a revolutionary, I was never one for causes or tilting at windmills or being a radical, I was, am, and always will be the diplomat, trying hard to see all sides and hear all voices and looking for moderation.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
No I wasn't the first kid on the block. But the options were pretty limited in those days. You had local Bulletin Boards, which you had to have the actual correct phone number for your modem to dial into, or there were usenet groups, or brand spanking new were things like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy Online. Not entirely the internet as we know it now, but some semblence there of. You could build a website at AOL ... oh I remember corporate businesses and celebrities having AOL addresses (Oprah had an AOL address in those days).
But I was on Prodigy Online, a free install disc in the mail, my sister in law's boyfriend installed it for me over Christmas, but I poked and puttered with it a bit, but it didn't really 'catch' me. Then I happened on a room where I made a few connections with like minded and interesting people. And an internet addiction was born. I was a social person, always have been, but socially awkward, and a young suburban mom, in an abusive relationship and ... I didn't get out much, didn't have many friends. For a 'shut in' like me it was a glorious discovery.
The technology was moving fast in those days, and my life with it. It wasn't long before my second internet romance broke up my marriage (or that's the tale if you listen to my ex tell it). I was out on my own, with a painfully outrageous Prodigy bill following me, so I moved on to unlimited dial up ISP services, and a second phone line because I had a 'telecommuting job', but the boredom of pizza order phones, and the excitement of online friends in IRC (internet relay chat) undernet chat rooms was too great and the job went away. My life went on and undernet was there for a long time. However time moves on and so did I.
I finished school, started work, there was little time for hanging around in chat rooms waiting for people I knew to wander by. Another bad, failed internet relationship later I had a LiveJournal account, and I entered the Blog-o-sphere. It was a good place for me. My friends were there, we could talk and follow each other's lives without having to wait for one another to pop into a chat room. Oh yeah there were memes and quizzes and non content, but for the most part we wrote opinion, we wrote about what was happening in our lives and we shared. I think still LiveJournal is still where I'm most comfortable. Still around this period of 2003-2010 everyone was getting a blog, everyone was talking, anyone with an opinion could freely express it, and it was wonderful, no longer could minority opinion be suppressed, no longer was information hidden, everyone was sharing. The artistic freedom was amazing.
Still, life and technology changes and blogs went from communities to self publishing. Every nutter no matter how nuts could shout out their theory and ideas without ever having to establish any basis of knowledge or vetting of reputation or even grounding in rationalization. And along came Facebook and Twitter and sound bite socialization. I can't say I liked it much. However it was bright and shiny and there were a handful of friends and family I cared for deeply that I only saw there. I always viewed LiveJournal as my home, it was my base, my space, and my voice, and those who commented were friends invited in for tea or coffee and cake and a chat. Facebook was like the coffee shop on the corner of a busy street, I'd see a lot of people I kinda knew passing by and I'd wave and give a shout hello, and sometimes one of those friends and family I really liked would stop by my cafe table and chat for a bit. Groups became like the social clubs we used to join.
Thing is cosmopolitan cities have gotten harder and harder for me as I've gotten older. I prefer my quiet space in the country. The noise and the excitement and the hustle and bustle of the busy world is fun for a while, but eventually I need the simplicity of my home and my friends and to turn off the TV and avoid the world out there.
The world is becoming an increasingly mad place daily. Everyone with a cause to spout is spouting it. Used to be to get published you had to have a publisher, you had to break in with credentials and talent and you had to show you knew what you were talking about. That did keep some ideas and knowledge from being published, but it kept the crazy stuff to a minimum. Oh sure some got through, Timothy Leary managed to find himself an outlet or two. The thing was we got used to more or less trusting what we read or heard on the news, we knew publishers and journalists to at least take some care with their research so we didn't have to go to the library and do the research ourselves. The great blessing of the free flowing of information has also become a curse. (McLuhan ... I don't know if he's rolling over in his grave, or doing a head desk, or just rolling his eyes saying "I told you so", but yeah, he told us so.) Problem is most of us have grown up in a world where we trust what we read has been vetted, and so now we share it with impunity because we're social creatures. Every nutter with an internet connection can throw up a page or a blog with a couple ads and self referencing references and shares it and the more outrageous the idea the more we're inclined to share it because it outrages us.
The ZenMastr said to me, back in 2003 or so that "anything sufficiently cool will ultimately be discovered by the masses and ultimately ruined. All of us who have something worthwhile to say should just leave the internet to the masses and go back to 128 bit encrypted languages." Yeah he could be arrogant like that, it was one of his charms, but there are days I think he was right.
Facebook has given me the wonderful opportunity to do a lot of good in the world and I love the work I do and the people I do it with. I also hate it. I hate the noise to signal ratio. The sheer volume of the noise and misinformation and people sharing what they believe honestly and truly to be 'truth' without reading, understanding, appreciating or even discussing these ideas. There's no room for discussion in the noise any more. Trying to stem the tide of crazy shouting protests in my news feed and in my life is exhausting. Yeah I can be arrogant like that, it's one of my charms. Yet to do the work I do requires me to be here, and not just be here but participate with people.
The time will come, and I wonder how far off perhaps, when even so, I'll retire from Facebook and the noise and abandon my table in this giant coffee shop of the internet and retire home here to my LiveJournal and personal blog and .... you know you'll always be welcome to stop in and have a coffee and a cake here with me. I keep wanting to retreat further and further from the world not because I'm afraid of some big bad mega menace out there, but because I'm tired of the noise of the people warning me about the big bad mega menace out there.
However, if I can leave you with one small bit of advice, it's this: don't trust anything you read on the internet. The other day I was doing a quick little research on "How Many Seed Companies Does Monsanto own?" and the first two pages of google results, all self referenced the original, incorrect and misleading headline. How many of us have time to read and reference and research into page 3 or 4 of google in answer to ANY meme we've seen on the internet? This is how misinformation spreads like a virus - we hear 4000 times a day about how vaccines have mercury in them and cause autism or how contrails are the government controlling our minds with chemicals, or how corn is gonna give us all brain cancer and turn us into zombies, we hear it enough times it seeps into our brains, and without educating ourselves differently it becomes part of our mindset. In the 50s' socially we trusted our government and our corporations, then the 60's and 70's happened and we learned we couldn't trust them, and the 80's happened and we learned we couldn't trust each other, by the 2000's we trusted no one, and now we're all busy screaming at each other about how we're all out to get each other and. We've (as a society) become almost schizoid, the science and the research and the technology that we developed to help protect ourselves from the things we didn't know are the very things we don't trust today. As the joke went way back when "ridding the world of every single substance known to have ever caused cancer in rats, only means we'll soon be confronted by a lot of healthy robust rats". The nice thing about knowing the world is on a collision course with hell via a handbasket? It's easy to say 'f**kitall, lets just relax and enjoy life'. Maybe that's the real lesson of having grown out of the 80's, we were all on a collision course with our deaths because we lived in the shadow of the bomb, but then we grew up and realized there was no joy in excess either.
