Maybe I’d forgotten that things evolve. Perhaps I’d placed such a halo over the head of the last musical director that I figured we’d be in for something worthy of bronze. Instead, tonight’s concert by the bands and choirs and orchestral groups of my son’s school was one of the best in years.
posted in education, music | Comments Off on Back from the concert | 262 words
And then there’s the iron. Not the one used (very rarely) to flatten a shirt with a form of its own. The soldering iron, or the variations thereof. I’ve been soldering stuff, badly, for a long time. It goes back to that dream of owning the ultimate patch cord kit, the one that only the rich can aspire to.
posted in technology | Comments Off on Melting the solder | 346 words
Sometimes the snow comes too late to be anything but a bother. Although the probs have told us to be ready, even if we don’t know the hour or the day, this afternoon’s snowfall just made the daily transit last longer. Well, about double the usual 45 minutes, but by the time the third bus of the ride has been delayed or lost, and the battery on the neigbour’s cellphone is too low to give a clock reference, it doesn’t really matter.
posted in travel, Wx | Comments Off on Too little, too late | 259 words
After all is said and done, I wonder who gets the job of picking up the numbers from the studio floor? We’re watching the returns from the provincial election right now, with the “if the trend is maintained, CBC projects a Liberal majority” announcement by Bernard Derome given after 34 minutes of the game. The tally board continues to flicker, but the projection is holding. Give credit to the various media outlets, who have reported similar numbers since early in this campaign. They obviously know how the sheep will be counted.
posted in politics | Comments Off on An evening of numbers | 288 words
We’ve come a long way from the general store, where you could probably find one of everything. I remember visiting a place like that, back on the Island, where there seemed to be nested basements. There didn’t seem to be a limit (although we probably lacked imagination); you asked for an article, and the staff came back with one in hand. Now we go to stores that have dozens of everything, and a wide variety in any class.
posted in environment | Comments Off on Lining the doors | 314 words
Sometimes we miss the most obvious factoids. Ever since that young Harry fellow with his owl came into our world, there have been multiple copies of the books left on the corners of tables. The movies have been on TV over and over again, in and out of translation. I even ended up in the neighbourhood of a “launch” two summers ago, although I never saw either a rocket or a ship. Above all, I never learned the rules of Quidditch.
posted in media | Comments Off on Unaware of the rules | 297 words
I’m living the open source adventure these days. The most recent upgrade to WordPress wiped out the toolbars from the text editor, leaving an empty grid where the different buttons used to be. I’ve consulted the support forum, where others are faced with the same disfunction, but none of the advice offered by others fixes the problem.
posted in computing | Comments Off on My editor is limping | 269 words
How do you reward a self-sufficient dog? Our house sitter is starting to act a bit like the unruly babysitter, who never went home from an evening on guard with the growl of a hungry stomach. When you (the babysitter) were paid hard time wages amounting to fifty cents per hour, the liberties of the refrigerator seemed to be part of the deal. But what about a dog, who has suddenly discovered the virtues of the kitchen counter?
posted in pets | Comments Off on All your food belongs to me | 267 words
Never underestimate the karma of a good repairman. After a couple of weeks of deprivation (yes, caffeine is a drug; a good one), my coffeemachine is back with a refill of crema. Somewhere along the road, the mechanics of “insert and turn to the right” became “insert and turn to the right as far as your arm strength will permit”. Like all things that have been crafted by workers who don’t have the never break again spirit of the blacksmith, some tiny piece didn’t resist. And we all know the path of least resistance, don’t we?
posted in environment | Comments Off on Return of the crema | 258 words
Oh how the virtuous do protest! My status of bemused bystander is having a whale of a time reading the comments posted under pretty much every article dealing with the current political situation in Ottawa. CBC, for example, is richly fed with a torrent of afterthought. Oddly enought, about half the comments read much like this: Read the rest of this entry »
posted in politics | Comments Off on Depends on your perspective | 318 words
