The Best of Times, Worst of Times

Sun again today. This is the second day in a row. It is quite windy though.

So the Utility Board had their open forum about the size of city council, and who gets up to speak, but the Mayor. Well yes, he says. City council is too large. It should be 15 not 23. He must figure he is on the way out anyway.

Yesterday, they had a council meeting. There is a big scandle going on, about the rock bands that come to the city during the summer. It seems that everyone got paid up front. They all got paid before the tickets were sold. The promoters, bands and everyone else who has their finger in it. They didn't need to worry about selling tickets, there was no more money to be made by doing so. This broke all the rules, and the Mayor had agreed to the whole thing.

Last evening, someone put up to vote to fire the Mayor. That didn't go anywhere. 17 - 3 to keep him. Maybe that 17 were in on the entertainment deal. And hey, there are lots of bands coming this summer. Did I fail to mention, the city pays when there are not enough tickets sold? I get to pay, even though I don't go to these shows. Entertainment for the masses. After all, you are not allowed to feed the christains to the lions. Then again, maybe we are being fed slowly.

Down behind my house, there is a shopping mall, and beyond that, the Forest Hills Parkway. At one end of the mall is Canadian Tire, with their own parking lot. After the store closes, the lot fills up with trailers, race cars, camp chairs and lots of beer. Soon, they are racing up and down the Parkway. The mounties get a lot of complaints, and what is their answer, "We're not interested in that."

The evening before yesterday, one of those guys must have run out of beer. Brandishing an axe, he robbed the Subway store in the same mall. I remember hearing a car just screaming out of the parking lot. I just happened to look at my watch at that time. Found out yesterday the robbery had occured just four minutes earlier. Guess we know who was in that car.

The mounties could have prevented that robbery, or even caught them in the act, if they had answered the complaint calls. They always seem to be conveniently ten miles away, doing rounds. Yesterday, all was back to normal, cars racing on the Parkway, everyone drinking beer and the cops doing rounds ten miles away.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

Oh My Deer!

I can't believe it's sunny today. They are threatning us with 20C/69F.

The big news for us on Twitter is about a deer who jumped through a window, into a restaurant, then out through another window. That was in Halifax. People hid in the bathrooms until the deer left. I think here in Dartmouth the little dears just walk through the door. I also heard of a bear wandering around. It appears he is attracted to unclean barbacues.

So we are back on this again. the size of city council is too large. We have 23 councillors, while cities of the same size in the rest of Canada have 15 - 17. It's goes up for review every eight years, and today's the day. The last time the councillors voted on it, they voted to keep it the same. Duh! The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board are voting on it today. Think they will fire any of their friends? I don't think there will be any volunteers.

From yesterday's post.- Kurt Arseneault I read of very few home invasions while in Texas...... Wonder if it has anything to do with the odds being pretty high that someone inside the house will have a handgun to protect themselves with? Legally!
Jack Sakalauskas That is true. Same for sports riots. I heard that sports riots happen in Canada and Europe, but not the U.S. The U.S. is the only country where shop owners have guns to protect their property.

Home Invasions

This morning, there was thunder, lightning and big rain. Later on this afternoon, it should be a repeat.

I was flicking through the cnannels the other day and when I came to ch.35, it said it was no longer available. It has moved to digital. This is the PBS channel, where I watch for Masterpiece Theatre. This one came from Detroit, but I also have it again, where it comes from Boston. I don't mind losing one, since they are almost the same. The thing is, I always thought of PBS as being free. But now, in order to watch it, I would have to pay for digital. Then again, it hasn't been free since the days of rabbit ears. You could only get it on cable, and you had to pay for it.

What about PBS now? They get their money from donations. If people can't see it, chances of donations are slim. You would think this is eating into their pocketbook. I supose most of their funding comes from trust funds, etc.  It's a matter of time till we all have to invest in the little black box.

I just read on Twitter there was a home invasion in Halifax last evening. Easy targets are people who live alone and the elderly. Two teens took a computer from a woman in this incident. You can lock your door, but what else can you do? If you have a gun and shoot them, they throw you in jail. Calling the police may not help too much. It may take awhile for them to arrive. I lock my door in the evening and hope no one knocks on it.