I believe there is good in trying to live ethically, but I also know that you cannot fight and win every battle out there. You only make yourself, and others, crazy trying. I believe that science and technology are good for me, that the world and the universe have learned a few things in the last 40 years, and that if a subject is really truly important enough a fight for me to want to fight it, I need to go out and learn and research and understand and stop shouting made up soundbites at my nieghbours.
Oddly enough the thing that IS truly important enough for me to want to fight it is the cause of misinformation, which means I'm pretty much living in a state of perpetual annoyance. So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. I can't fix the world, I can't fix the misinformation in it, I can't even fix the misinformation that comes across my own news feed. So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. This is me taking a step back and saying "nope, I don't believe one single meme, or argument or outrage you've passed along in the spirit of "omg someone has to stop this!!" So this is me, stopping to take a deep breath. Going back to my life here at home, in my own four walls, and my own family, and my own work, and my blog and journals. Maybe it makes me a bit of a coward, but ya know I was never a revolutionary, I was never one for causes or tilting at windmills or being a radical, I was, am, and always will be the diplomat, trying hard to see all sides and hear all voices and looking for moderation.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Blessed Be Dearest Heart, Blessed Be
Apr. 22nd, 2014 08:08 pmThere are times when there are things you just can't talk about
I've had occasion this week, to watch someone I love face a difficult and and sudden change in their life. They've face that change with optimism and dignity and hope and mostly grace. It's a touching story - and it would be nice to share it. I'd love for you to see what I see, this amazing and beautiful and indomitable spirit, but it's not my story to tell - it's theirs, and they've told it well.
It's always difficult for me to adequately express, over thousands of miles and many years away, the complex range of emotions I feel for them. The sadness of the loss, the joy of the new hope and new beginning, the nuances of all the stuff that went before and underpin how we deal with the curve balls life throws at us. Mostly its those situations where I'd rather hand someone a cup of tea and a plate of cookies and just let them talk. Unfortunately that strategy doesn't work well on social media.
So all I can do is write cryptic blog posts about how touched I am by what you're going through. How much I love you, and am amazed by your strength and dignity and resilience and flexibility.
I'm proud to know you, proud to carry you in my heart, and if you think this is about you - you're right.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
I've had occasion this week, to watch someone I love face a difficult and and sudden change in their life. They've face that change with optimism and dignity and hope and mostly grace. It's a touching story - and it would be nice to share it. I'd love for you to see what I see, this amazing and beautiful and indomitable spirit, but it's not my story to tell - it's theirs, and they've told it well.
It's always difficult for me to adequately express, over thousands of miles and many years away, the complex range of emotions I feel for them. The sadness of the loss, the joy of the new hope and new beginning, the nuances of all the stuff that went before and underpin how we deal with the curve balls life throws at us. Mostly its those situations where I'd rather hand someone a cup of tea and a plate of cookies and just let them talk. Unfortunately that strategy doesn't work well on social media.
So all I can do is write cryptic blog posts about how touched I am by what you're going through. How much I love you, and am amazed by your strength and dignity and resilience and flexibility.
I'm proud to know you, proud to carry you in my heart, and if you think this is about you - you're right.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Rabbit Holes Part Deux
Apr. 16th, 2014 05:14 pmA couple of weeks about I did a brain dump on some of the stuff that rolls around in my head about the world going to hell in a handbasket, and the mad mad mad world we live in.
Today I'm thinking less about how it's gone mad, from anti-vaxers to creationists to the anti-GMO movement to the all the naturalnews followers and how turmeric cures cancer and immunizing your puppy naturally by taking him to the dog park where he can find the parvo bug, and more about why there seems to be this sudden backlash against science.
While I did think even 20+ years ago that it was inevitable that history teaches that civilizations rise and fall, and that the industrial revolution changed the entire social fabric of society, and I truly believed that the technological revolution would do the same thing, I am genuinely a bit amazed at just how similar those social revolutions are turning out to be.
The industrial revolution turned the world on it's head via the mechanical technological advances of the day speeding up and simplifying the production of goods. Whether or not this was a good thing for society is still some what debated, but it does seem it was both needed, and inevitable. Growing populations needed more things, more work, more goods, and like any evolution the growth of man's knowledge cannot be rolled back. You cannot unlearn a thing that has been learned. Whether individually or collectively. You cannot uninvent a thing that has been invented.
The problem with the industrial revolution was that the manufacturing technology grew faster than the social structure and labour laws could keep up with it. I suspect sometimes that's the nature of periods of growth, it's always a balance but it's a dynamic one, pendulum swings. One innovation leads to another leads to another and the cycle gains momentum and speed and there will always be a segment of society that has trouble keeping up. During the industrial revolution it was the saboteurs and luddites who struggled and fought against the new industrial mechanization of what had previously been hand crafted work. Dicken's depiction of Fezziwig in "A Christmas Carol", shows the fall of an individual who cannot or will not keep up with the changing times.
It would be a long and socially painful process the changing of the world from the pre-industrial revolution to the post, depending on ones view point of the beginning and the ends of that period, over 150 years. The destruction of one social structure is necessary to build another social structure, and it's a bit like the old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times". For those who lived in the midst of it, it was a difficult and painful time, for those who inherited the new world order afterwards, it was a better place. Although 'better' is a subjective term or opinion and it's possible that there are those out there who wish we were still living in wattle and daub houses, but I suspect those people might be romantics with little understanding of just what life was like in the Middle Ages.
On the heels of the end of the industrial revolution the technological revolution begun. Like it's predecessor innovation spawned innovation and the whole process gained momentum and that which is invented cannot be uninvented and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Is this a good thing? That too is still open for debate. But good or not, you can't unlearn what has been learned. As the technology speeds forward, there is a segment of the population that cannot or will not keep up with the changing times. For those of us who are living in the midst of it, it is a difficult and painful time, for those who will inherit the new world order afterwards, I believe it will be a better place. Although 'better' is a subjective term or opinion and it's possible that there will those out there who will wish they were still living as we did in the 1950's, but I suspect those people might be romantics with little understanding of just what life was like in the Mid Century Modern Age.
The difference I think will be that whereas the industrial revolution was something akin to 150 years, the technological revolution looks like it'll be about half that. It's a whirl wind bumpy ride, and it's not over yet. For many it is scary, even terrifying.
For those who are excited by the innovation and change and social growth and evolution of the society of mankind this is a wonderful time. But what of the others? Those who would throw their wooden clogs into the looms?
I rather like the Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Magic by it's very definition is a mystery. People fear what they don't understand. The world isn't all rocket scientists, biochemical engineers, or computer programmers, and by and large most of us don't understand all the technological changes happening around us. Add in to that mix that by and large people are reluctant to change the known for the unknown, and the next thing you know people are burning the hayricks.
I'm not completely immune to the affects of this, I'm still puttering along on my Windows XP machine saying "I know it works and I don't want to learn a whole new system", and I grumble on about "cloud computing and not trusting big server banks out there, I'll keep my own damned files thank you very much" and I'm reminded of the grandparents who kept their money stuffed in their mattresses fearing the banks as being insecure after the financial crash and the depression. No I don't want need and any of those darned new fangled 'smart' devices and "HEY! you darned kids get off my lawn."
