TubaOrNotTuba

I looked out the front window. My paranoia was justified. I was being watched. Almost as intently as one might watch a movie in a theatre. A red fox sitting on a pile of snow waiting for his show to begin. And the more I think about it. That is the reality. Our main window is where he goes or she to be entertained. Those funny creatures that walk on hind legs are there to entertain. Is there any fear? Not exactly. We are not threatening towards our guests. Rather we realize that we have a special place in the community of animals. Anyone of them can stop by and see what is going on at our house. I would love to know what their impressions are. When we stop and take a photo of them are they considering this to be their moment in the sun? I will have to keep watching because we are on stage. For them. Have they given us names like we do for them? Do they wonder why our hair colour remains as constant as theirs? After all they are foxes. They are smarter than some of the other beasts that hang around outside. Pointing at you squirrel. I truly live in the country and from day-to-day the only constant is that we have those that come to watch us. Is there a distribution list that tells them where to go for the best shows in town? I really do want to know. At some point it might be fun to invite them inside. To see if that old song about what does the fox say has a basis in reality. For what it is worth in my various language lessons pet sounds has been used as a model. And it never varies.

In my day as older people like to say I received what was known as a classical education. That was not true strictly but I did have in my timetable three different courses involving languages. Very canadian. We had English and French and Latin. Only those who were heading to university got to learn Latin. Like me. I spent five years with a dictionary on my desk. Not that I used it. And that was the point of this. My teacher for the final three years had to have the patience of the Saint because she was faced with classrooms full of young people who really did not care. Myself included. I rarely did my homework at least to a level suitable to my plans for life and I learned that you could get away with approximation. A wonderful word there. I was known according to my teacher as someone who could always provide a free translation of a sentence. That is close but inexact. I would have have absorbed just enough to allow me to make a connection to what was asked and what I thought it should be. I was great at confusing the good with the mediocre. No verb tense or noun or idiom was safe. I cannot put it to a percentage but I believe that the teacher learned to avoid asking me because they would at that point bring the flow of her lesson to a halt while she tried to dig out the mud from under the wheels. I did see her later in life and when I told her that I had graduated from university and gone on to things more academic she was shocked. That was not the plan she had made for me. In school we tend to be grouped with our friends in the sense that if your friends are weak academically you probably are too. Not going to brag about my marks. Take it from me that I was a mediocre student. Given that I have spent most of my life trying to master other languages this prompt the question. How often do I get things right. Am I known in my circle as someone who will be close enough but not on the money. I must ask my friends about that one. Or my family.

The article was technically just click bait. But when I saw a title mentioning that someone was trying to run the best AI machine on a Raspberry Pi, I had to go and see what was going on. It turns out that we’re not there yet. Perhaps next week. As the cost of processing drops you do not need a mainframe to run such things as deep seek. I admit it. I have no idea what they were talking about. Just the fact they were is a sign that times are changing. We have had lol energy models for a while. Yes, the LOL is intentional. What the world is worried about is that someone else is going to release a new way of doing things before they do. It is all just a big race without a referee. Am I worried that someone will put a new AI machine on a pi not at all. I will do like the rest of the world and wait to see what they actually do with it. Imagine someone can write this blog without any input from me. Just joking. Instead I invite you to do your own research. Trying to figure out what everyone is so worried about. See how it will actually affect you in the short or the long term. You may be surprised. In the interim keep reading. Even the fastest machines cannot read everything quickly yet. And when the models finally master the next version of Dick and Jane you will be there too I just noticed that the name of my grade one reader has been made into asterisks. That should tell you something. At home we’re trying to figure out a strategy to keep the water out of the sump pit. I suggested simply pulling the plug. You cannot beat nature. All you can do is find a way to cut your losses.

