Time Travel

Does everyone know what a continental breakfast is? It's a dinner roll, butter and jam. Learned that on my first trip tp England. "Continental breakfast provided." You do get a lot more than one dinner roll.

Freezing cold the last two days and right now it's not so warm. -9C/16F. Tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher 3C/38F. Boston is supposed to be getting snow, which means rain for us tomorrow. I think the rest of N.S. is getting snow.

The Canada games start in three weeks, in Halifax. Every day, in the newspaper, there is an article about the skating oval. After the games are over, they want to keep it, which is a good idea. It's not like the city has ponds to go skating on. Lots of companies are coming forward wanting to lay ads under the ice and around the barriers. Good chance for the mayor to score points.

Joined a writing group at Echelon Press to provide stories for children/youth. Just finished the paperwork this morning, now to send it off. We have to provide six stories for six months. Mine is about time travel.

Brass Monkey Weather

The temperature here this morning is -11C/12F. The windchill makes it feel like -19C/3F. Not any weather, I will be walking around in. I'm glad I went to mass yesterday evening.

Every morning, my habit is to read the newspaper. There are usually not many articles I don't already know about. Newspapers are usually a few days behind my computer. So I need the paper to keep me informed of local matters. Thursday was the exception, where I found a large number of articles, to fill the empty grey spots between ones ears.

On the front page, the first item really shocked me. "Web surfers have eye on shoplifters." What it turns out to be is, convenience stores in the area have webcams to keep an eye on shoplifters, but the web surfers are in England. It seems a company in England charges subscribers $15. a month to join. They can have four feeds open on their screen, for different stores in Halifax. If they see a thief stealing, they press a button, the store owner gets a phone call and voila. The store owner pays $190. a month for this service and they figure it's worth it. The surfers get cash prizes.

Scarey eh? I know England is camera crazy and this is taking it to a new level. Shades of 1984. So watch where you pee next time, someone may be watching. When I worked at the airport, my job was watching the cameras. For practice, I would watch a car leave the highway and I could track the passangers all the way through the process till they boarded the aircraft.

Another article involved a woman and her new husband stuck in his country because he can't get a visa. Seen this played out many times. Dumb blond is usually at least twenty years older. I don't think I have to explain farther.

As far as I am concerned, people who go to Mexico are naive. That's a dangerous place. In the last two days, there have been two  instances of a Canadian getting raped and another shot. After something happens, you go crying to the government. The government didn't tell you to go to Mexico.

♫ Happy Trails To You ♫

Lets talk trails, walking paths, you find throughout the city. I'm all for walking paths, I use part of one on my daily stroll. When I read this mornings paper and saw they provided $800,00. for upgrades, I thought it could be a bit much. Do these paths, trails have to be paved? Apparently so. I think this would classify it as a road, which allows everything but autos. To me, a trail conjures up visions of roughing it in the bush, at least walking on dirt.

You have to be careful walking on these trails, as you can get run over by just about anything, including bikes, roller blades, skateboards and anything else with wheels.

Another article involved the Cole Hbr. Museum, a place where I pat the goats on the head, after finishing my walk on the trail. They were given $14,400. for upgrades. What did they do with the money? Well you may ask, they gave the money to a consultant, who would tell them what they could use the money for. Isn't it strange the price tag is $14,400.

I wondered if naive and dumb could mean the same thing? I guess not, but they are first cousins. This word came up because of the "Dire Straits" and "faggot" noise. When I was young, a fag was a cigarette. "Gimme a fag". The bottom line is, all dumb and naive chip on the shoulder people, made a lot of money for "Dire Straits." If you read this, you are already smarter, you know another name for a cigarette.

Sunday Morning

♫ Sunday morning coming down ♫ and that's exactly what it is doing. A few inches of snow last night and a few more today.

I saw this cartoon in the paper yesterday and had to add it to my blog. This is the way most of the world picture Americans. Americans probably wouldn't like it, but it does appear to have an element of truth. A popular saying in the U.S. is, three strikes - you're out. When I think of that saying, I think of the U.S. as a whole. First strike - gun crazy, second strike - drug crazy and the third strike - may be the crazy political rhetoric. Those three together seem to be a lethal mix. Put on top of it, the reality show arrived at from a shooting, which stays as the top story for at least a week, going at it from every angle. They come up with a host of solutions which do not address the problem, and then life goes on till the next shooting.

Today's newspaper, maybe in honor of Sunday, but probably because it's a slow news week, is filled with items pertaining to religion. Two articles are about the sale of churches, which appear to be on the rise. Selling churches for a dollar or tearing them down, seems to be the road to go, with the supermarket, to be the new church on Sunday.

Another article showed three Anglican Bishops becoming Catholic priests. I don't know about pay, but it is quite a drop in prestige. In the end, your conscience has to dictate the way and it all comes out in the wash.

What I Saw Today

Most people think everyday has basically the same routine. We think this way because we don’t pay attention to what goes on around us. We concentrate on the things we always do, and the rest slips right on by.

At the supermarket yesterday, I saw a man and a woman. They didn’t strike me as a couple, more like a pair, as brother and sister. He appeared about fifty years of age, and she, slightly older. A man with good stature, a graying beard, and a face showing resignation to his fate, more years of sadness.

The woman, prone to obesity, with the appearance of limited finances, wore an angry face, which seemed a permanent feature.

The man pushed the grocery cart, while the woman barked commands.

“Over here. Don’t go there. Don’t touch that.”

And the most revealing.

“You’re lucky you’re with me.”

He said nothing, slowing pushing the cart from aisle to aisle, perhaps listening with unhearing ears. I wonder, when he awakes in the morning, does he roll over and think, “Yes, it’s still me. It’s not all a dream.

We Have Snow, Again

Another Christmas, come and gone. Another turkey already gone. It was one of those turkey already stuffed. I think there was more stuffing than turkey. It was all gone by yesterday and I only had one sandwich.

On Sunday night it snowed. Along the coast, we only received a little. Nothing like the eastern U.S. Saw an article from Philadelphia (one of my favourite cities) where they had garbage trucks used as snowplows. I think that is a great idea for a city. Instead of buying a horde of snowplows, to be used whenever, when they buy a garbage truck, it should have a blade attachment. Easy enough to store and a lot cheaper. Thumbs up to Philly.

Even thought it was warm yesterday, we still had to shovel a little. Don't want a buildup of ice. Good idea it was because it snowed a little last night and we would have had ice covered snow.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has finally arrived. I'm sure the mad rush for presents will go full steam till closing at supper time. I don't have the excitement of opening my presents to see what I have. For me the rush is when my wife opens her presents and I see what I bought her. She has a system of buying her own presents, wrapping them and putting my name on them. This works out well for me as I don't have to go shopping. For her, she can buy what she wants and I can't say anything. After all, it's her Christmas presents.

The forecast is for snow on Monday. Since I just came home from the hospital three weeks ago, there won't be any heavy lifting, which means no snow blower for me. Snow flurries outside right now, at least that's what they call it. In Europe they would call it a disaster.

The doctor called yesterday and made an appointment for my daughter for this morning. Has to check out the foot again, so my son gets to do the lifting. He has taken her for more appointments in three weeks than I've done in a year. This included a trip to the supermarket for her and she even got snowed on. Big excitement. Also, no more bandage on the foot.

Went continental this morning and had a cheese croissant for breakfast. During my European and African continent travelling days, I never had a croissant. Bed and breakfast consisted of dinner rolls with cheese and jam.
♫ Tea, a drink with jam and bread.♫  From "The King And I." Had to put it in there.