The whole business calls on us for a certain amount of trust. We want to believe that as higher order mammals we have collectively a control over our destiny as a species. I'm not sure we do. In the end it won't matter whether I believe in online file storage, (I don't like it, but I'm learning to live with it). The world will keep moving forward whether I keep up or not. Social and technological evolution will keep moving forward whether the vaccination deniers and the anti-GMO crowds keep up or not, and we'll continue to live in interesting times, and the world will be a different (and I sincerely hope, better) place for our children and grand children. What I trust is that the universe is going to keep spinning on it's axis and even if it wasn't there's not too bloody much I can do to change that, I can only make my time here and hopefully my children's time here, a little bit better. The universe will sort itself out.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Today I'm thinking less about how it's gone mad, from anti-vaxers to creationists to the anti-GMO movement to the all the naturalnews followers and how turmeric cures cancer and immunizing your puppy naturally by taking him to the dog park where he can find the parvo bug, and more about why there seems to be this sudden backlash against science.
While I did think even 20+ years ago that it was inevitable that history teaches that civilizations rise and fall, and that the industrial revolution changed the entire social fabric of society, and I truly believed that the technological revolution would do the same thing, I am genuinely a bit amazed at just how similar those social revolutions are turning out to be.
The industrial revolution turned the world on it's head via the mechanical technological advances of the day speeding up and simplifying the production of goods. Whether or not this was a good thing for society is still some what debated, but it does seem it was both needed, and inevitable. Growing populations needed more things, more work, more goods, and like any evolution the growth of man's knowledge cannot be rolled back. You cannot unlearn a thing that has been learned. Whether individually or collectively. You cannot uninvent a thing that has been invented.
The problem with the industrial revolution was that the manufacturing technology grew faster than the social structure and labour laws could keep up with it. I suspect sometimes that's the nature of periods of growth, it's always a balance but it's a dynamic one, pendulum swings. One innovation leads to another leads to another and the cycle gains momentum and speed and there will always be a segment of society that has trouble keeping up. During the industrial revolution it was the saboteurs and luddites who struggled and fought against the new industrial mechanization of what had previously been hand crafted work. Dicken's depiction of Fezziwig in "A Christmas Carol", shows the fall of an individual who cannot or will not keep up with the changing times.
It would be a long and socially painful process the changing of the world from the pre-industrial revolution to the post, depending on ones view point of the beginning and the ends of that period, over 150 years. The destruction of one social structure is necessary to build another social structure, and it's a bit like the old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times". For those who lived in the midst of it, it was a difficult and painful time, for those who inherited the new world order afterwards, it was a better place. Although 'better' is a subjective term or opinion and it's possible that there are those out there who wish we were still living in wattle and daub houses, but I suspect those people might be romantics with little understanding of just what life was like in the Middle Ages.
On the heels of the end of the industrial revolution the technological revolution begun. Like it's predecessor innovation spawned innovation and the whole process gained momentum and that which is invented cannot be uninvented and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Is this a good thing? That too is still open for debate. But good or not, you can't unlearn what has been learned. As the technology speeds forward, there is a segment of the population that cannot or will not keep up with the changing times. For those of us who are living in the midst of it, it is a difficult and painful time, for those who will inherit the new world order afterwards, I believe it will be a better place. Although 'better' is a subjective term or opinion and it's possible that there will those out there who will wish they were still living as we did in the 1950's, but I suspect those people might be romantics with little understanding of just what life was like in the Mid Century Modern Age.
The difference I think will be that whereas the industrial revolution was something akin to 150 years, the technological revolution looks like it'll be about half that. It's a whirl wind bumpy ride, and it's not over yet. For many it is scary, even terrifying.
For those who are excited by the innovation and change and social growth and evolution of the society of mankind this is a wonderful time. But what of the others? Those who would throw their wooden clogs into the looms?
I rather like the Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Magic by it's very definition is a mystery. People fear what they don't understand. The world isn't all rocket scientists, biochemical engineers, or computer programmers, and by and large most of us don't understand all the technological changes happening around us. Add in to that mix that by and large people are reluctant to change the known for the unknown, and the next thing you know people are burning the hayricks.
I'm not completely immune to the affects of this, I'm still puttering along on my Windows XP machine saying "I know it works and I don't want to learn a whole new system", and I grumble on about "cloud computing and not trusting big server banks out there, I'll keep my own damned files thank you very much" and I'm reminded of the grandparents who kept their money stuffed in their mattresses fearing the banks as being insecure after the financial crash and the depression. No I don't want need and any of those darned new fangled 'smart' devices and "HEY! you darned kids get off my lawn."
The whole business calls on us for a certain amount of trust. We want to believe that as higher order mammals we have collectively a control over our destiny as a species. I'm not sure we do. In the end it won't matter whether I believe in online file storage, (I don't like it, but I'm learning to live with it). The world will keep moving forward whether I keep up or not. Social and technological evolution will keep moving forward whether the vaccination deniers and the anti-GMO crowds keep up or not, and we'll continue to live in interesting times, and the world will be a different (and I sincerely hope, better) place for our children and grand children. What I trust is that the universe is going to keep spinning on it's axis and even if it wasn't there's not too bloody much I can do to change that, I can only make my time here and hopefully my children's time here, a little bit better. The universe will sort itself out.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
A bit of harsh reality
Apr. 11th, 2014 02:42 pmWe're really good at making plans. James, myself, no one is better at researching and learning and gathering together source information and putting together a plan.
We are, less adept, at putting a plan into action. That kind of makes us daydreamers.
It's made for a bit of inner turmoil, of that 'ok, we did the big change to get what we wanted, how come we don't have what we want?' moments. There's an inner dissatisfaction with our lives at the moment. Nothing is really *wrong*, it's just not quite *right* yet. Some of that is our own fault, some of that is just a function of where we are in our lives, and some of it is a function of resources, some of it is just a function of "christ it's been a long winter". "The reality is never the same as the dream. Always."
However, one's life is always about the choices we make, if you're not happy, make different choices. At the moment there aren't a lot of choices we can make. Except day by day doing what one can.
Ok that was a long introduction to something that isn't easy for me to talk about - has never been easy to talk about.
I am fat.
Yeah no revelations there to anyone who knows me. It's always a difficult and touchy subject for me to talk about. On the one hand there's this whole body image self esteem thing that no matter how much as a woman you try to outgrow and distance yourself from. Still it's always there, even if just a tiny seed. Non of us like to say we're fat. Self acceptance is a wonderful thing, and *mostly* I have that. I recall reading someone's tag line somewhere that 'being fat is hard, being slim is hard, choose your hard" or something like that. I realized that I could give up most of the foods I loved, the cooking and the creating, the artistry I love, and devote hours a day to exercise and working out and I could be thin. I know a lot of people who love the physicality of their daily work outs and wouldn't be without it, who love running and marathons and the like. That's not me. It's never been me, running, weight lifting, aerobics, sports - it's never been me. I am not graceful, or athletic. I don't want to make running my hobby. My hobbies are writing and reading and researching and designing and cooking. That's what I do. That is my love and my joy. And I'm perfectly OK with that. Still this reality is not what I dreamed.