I no longer recall if this was something that I heard or that I read. Little matter. His remark was that you are what you eat. And now I have to wonder if that applies to things that we considered to be snacks. I’ve been watching someone who received a box of goodies from other countries. A lot of chocolate. But the real surprise was a small package of vegemite. Unless you have come across this product, I am sure that you cannot imagine how controversial it can be. My memory goes back to when I was in university and a friend received a small jar from who knows where. I mean it had to be Australia but who knows. And across the years there is only one way to react to the product. Something that makes people from down under giggle because the rest of the world is not prepared for what they’re going to ingest. When you read the ingredients things seem simple. Yeast. And to be fair although we use yeast in a lot of our foods we rarely try to simply ingest the raw product. There is a texture and an odour that is specific. I know that there is another brand called Marmite and I do not know what the difference is but since they come from the same part of the world the differences are probably minor. Just enough to set off a conversation among those who are habitual abusers. In this video his reaction was clear it was as if he had received food from the devil. In the world of YouTube you can have your video demonetized if you use foul language. That did not hold the speaker back. He was clear that he did not recommend this particular snack to anyone else. In the comments he learned that there are better ways to eat it but I do not believe he is going to bother. He was already bothered.

I am in a bit of a quandary. I think that I’ve run out of eggs. Not that I was looking for them but I may be out. And from what I learned on the news there is an issue. Eggs are rising in price. Perhaps not here i haven’t checked. But south of the border they have an issue so much so that the president has tried to address it. Not fix it. Address it. Here’s the thing if I was to decide to just raise my own eggs it is more difficult than I remembered. You first have to get some hands and teach them how to lay eggs I guess. And then you must collect those eggs on a regular basis and figure out how to tell whether or not the egg’s gone bad without opening it. As for getting those hands that is also an issue. From what I learned there is something called avian flu. And when you’re collecting your eggs you could catch that flu. For that reason they do not recommend that you start your own flock. At least without learning a whole lot more about being an egg farmer. And so I will hold off. I will wait until the president figures how to lower the price of eggs which he does not seem to have mastered yet. And then once the price of eggs goes down I will hope that we follow suit up here in Canada. Those trends follow one another. I certainly do not want to be subject to another sort of influenza. Hence I will abstain from raising any hens in the basement or the backyard. Can you buy eggs that are frozen? I had really never considered that possibility. You can buy almost everything else in the frozen food section so why would eggs be any different. Without fresh eggs I will have to for goal making cake or baking cake. Too much risk of burning my hands. I had forgotten just how dangerous life can be. Title getting eggs

Like most people I am a member of an extended family. And this month has seen a large change in my position. My undefined job. Back when I was still in my single digits two of my ancestors left. As you might guess I did not get much preparation for what that job entailed. And now this month I have become a grandparent. Twice. I have no idea what that will entail going forward. I will be learning this new job. A lot of responsibility. I will have to wait and see what my job role will be. I do offer my congratulations to both families. I do ask them to grant me one of those blanket pardons for what I do not do well. It comes from that idea that we really should prepare better for things that will happen to us in life. Meanwhile I extend my hand to welcome the new members of the family. And now I find myself with little to add. I am on the cusp of a new step in my life. Ill prepared but willing to learn. Maybe I should go and learn some new songs to go with my job. Something that qualifies as a lullaby in several languages. There must be a few. Outside I think that I hear voices but that is probably my imagination. Too cold for anyone be walking around on the front lawn. Yes we have a minimum of snow cover and the temperature is right where it is supposed to be at this time of year. Much colder then one would want under other circumstances. I will probably not have to travel anytime soon so I can just enjoy that new delivery of coffee beans. We cut that one a bit close. Getting down into the capsules that we keep in the van. And I have a number of varieties of fresh fruit in the fridge. Maintaining my levels of vitamins period. At least I think that’s what they do. We did not learn much about nutrition back in the good old days.

One of my preferred quotes from a movie would have to be that one that is spoken in a fever dream. Specifically there is no place like home. How true is that? I am not ready to cross any border soon. I am waiting for the dust to settle. Or snow. The people next door are crazy. Do your own research. I do listen to the news and I do read and I realized that for the next little while the dust is going to stay up and it is going to mask reality. Instead I prefer to simply look outside and watch the birds and the trees. Today the snow plow came. I am unsure of what actually triggers his visit. It is not like we have a lot of new snow. But I guess he knows better than me. If you leave it lie it will get hard to move. Call it seasonal icing. And until we move into warmer times. No reason to head off and explore new territory. I had a good year last year. By my calculations, we spent better than 35 days out there. Away from home. Depending upon regular refueling to keep the van heading along the road. And no we never ran out because we have a view of travel that is if you will conservative. No pushing our limits. Who knows? Next year might be completely different hello I somehow doubt that. I have only a short list of where I would like to go and what I would like to see. Most of it is within a day of my driveway. Not going to see the world with that sort of restriction. I guess I am now relying upon others. Waiting for visitors to bring me stories from beyond my home. Just like it was in the Middle Ages. As you can guess I am not likely to go to the airport and expand my travel. Never developped that expensive habit. What about you? Are you someone who is apt to travel just for the sake of it? What have you seen that I might find amazing?

