TubaOrNotTuba

It’s the middle of one of those treasured long weekends. The one we wished for back in mid winter. The kind that we consider as “when summer is supposed to start”. With the temperature hovering around the need for a bigger coat, the rain now falling for many days and the pool returning to a deep Kelly green, summer seems to be a long way off.

Read the rest of this entry »

The problem with TV is that the programs interrupt the commercials.

I don’t know who said it, but I’m sure that the feeling is there. Tonight I’ve been watching a DVD set of the miniseries “Band Of Brothers”. Without getting into the content, I have to comment on how well the whole thing hangs together without the regular interludes of the advertising industry. Scenes that are able to run from start to finish, perhaps as the director intended, without a reminder that my life is incomplete without some product or other.

Read the rest of this entry »

At some point during the night, a small electrical mishap removed our office from the telephonic world. When I arrived at work this morning, and pushed my desk and worktable back into place from heating system repairs done yesterday evening, I checked my phone display for messages and found it out of order. What did I push back into the wrong place? No, looks OK… and the other phones in our department are also out… and across the hall. Someone else gave me the head’s up that it was going to be our Friday secret.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey kids, there are job opportunities galore (and no life like it) with National Defence.
Just think, if you are willing to sign on for twenty-five years or life, the Canadian taxpayer will pay you anywhere from $25K to $80K per year, with a liberal clothing allowance (you do wear army surplus already, right?)

Read the rest of this entry »

The long winter of our discontent is over. The end is in sight. American Idol 2006 sent the next-to-the-last contestant home tonight, leaving us with only the coronation left, really. My idle time projecting who will be our next idol is all but done. With the fiery brightness of a pair of shooting stars, Taylor “Grey hair IS cool” Hicks and Katherine “Looks ARE important” McPhee will go to the wire in less than a week. It’s been good light entertainment. Thank you, Coke and Randy and Paula and Simon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today was a pretty ordinary day for life in this new century. The day began with a videoconference over IP that linked the nine English school boards up. For the first time ever. I guess nobody felt the need to do such a thing before, because it didn’t involve any new toys, and it didn’t require anyone to spend hours in setup. It just worked. The one odd note was that while I was linking our conference room, someone in the Montreal room said “I know you; we used to work together about twenty years ago”. Which we had. The medium, not the message, because people have been running into people for a long time now; just not by videoconference. Those innovative souls at Skype today made all outgoing phone calls in North America (Skpye calls, not ALL calls) free until next year. Financially very innovative; a company that had almost free stuff making it even more almost free. I can feel the fearful shivers of Bell from here… So, I called my sister just to talk using my computer. Again, the medium, not the message. I do talk to most of my sisters from time to time; the others are around, somewhere, just not in the same communication space as me. Maybe this even more free dimension will have an effect there, too. I guess that I’ll just have to become more verbal/more verbose. Too many tools and not enough incentives. Too many ways and means and not enough projects. I still don’t videoconference with friends and family, although there’s enough hardware around that I’m running out of reasons.

We’re in the middle of a lovely spring, full of new life; signs of germination and fertility are everywhere. Unfortunately, our noses bear witness, as the springtime pollen counts are very high in this region.

Read the rest of this entry »

This afternoon, on impulse (warm sunny weather is so conducive to impulsive behaviour, don’t you find?), we went off to shop for recreational equipment. Down into the heart of the city, in a sector that only a few years ago was high on the avoid at all costs list for many in this area. Down to a sector which has lost its roof over the street, allowing the yuppiebirds to find a new place to nest. But I digress.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is there a school science fair, anywhere, that doesn’t feature at least one model of a volcano? Lots of papier-mache, fake rocks and the eventual drool of coloured goo to represent the lava flow. Large sheets of Bristol board with diagrams of the cone in dissection.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is a windy one. Brings back a certain memory of going outside to check the treetops, in an attempt to judge the wind strength in case we were going to sea (back three decades ago, in a chapter of my life where I fished). When the trees hit a certain degree of sway, we would make the decision not to go out on the bounding main.

Read the rest of this entry »