Admission: I am over 300 lbs. How much over I couldn't tell you exactly this moment. For the moment that's not the important part. The important part is that my weight is becoming disabling. That has been my fear over the years. It wasn't easy that I was no longer comfortable with cameras and mirrors, but I could live with avoiding those. I can't live with the disabling parts. Honestly it doesn't happen that you wake up one morning and suddenly you're disabled. It creeps up on you with each pound. Things get harder and harder and harder, and you begin to realize more and more you can no longer do things you could do before. This reality is not what I dreamed.
I've battled with my weight most of my life. I don't really need a lot of advice on how, or what I should do, I don't need another weight loss/exercise advice book for my birthday. My weight and I are on intensely initimate terms, I know it well. I know what my choices are. So that isn't really what this is about.
Part of the life choices of making the big move from suburban living to rural living was that there would be gardening work and farm work and walking and working with the dogs and cycling into the village and all of those things would lead me into a more active lifestyle and thus better able to balance the other more sedentary pursuits and finding a more passive balance in this battle. That was the dream. When we were living suburban and I was working and taking a more active approach to tackling my weight issues - it was a battle. It was an hour a day on a machine, it was constant notebooks and notes about how much of what I was eating and an hour a day of chronicling it counting and measuring and calculating the calorie carb and fat reduction in rebuilding a cake recipe and how much of that was 'allowed'. I mean really - losing weight became pretty much my only hobby, and it wasn't all that successful. I really don't want to put myself in a place again where I'm at war with food - I can't, I won't.
So I'm at a place of making some tough choices. I need to change my hard - for a while at least. The simple fact is that my current weight has now interfered with my other life choices, it's limiting my abilities to do the other things I wanted to do, that were supposed to help keep my balance. Walking, working with the dogs, keeping pigs and sheep and ponies and even working in the garden, even a lot of the pleasure of working in the kitchen has gone as a result of the permanent back pain I live with. So I need to try and bring my weight back to a place where I can put those things back in my life and find the balance, because right now, today, this reality is I couldn't physically do most of the things I dream about building my life around. I need to do that without making daily workouts and being at constant war with and in fear of food. I need to NOT think about food and weight and work this into a new habit. This is possible. I do know this. I know this because I have done it before. (Nov '04 to Jun '06 - when other sudden lifestyle changes up-ended my carefully built 'habits').
This isn't going to be easy. It's going to mean walking away from my art - I cannot cook and indulge in the kitchen creativity and make this work. (hush now all you who want to tell me I can, I know where my boundaries are, and I can't). This won't be, can't be, a permanent thing, I do need my art, I need my studio, and my painting with flavours and colours and textures - but I need to swing the pendulum the other way for a while to find the balance. So, I'm willing to make this commitment to myself for a year, it should work, will I end up a 135lb 26 yr old at the end of it? Nope, but then that's not what I'm expecting, I'm just wanting, needing, expecting, to reach a place in my life where I'm functional again, to reduce my chronic pain to a place where I can DO the things I want and need to do, to find the balance again. I was good with it in '06, I can be good with it again.
And because emotionally, this is a tough place for me, I am embarrassed, I am already feeling the loss. I am already very clear about what I need and must do, I'd really rather not a lot of 'rah rah hip hooray I know you can do this Vicky!' cheering sections, there's not much to cheer about here, I really don't need pep talks or advice books or any of that. It's the first step on a long hard road that by virtue of it's very nature is intensely personal and I will walk it alone.
Just wish me well on the journey and I hope I find my way back.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
We are, less adept, at putting a plan into action. That kind of makes us daydreamers.
It's made for a bit of inner turmoil, of that 'ok, we did the big change to get what we wanted, how come we don't have what we want?' moments. There's an inner dissatisfaction with our lives at the moment. Nothing is really *wrong*, it's just not quite *right* yet. Some of that is our own fault, some of that is just a function of where we are in our lives, and some of it is a function of resources, some of it is just a function of "christ it's been a long winter". "The reality is never the same as the dream. Always."
However, one's life is always about the choices we make, if you're not happy, make different choices. At the moment there aren't a lot of choices we can make. Except day by day doing what one can.
Ok that was a long introduction to something that isn't easy for me to talk about - has never been easy to talk about.
I am fat.
Yeah no revelations there to anyone who knows me. It's always a difficult and touchy subject for me to talk about. On the one hand there's this whole body image self esteem thing that no matter how much as a woman you try to outgrow and distance yourself from. Still it's always there, even if just a tiny seed. Non of us like to say we're fat. Self acceptance is a wonderful thing, and *mostly* I have that. I recall reading someone's tag line somewhere that 'being fat is hard, being slim is hard, choose your hard" or something like that. I realized that I could give up most of the foods I loved, the cooking and the creating, the artistry I love, and devote hours a day to exercise and working out and I could be thin. I know a lot of people who love the physicality of their daily work outs and wouldn't be without it, who love running and marathons and the like. That's not me. It's never been me, running, weight lifting, aerobics, sports - it's never been me. I am not graceful, or athletic. I don't want to make running my hobby. My hobbies are writing and reading and researching and designing and cooking. That's what I do. That is my love and my joy. And I'm perfectly OK with that. Still this reality is not what I dreamed.
Admission: I am over 300 lbs. How much over I couldn't tell you exactly this moment. For the moment that's not the important part. The important part is that my weight is becoming disabling. That has been my fear over the years. It wasn't easy that I was no longer comfortable with cameras and mirrors, but I could live with avoiding those. I can't live with the disabling parts. Honestly it doesn't happen that you wake up one morning and suddenly you're disabled. It creeps up on you with each pound. Things get harder and harder and harder, and you begin to realize more and more you can no longer do things you could do before. This reality is not what I dreamed.
I've battled with my weight most of my life. I don't really need a lot of advice on how, or what I should do, I don't need another weight loss/exercise advice book for my birthday. My weight and I are on intensely initimate terms, I know it well. I know what my choices are. So that isn't really what this is about.
Part of the life choices of making the big move from suburban living to rural living was that there would be gardening work and farm work and walking and working with the dogs and cycling into the village and all of those things would lead me into a more active lifestyle and thus better able to balance the other more sedentary pursuits and finding a more passive balance in this battle. That was the dream. When we were living suburban and I was working and taking a more active approach to tackling my weight issues - it was a battle. It was an hour a day on a machine, it was constant notebooks and notes about how much of what I was eating and an hour a day of chronicling it counting and measuring and calculating the calorie carb and fat reduction in rebuilding a cake recipe and how much of that was 'allowed'. I mean really - losing weight became pretty much my only hobby, and it wasn't all that successful. I really don't want to put myself in a place again where I'm at war with food - I can't, I won't.
So I'm at a place of making some tough choices. I need to change my hard - for a while at least. The simple fact is that my current weight has now interfered with my other life choices, it's limiting my abilities to do the other things I wanted to do, that were supposed to help keep my balance. Walking, working with the dogs, keeping pigs and sheep and ponies and even working in the garden, even a lot of the pleasure of working in the kitchen has gone as a result of the permanent back pain I live with. So I need to try and bring my weight back to a place where I can put those things back in my life and find the balance, because right now, today, this reality is I couldn't physically do most of the things I dream about building my life around. I need to do that without making daily workouts and being at constant war with and in fear of food. I need to NOT think about food and weight and work this into a new habit. This is possible. I do know this. I know this because I have done it before. (Nov '04 to Jun '06 - when other sudden lifestyle changes up-ended my carefully built 'habits').