Arab Democracy?

Rain today? Of course. We seem to have six days of rain and then one day to cut the grass.

Do you know what we did yesterday? We sent a lawyer to jail. Yes, we did. Not only that, it was a woman lawyer. Nothing is sacred. What she did was smuggle drugs in to her customers in prison. Now she gets to join them. She's fifty-seven and has now lost her career.

I don't know why we are sending people to fight in Libya. It's none of our business. Suppositly to help them fight for their freedom. The same thing seems to be going on in Syria. No one is sending any help there. What's the difference? Oil! No oil in Syria.

Charioteer

Sunny today and of course rain for the next two days.

Part #3 Charioteer came up on Smashwords yesterday. It will eventually get to all of them. Amazon is last. About a week. To write that one, I had to study up on chariot racing. The racer had to tie the reins around his waist, much like seat belts today. You saw on "Ben Hur", the drivers getting dragged. For that, they carried a small knife in their belt, to cut the reins. Of course, when you read my story, you will find that out. And heaven forbid, that you wouldn't read it.

So I have three more parts to go for the story. The publisher has one, I have the other two finished. Have to let them sit a bit, then off they go. I'm working on something different now and am finished ch.1. This time it will be a full length adventure in Morocco. I have been to Morocco and know what is where. A princess, two teen age boys, terrorists, sand and more sand. Start ch.2 today.

Everyone thinks I write these for children. Not so. I write them for seniors. Thinking about all my friends going into their second childhood.
Read the paper today and no murders yesterday, or stabbings.

Reading and Writing

Not raining right now. Supposed to have a high today of 16C/61F. Warm eh? (Eh? I am so Canadian.)

This morning I won a book on Goodreads. My second. It's called "I Have A Story To Tell" about Eastern European Jewish immigrants living in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg in the early twentieth century. The stories encompass their travels and travails on leaving home and their struggles in the sweatshops and factories of the garment industry in Canada.

My ancestors came over about the same time and worked in coal mines. Just as bad, maybe worse. My twelve year uncles worked in the mine. I am forever grateful to my Grandfather for coming here.

On my Goodreads page, I have listed 79 books I have read. If I could remember all the titles, it would be much larger. When I was young, I went to the library every week. I have most of those books listed because I still have them. The last book I read at that time was Centennial by Michener. It was in Aug. 1977. Why do I remember that? Same week Elvis died.

After that, I had to  worry about paying bills. About 1999, I was able to get on track again. Instead of reading, I did crossword puzzles for the next eleven years. One morning at breakfast, I did the crossword and Sudoku in thirty min. Then I said that's it. Next, I wrote very short stories. Then I wrote and am still writing a six part series for EchelonPress. They certainly helped me a lot. The first thing they taught me, don't write OK, write okay.

John Grisham's "Ford County"

How dare they threaten us! With sunshine instead of rain for tomorrow. We'll just see about that!

I am reading John Grisham's "Ford County" and last night I read the chapter "Michael's Room."
For me, this chapter really hit home. It almost mirrors my own life.

It involves a lawyer, kidnapped by a father of a child, with Cerebral Palsy. Ten years earlier, the lawyer had defended a doctor in a malpractice suit. The end result gave the family absolutely nothing. The theory was that the child wouldn't live past a year anyway. But now the boy is eleven years old. So the father grabs the lawyer and brings him to his house to show him the result of the jury verdict.

The differences between that family, and mine, is not much. He's from Miss. and his son is eleven. My daughter is thirty-eight. We even have the extra room on the side of the house. It used to be my garage, but now it is her room, with a wood stove in case the power goes out. It has patio doors, which go out onto the patio, which I doubled in length to accommodate her.

My daughter also has one brother, and the description of the wife's life, pretty well describes what my wife does. Except it has been for thirty eight years instead of eleven. And the money problems? At one point, I had four extra jobs while being in the military. With government assistance, it is much better now.

He sued the doctor, I didn't do that. In fact, the doctor died a little while later, from cirrhosis of the liver. He also had family support, which I didn't get. Except for one brother out of four, and their families, I'm more or less shunned. But one can certainly pick up good friends along the way.

John Grisham really did his homework on this story.



Jack Sakalauskas
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