This isn't going to be easy. It's going to mean walking away from my art - I cannot cook and indulge in the kitchen creativity and make this work. (hush now all you who want to tell me I can, I know where my boundaries are, and I can't). This won't be, can't be, a permanent thing, I do need my art, I need my studio, and my painting with flavours and colours and textures - but I need to swing the pendulum the other way for a while to find the balance. So, I'm willing to make this commitment to myself for a year, it should work, will I end up a 135lb 26 yr old at the end of it? Nope, but then that's not what I'm expecting, I'm just wanting, needing, expecting, to reach a place in my life where I'm functional again, to reduce my chronic pain to a place where I can DO the things I want and need to do, to find the balance again. I was good with it in '06, I can be good with it again.
And because emotionally, this is a tough place for me, I am embarrassed, I am already feeling the loss. I am already very clear about what I need and must do, I'd really rather not a lot of 'rah rah hip hooray I know you can do this Vicky!' cheering sections, there's not much to cheer about here, I really don't need pep talks or advice books or any of that. It's the first step on a long hard road that by virtue of it's very nature is intensely personal and I will walk it alone.
Just wish me well on the journey and I hope I find my way back.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Rabbit Holes
Mar. 29th, 2014 03:29 pmEvery so often, being the kinda girl who finds everything fascinating, and always wanting to be well educated on subjects that do catch my interest..... sometimes I fall down these little rabbit holes in the internet. Following warren tunnel after warren tunnel of links and information that likely have very little to do with anything I'm working on at the moment. Yes I have lost whole days this way.
For the girl who used to get lost in an encyclopedia for a day when she only went to look up the population of Switzerland the internet can be an enormous time sink.
So this is where my morning went today:
A week or so ago someone emailed me this link reporting on a new study supposedly linking Autism to Vaccines. I'll admit, I didn't first off notice that the report was six years old. What I first noticed was that MNT wasn't a website I was particularly familiar with but was at least attempting to appear to be a legitimate Medical News source. I also noticed the study was out of the University of Pittsburgh, not an disreputable source on the face of it, and was presented an IMFAR a not disreputable conference. (INFAR and IMFAR are tied up with Autism Research Institute - which is certainly considerably less flaky than some I still had issues with some of the research they funded and published back in the 90's - when I was eating / breathing / sleeping - when I could / autism full time). So the University of Pittsburgh and IMFAR were attached to the study, suddenly it's lent an air of credence and this is the danger of these sorts of websites and these kinds of reports. Most people don't read any further, they get to the "research from the University of Pittsburgh" "presented at the IMFAR scientific conference" this isn't crazy woo stuff - this is SCIENCE it must be true!
It's why myself, who's lived with autism as part of my daily life for over 20 years, and real scientists devoted to real research to help families get so pissed off at this stuff. I hated quakery then, I still hate it now. It takes advantage of people and detracts funds and efforts from truly helpful and meaningful research. However, being a good and diligent hater, I needed (for my own piece of mind) to debunk this nonsense. And yes, Vaccines cause Autism IS BUNK!
And I fell down the rabbit hole. Clue one that the study, despite it's attempt to appear to be legitimate science news - the article gives it's source as Safe Minds. Safe Minds is happy to tell you upfront on their front page that they're anti-vaxers, "The purpose of SafeMinds is to restore health and protect future generations by eradicating the devastation of autism and associated health disorders induced by mercury and other toxicants from human activities."
Looking at the paper presented, leads us to learn that once again our old friend Andrew Wakefield is involved in the research. So at this point most rational people go "oh THAT guy!" realize we can safely dismiss the paper as pure bunk and move on with our lives. Although I am still interested in knowing how the University of Pittsburgh got their name attached to this, and how it got any air time at IMFAR. I kept digging. In the end I read a lot of pages (from scary in their craziness to a bit unfathomable in their scientific-speak and everything in between) and I learned a lot more about Laura Hewiston than I ever wanted to know. To save you all a ton of reading I'll give you the two links that best summed up the problems with the study and the 'poster' presentation at IMFAR and are probably the most readable.
From: Left Brain Right Brain - autism news science and opinion"
And from: Science Blogs
Important lesson - just because the initial report LOOKS like it might be serious, worthwhile, ethical, science research - doesn't mean you can trust the headline. Caveat Emptor folks, caveat emptor.
Then there was a second, although shorter rabbit hole.
A friend posted an interesting link to a report on a NASA funded study of which the upshot is - the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Ok, this isn't exactly news to me. Honestly I've been saying it since the late 80's/early 90's, and I'd been saying it based on the same evidence. I did find it interesting that someone went out and developed a mathematical computer model to measure what I think is relatively evident to any student of world macrocosm history. But it was fun having all those intellectual arguments vindicated scientifically.
This of course led me to another interesting article about James Lovelock. (Yeah it's 6 years old too - LOL) Frankly I've been a fan of Lovelock for some time, I was first introduced to his work and Gaia Theory in the BBC documentary series Beautiful Minds. Again like the NASA research the Gaia model was one and Lovelock's assertions fit within a world view I already had and instinctively made sense to me. I'm not sure how much the author likes Lovelock, a lot of folks don't,
But then, don't we all? The vindication of having the ideas and world view one's developed over a lifetime published as solid scientific theory is pleasant. Particularly considering that while I have a background in science and engineering and specifically earth and weather science - I am no climate expert.
I did find it interesting that Martin Ogle, Chief Naturalist, for NVRPA, and long-time Gaia Theory proponent had not only organized the fourth Gaia Conference, (for which Lovelock did prepare a video presentation) but is also the owner of http://entrepreneurialearth.com/ and http://gaia.org - both of which seem to be bent on selling the kind of environmental sustainability woo that Lovelock has long dismissed.
Oddly enough these two rabbit holes kind of merge together somewhere in my large macrocosm view of life, the universe and everything. The world right now is a mad mad mad mad place. Just as the industrial revolution turned the world completely on it's head and changed the entire social order of the world, so is the technological revolution, and it's not done with us yet. Just as entire empires and civilizations such as Rome rose and then fell, so too is our civilization more than likely past it's peak and about to crumble and fall. Just as the earth's history has seen the rise and fall and change and growth of so many climate changes and populations and mass extinctions, so too I wonder if mankind is just a blip on the evolutionary scale of this planet. And somewhere in all that I think that the rise of madness, of tea partiers and science deniers and the distrust of organized anything, and medicine and technology is part of that pendulum swing the smarter we get as a race the less we trust our own invention. The more the technologies change the world the greater the backlash fighting against it.
Finally it's part of that world view that mankind is on a crash course I'm not sure we can avoid, that has impelled us to move further and further away from urbanized civilization and head out for the fringes. It's not that we don't trust the technology or the government or medicine or social structures. For us, self sufficiency isn't about eschewing civilization, we're just not sure it's going to be here 20 years from now.
One day I'll have to tell you about my theory of the next coming plague, we'll probably be able to blame the anti-vaxers for that.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
For the girl who used to get lost in an encyclopedia for a day when she only went to look up the population of Switzerland the internet can be an enormous time sink.
So this is where my morning went today:
A week or so ago someone emailed me this link reporting on a new study supposedly linking Autism to Vaccines. I'll admit, I didn't first off notice that the report was six years old. What I first noticed was that MNT wasn't a website I was particularly familiar with but was at least attempting to appear to be a legitimate Medical News source. I also noticed the study was out of the University of Pittsburgh, not an disreputable source on the face of it, and was presented an IMFAR a not disreputable conference. (INFAR and IMFAR are tied up with Autism Research Institute - which is certainly considerably less flaky than some I still had issues with some of the research they funded and published back in the 90's - when I was eating / breathing / sleeping - when I could / autism full time). So the University of Pittsburgh and IMFAR were attached to the study, suddenly it's lent an air of credence and this is the danger of these sorts of websites and these kinds of reports. Most people don't read any further, they get to the "research from the University of Pittsburgh" "presented at the IMFAR scientific conference" this isn't crazy woo stuff - this is SCIENCE it must be true!
It's why myself, who's lived with autism as part of my daily life for over 20 years, and real scientists devoted to real research to help families get so pissed off at this stuff. I hated quakery then, I still hate it now. It takes advantage of people and detracts funds and efforts from truly helpful and meaningful research. However, being a good and diligent hater, I needed (for my own piece of mind) to debunk this nonsense. And yes, Vaccines cause Autism IS BUNK!
And I fell down the rabbit hole. Clue one that the study, despite it's attempt to appear to be legitimate science news - the article gives it's source as Safe Minds. Safe Minds is happy to tell you upfront on their front page that they're anti-vaxers, "The purpose of SafeMinds is to restore health and protect future generations by eradicating the devastation of autism and associated health disorders induced by mercury and other toxicants from human activities."
Looking at the paper presented, leads us to learn that once again our old friend Andrew Wakefield is involved in the research. So at this point most rational people go "oh THAT guy!" realize we can safely dismiss the paper as pure bunk and move on with our lives. Although I am still interested in knowing how the University of Pittsburgh got their name attached to this, and how it got any air time at IMFAR. I kept digging. In the end I read a lot of pages (from scary in their craziness to a bit unfathomable in their scientific-speak and everything in between) and I learned a lot more about Laura Hewiston than I ever wanted to know. To save you all a ton of reading I'll give you the two links that best summed up the problems with the study and the 'poster' presentation at IMFAR and are probably the most readable.
From: Left Brain Right Brain - autism news science and opinion"
And from: Science Blogs
Important lesson - just because the initial report LOOKS like it might be serious, worthwhile, ethical, science research - doesn't mean you can trust the headline. Caveat Emptor folks, caveat emptor.
Then there was a second, although shorter rabbit hole.
A friend posted an interesting link to a report on a NASA funded study of which the upshot is - the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Ok, this isn't exactly news to me. Honestly I've been saying it since the late 80's/early 90's, and I'd been saying it based on the same evidence. I did find it interesting that someone went out and developed a mathematical computer model to measure what I think is relatively evident to any student of world macrocosm history. But it was fun having all those intellectual arguments vindicated scientifically.
This of course led me to another interesting article about James Lovelock. (Yeah it's 6 years old too - LOL) Frankly I've been a fan of Lovelock for some time, I was first introduced to his work and Gaia Theory in the BBC documentary series Beautiful Minds. Again like the NASA research the Gaia model was one and Lovelock's assertions fit within a world view I already had and instinctively made sense to me. I'm not sure how much the author likes Lovelock, a lot of folks don't,
"Sometimes he seems less clear-eyed with scientific vision than disposed to see the version of the future his prejudices are looking for."
But then, don't we all? The vindication of having the ideas and world view one's developed over a lifetime published as solid scientific theory is pleasant. Particularly considering that while I have a background in science and engineering and specifically earth and weather science - I am no climate expert.
I did find it interesting that Martin Ogle, Chief Naturalist, for NVRPA, and long-time Gaia Theory proponent had not only organized the fourth Gaia Conference, (for which Lovelock did prepare a video presentation) but is also the owner of http://entrepreneurialearth.com/ and http://gaia.org - both of which seem to be bent on selling the kind of environmental sustainability woo that Lovelock has long dismissed.
Oddly enough these two rabbit holes kind of merge together somewhere in my large macrocosm view of life, the universe and everything. The world right now is a mad mad mad mad place. Just as the industrial revolution turned the world completely on it's head and changed the entire social order of the world, so is the technological revolution, and it's not done with us yet. Just as entire empires and civilizations such as Rome rose and then fell, so too is our civilization more than likely past it's peak and about to crumble and fall. Just as the earth's history has seen the rise and fall and change and growth of so many climate changes and populations and mass extinctions, so too I wonder if mankind is just a blip on the evolutionary scale of this planet. And somewhere in all that I think that the rise of madness, of tea partiers and science deniers and the distrust of organized anything, and medicine and technology is part of that pendulum swing the smarter we get as a race the less we trust our own invention. The more the technologies change the world the greater the backlash fighting against it.
Finally it's part of that world view that mankind is on a crash course I'm not sure we can avoid, that has impelled us to move further and further away from urbanized civilization and head out for the fringes. It's not that we don't trust the technology or the government or medicine or social structures. For us, self sufficiency isn't about eschewing civilization, we're just not sure it's going to be here 20 years from now.
One day I'll have to tell you about my theory of the next coming plague, we'll probably be able to blame the anti-vaxers for that.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
woah ... dude, I did not know that Freeman Patterson was still actively teaching..
One more thing to add to my bucket list - at $2200 for a 7 day workshop including accommodation and meals, it's a rather reasonable thing (still outside my affordability price range - but reasonable)
However - it did prompt me to once again try to prod my darling talented husband into TEACHING me photography - I'm still very much a point my camera at it and hope for the best kinda gal. I'm good at that, and my auto cameras have been a great boon over the years, but I'm all too aware of what I don't know. I've asked him a few times over the years to teach me the basics (he is a teacher of technical subjects after all) ... and he would always end up explaining stuff too fast, or not giving me the key little itty bitty points of understanding the esoteric secret code buzz words of photographers. And even the Dummies books and Online Digital Photography Schools tend to presume a base level of knowledge I just didn't have.
Frustrating.
Today I pointed out that thanks to the prerequisites for the workshop I knew what I didn't know and needed him to teach me.
In two hours this afternoon .... I finally after years of "WTF you talkin' about Willis", I finally finally GET f stops. I get it I get it I get it - the mathematics of it is simple....once you quit talking in buzz words.
In review:
f stops = less is more
shutter speed = less is more
film speed = more is more
and the 'duh' moment..... it's all about the light.
(ok you photographers can quit laughing at me now - no one *ever* actually explained any of this to me...... it's been a huge frustration for years, so this whole thing has been a water shed epiphany moment for me! Once you've learned it it's basic and makes all kinds of sensible sense, but until someone actually teaches it to you - it's all so much goobledy gook!)
Notes:
f number is the length of the focal length of the lens (35mm/50mm/100mm) / diameter of the aperture
thus:
35 mm lens at f 4 = an aperture of 8.75
35 mm lens at f 8 = an aperture of 4.375
Because area is an exponential calculation f 4 is 4 times the light gathering of f 8
50 mm lens at f 4 = an aperture of 12.5
50 mm lens at f 8 = an aperture of 6.25
BUT.... because a shorter focal length (i.e. 35mm vs 50mm) has a WIDER field of view - it collects MORE light at the same f stop. Shorter focal length wider view: less = more Longer focal length narrower view: more = less.
(excellent diagram on focal length from Clara Persis)
THUS
f number is equal across ALL lens, f number is the great equalizer. f 4 on a 50 mm lens is the same as f 4 on a 35 mm lens is the same as f 4 on a 100 mm lens.
So a 100 mm lens is twice the magnification of a 50 mm lens, and 1/4 of the light gathering BUT the f number i the equalizer.
ALL F NUMBERS ON ALL LENSES = THE SAME AMOUNT OF LIGHT.
Because area is exponential f 8 gathers 1/4 of the light that f 4 does. So to get half the amount of light you need to change the f stop by √2. √2 = 1 STOP. f 4 -> f 5.6 = 1 STOP or √2
My Fuji HS30EXR has a 24mm - 720 mm (135 film equivalent - that's the film type for 35mm film) has an f stop range of 2.8-5.6 (James Olympus OM camera lenses go down to 1.4 .... but then those are his pro cameras)
(side bar the 55mm notation on the lens is the thread diameter for filter accessories)
Shutter speed
Twice as fast = half the light. More is less. So 1/60 of a second gathers half the light of 1/30 of a second.
s0ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
f 5.6 at 1/30 sec = f 4 at 1/60 sec
less = more
less = more
If (because area is exponential) f 8 is 1/4 of the light of f 4 then 1/2 the light would be + √2 = f 5.6
f 5.6 has half the light of f 4 - but 1/30 sec has twice the light of 1/60 sec
so f 4 at 1/60 sec = f 5.6 at 1/30 sec.
Film speed:
the smaller the number the slower the film
(wtf? film doesn't move how can it be fast or slow???)
speed is the speed of the chemical reaction or how FAST the chemical coating on the film reacts to
THE LIGHT
135 film (ie 35mm) usually came in ASA (or ISO) 25 50 64 80 100 125 160 200 400 and 800
new digital give you the option of 1600 3200 and 6400 and even 12,800 (but that's getting into the crazy stupid range)
Soooooooooooooo double the film speed, twice the light gathering - more = more
50 ISO at 1/60 sec at f 4 = 50 ISO at 1/30 sec at f 5.6
EQUALS
100 ISO at 1/60 sec at f 5.6 = 100 ISO at 1/30 sec at f 8
These relationships are known as reciprocity.
Reciprocity failure is when due to shooting at the extreme limits of a film the chemical reactions can not quite meet these rules and relationship and the photo fails despite all the numbers being right due to chemical failure.
Here we quit, due to my brain explodey...
.......... Next up....
Depth of field
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
One more thing to add to my bucket list - at $2200 for a 7 day workshop including accommodation and meals, it's a rather reasonable thing (still outside my affordability price range - but reasonable)
However - it did prompt me to once again try to prod my darling talented husband into TEACHING me photography - I'm still very much a point my camera at it and hope for the best kinda gal. I'm good at that, and my auto cameras have been a great boon over the years, but I'm all too aware of what I don't know. I've asked him a few times over the years to teach me the basics (he is a teacher of technical subjects after all) ... and he would always end up explaining stuff too fast, or not giving me the key little itty bitty points of understanding the esoteric secret code buzz words of photographers. And even the Dummies books and Online Digital Photography Schools tend to presume a base level of knowledge I just didn't have.
Frustrating.
Today I pointed out that thanks to the prerequisites for the workshop I knew what I didn't know and needed him to teach me.
In two hours this afternoon .... I finally after years of "WTF you talkin' about Willis", I finally finally GET f stops. I get it I get it I get it - the mathematics of it is simple....once you quit talking in buzz words.
In review:
f stops = less is more
shutter speed = less is more
film speed = more is more
and the 'duh' moment..... it's all about the light.
(ok you photographers can quit laughing at me now - no one *ever* actually explained any of this to me...... it's been a huge frustration for years, so this whole thing has been a water shed epiphany moment for me! Once you've learned it it's basic and makes all kinds of sensible sense, but until someone actually teaches it to you - it's all so much goobledy gook!)
Notes:
f number is the length of the focal length of the lens (35mm/50mm/100mm) / diameter of the aperture
thus:
35 mm lens at f 4 = an aperture of 8.75
35 mm lens at f 8 = an aperture of 4.375
Because area is an exponential calculation f 4 is 4 times the light gathering of f 8
50 mm lens at f 4 = an aperture of 12.5
50 mm lens at f 8 = an aperture of 6.25
BUT.... because a shorter focal length (i.e. 35mm vs 50mm) has a WIDER field of view - it collects MORE light at the same f stop. Shorter focal length wider view: less = more Longer focal length narrower view: more = less.
(excellent diagram on focal length from Clara Persis)
THUS
f number is equal across ALL lens, f number is the great equalizer. f 4 on a 50 mm lens is the same as f 4 on a 35 mm lens is the same as f 4 on a 100 mm lens.
So a 100 mm lens is twice the magnification of a 50 mm lens, and 1/4 of the light gathering BUT the f number i the equalizer.
ALL F NUMBERS ON ALL LENSES = THE SAME AMOUNT OF LIGHT.
Because area is exponential f 8 gathers 1/4 of the light that f 4 does. So to get half the amount of light you need to change the f stop by √2. √2 = 1 STOP. f 4 -> f 5.6 = 1 STOP or √2
My Fuji HS30EXR has a 24mm - 720 mm (135 film equivalent - that's the film type for 35mm film) has an f stop range of 2.8-5.6 (James Olympus OM camera lenses go down to 1.4 .... but then those are his pro cameras)
(side bar the 55mm notation on the lens is the thread diameter for filter accessories)
Shutter speed
Twice as fast = half the light. More is less. So 1/60 of a second gathers half the light of 1/30 of a second.
s0ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
f 5.6 at 1/30 sec = f 4 at 1/60 sec
less = more
less = more
If (because area is exponential) f 8 is 1/4 of the light of f 4 then 1/2 the light would be + √2 = f 5.6
f 5.6 has half the light of f 4 - but 1/30 sec has twice the light of 1/60 sec
so f 4 at 1/60 sec = f 5.6 at 1/30 sec.
Film speed:
the smaller the number the slower the film
(wtf? film doesn't move how can it be fast or slow???)
speed is the speed of the chemical reaction or how FAST the chemical coating on the film reacts to
135 film (ie 35mm) usually came in ASA (or ISO) 25 50 64 80 100 125 160 200 400 and 800
new digital give you the option of 1600 3200 and 6400 and even 12,800 (but that's getting into the crazy stupid range)
Soooooooooooooo double the film speed, twice the light gathering - more = more
50 ISO at 1/60 sec at f 4 = 50 ISO at 1/30 sec at f 5.6
EQUALS
100 ISO at 1/60 sec at f 5.6 = 100 ISO at 1/30 sec at f 8
These relationships are known as reciprocity.
Reciprocity failure is when due to shooting at the extreme limits of a film the chemical reactions can not quite meet these rules and relationship and the photo fails despite all the numbers being right due to chemical failure.
Here we quit, due to my brain explodey...
.......... Next up....
Depth of field
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
The next new thing
Feb. 25th, 2014 02:29 pmOh throughout all the ideas and moments and "things, I'd like to do" throughout 'The Plan ®' there are links between them, a natural evolution and as much at times like I feel like I'm drifting and not sure what the next new direction is there are these moments of 'epiphany' ... and I think "YES! That's it! That's what I should be doing." and sometimes some of those stick and sometimes they don't and sometimes they evolve into something else.
Back in 2010 when this particular next adventure started, oh there were one or two properties in Nova Scotia that captured my imagination and fueled some of those "YES! That's it!" moments. We'd already concluded that really the whole Newfoundland B&B idea wouldn't work for us - we like company, but not enough to open our doors to random strangers for 6-9 months of the year. We knew we wanted to go further out, James knew he wanted to be working creatively, I knew I wanted to be working sustainably, we both wanted to be doing stuff. With raw materials, building a life, DIY. We knew we wanted to surround our life with animals, not just the dogs, and cats, but sheep and alpacas and ponies and pigs and..... for meat and otherwise. I knew I wanted to be growing, and cooking and preserving and crafting. We knew we wanted to be doing with and for people and the world - putting something back in. We talked about writers and artists retreats and doing classes and workshops in creative stuff and surrounding ourselves with creative people. I knew I wanted to keep working with the animals. I'm not a dog trainer, I could be if I wanted to, but I'm not sure that's where my drive is going. I love my glorious newfoundland dog, and the water element, and my interests in carting and water training hasn't changed or dissipated, just wasn't sure where I was going with it until I discovered dog hydro therapy and courses I could take in such things. And I *knew* I wanted to be doing that. We'd talked about rescue work, it was something important to me, and James learned and came to through me. But no matter where you are in this country rescue is full of politics and intrigue and cliques and who's playing in whose sand-box and .... I am so done with that in my life. We'd talked, about if we won millions of dollars how we'd buy a place and 'save all the things', from old unloved houses to old unloved dogs.
Last night I got talking about one of the properties that inspired some of that 'Nova Scotia Dream' of an art and farm and creative and animal heaven by the ocean where my dog could swim' - it has recently come back on the market, and my heart still says "omg! it's perfect!!" And I still want to save all the things, to bring some kindness back into the world. And a place in my heart, that means something *personally* to me. You see - I've been homeless. I've faced the hard choices of what happens when you're facing homelessness as a pet owner. I've been an abused spouse, and looking for a way out, and I know how hard those choices are, and protecting the ones you love in the process often is what keeps you in. James and I have talked about the importance of keeping pets with their families in the past. The pain of elders going into care homes and giving up beloved pets.
So it is that the current evolution of "The Plan ®" is 94 acres by the sea, in a out of the way and hard to find little corner, with a lovely old house, and 5000 ft of sheltered ocean frontage, and beautiful barns for the workshops and ponies and sheep and pigs and alpacas. A beautiful doggie wonderland, sleep away camp, sanctuary, water training and therapy facility, that provides a super secret location for abused spouses to send their beloved family members to be safe while they get their lives back. Non judgmental, non charging, non advertising. Protection.
Of course like all moments of evolution in the process my brain is fixating today on "How do I make this happen?" And the answer is to keep doing what we're doing, and we'll get there one day. Of course digging ditches when you want to be building castles in the sky is always a bit, frustrating, still it's the grunt work that gets you there.Of course little by little the $1/2 million it will take to make it happen will come, but this leonine lady as always chews at the constraints of little by little and would really rather have the $500,000 right now!
I will have my castle and it will be; 'Haven Sent"
And this would be a lovely place to do it.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
Back in 2010 when this particular next adventure started, oh there were one or two properties in Nova Scotia that captured my imagination and fueled some of those "YES! That's it!" moments. We'd already concluded that really the whole Newfoundland B&B idea wouldn't work for us - we like company, but not enough to open our doors to random strangers for 6-9 months of the year. We knew we wanted to go further out, James knew he wanted to be working creatively, I knew I wanted to be working sustainably, we both wanted to be doing stuff. With raw materials, building a life, DIY. We knew we wanted to surround our life with animals, not just the dogs, and cats, but sheep and alpacas and ponies and pigs and..... for meat and otherwise. I knew I wanted to be growing, and cooking and preserving and crafting. We knew we wanted to be doing with and for people and the world - putting something back in. We talked about writers and artists retreats and doing classes and workshops in creative stuff and surrounding ourselves with creative people. I knew I wanted to keep working with the animals. I'm not a dog trainer, I could be if I wanted to, but I'm not sure that's where my drive is going. I love my glorious newfoundland dog, and the water element, and my interests in carting and water training hasn't changed or dissipated, just wasn't sure where I was going with it until I discovered dog hydro therapy and courses I could take in such things. And I *knew* I wanted to be doing that. We'd talked about rescue work, it was something important to me, and James learned and came to through me. But no matter where you are in this country rescue is full of politics and intrigue and cliques and who's playing in whose sand-box and .... I am so done with that in my life. We'd talked, about if we won millions of dollars how we'd buy a place and 'save all the things', from old unloved houses to old unloved dogs.
Last night I got talking about one of the properties that inspired some of that 'Nova Scotia Dream' of an art and farm and creative and animal heaven by the ocean where my dog could swim' - it has recently come back on the market, and my heart still says "omg! it's perfect!!" And I still want to save all the things, to bring some kindness back into the world. And a place in my heart, that means something *personally* to me. You see - I've been homeless. I've faced the hard choices of what happens when you're facing homelessness as a pet owner. I've been an abused spouse, and looking for a way out, and I know how hard those choices are, and protecting the ones you love in the process often is what keeps you in. James and I have talked about the importance of keeping pets with their families in the past. The pain of elders going into care homes and giving up beloved pets.
So it is that the current evolution of "The Plan ®" is 94 acres by the sea, in a out of the way and hard to find little corner, with a lovely old house, and 5000 ft of sheltered ocean frontage, and beautiful barns for the workshops and ponies and sheep and pigs and alpacas. A beautiful doggie wonderland, sleep away camp, sanctuary, water training and therapy facility, that provides a super secret location for abused spouses to send their beloved family members to be safe while they get their lives back. Non judgmental, non charging, non advertising. Protection.
Of course like all moments of evolution in the process my brain is fixating today on "How do I make this happen?" And the answer is to keep doing what we're doing, and we'll get there one day. Of course digging ditches when you want to be building castles in the sky is always a bit, frustrating, still it's the grunt work that gets you there.Of course little by little the $1/2 million it will take to make it happen will come, but this leonine lady as always chews at the constraints of little by little and would really rather have the $500,000 right now!
I will have my castle and it will be; 'Haven Sent"
And this would be a lovely place to do it.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