Back in high school I was amazed that our classroom have a piano. It seemed so large and overly impressive. And then I got to university and that was a truly different world. We had rooms with pianos in them for practice. We had classrooms with pianos in them. And the members of the faculty had a whole house. One of those older city homes that had once been a mansion and that had changed role. It had some huge pianos with wonderful tone. And the director of the department even had an pipe organ in his office. Nothing overly large like you were finding at church but rather something that could be loaded in the back of a large truck and moved if ever needed. Of course it wasn’t. This was his toy. I still regret they never had a chance to try it out but that wasn’t my place. In fact the music faculty had a lot of assets that would be out of place in any other place. I think of my tuba which wasn’t really mine but I was the only user. I had a locked cupboard to send it away outside of class time and I think I had the only key because who else wants access to a tuba. As for smaller instruments we were at a level where the good stuff belonged to individuals. No more having to go to a wall rack and choose your weapon of the day excuse me I mean clarinet of the day or trumpet. If you were there you came with your own toys. Unless it was a tuba. I had to pay an annual rent for that. Something over the top like $15. I missed that time in my life where I had no other responsibilities except to make noise. That’s what people in the percussion department do according to those clarinet players. And as far as I know the really good assets are still in place a lifetime later. Most places do not have the money to buy new pipe organs at a whim. Even the tuba as I remember actually belong to the federal government. The military. They are the only ones with too much money in their budgets and buying a tuba was just something to do.

Thanks to satellite technology I have consistent Internet. Starlink. And along with consistent Internet I am able to fall down rabbit holes. Not hunting rabbits of course. Instead I have learned that I can watch old television drama from before my birth. As I said earlier a true time machine. The programs tend to follow a formula. But when you get that fact aside you have a chance to see what the world was like back in the good old days. Today I ended up in downtown San Francisco. A place where a policeman can hear an address and know exactly where it might be. A place where people always had a pocket full of change in case they need to call those police honest pay phone. No cells in those days. And when the police were called they showed up rapidly and in large numbers. The detective always had the right question which he would use rapidly to master whatever the situation. You hear that there are two men and leather jackets and within minutes you find them. A magical time really. Or was it just that rabbit hole. I have learned that when someone is shot they always die unless they don’t. I have learned that the Street car never runs into the badly parked police cars. Again almost magical. And I have learned that back in the days following the war almost everyone had done military service. So many men train to shoot a pistol accurately and to always come away without being hurt themselves. Soldiers of good fortune. I intend to explore other cities because this seems that the majority of cities also had police shows. Cheap advertising. And once you learn your way around the city it becomes home. Hardly I have not yet found a place that I have actually lived. It might be that there were no police in those places. Or that I haven’t found the right rabbit hole yet. I will continue to seek. Lots of time on my hands and high speed Internet.

Without a time machine I will not be going back to high school. However I can still call up memories. Late this afternoon when I watched an old episode of the Partridge family. One that went to air while I was still at my high school. It actually was better than I expected. Except for the music that did not age well. And the liner notes told me that a number of the principle actors are no longer around. That will make you feel old in a hurry. But I give credit to those who put together a program that we watched religiously. It was one of the safe zones. We knew the people involved and curiously we could imagine ourselves in an existence where the family owned a school bus. Believe me most did not. Even the hairstyles have held up well although it’s more than likely that they’ve come around again and again. Reading the comments section is better than the program itself. A lot of us watched that program and so going back gave me and so many others a chance to turn back the clock if only for 20 minutes at a time. I will not be seeking out other episodes soon. I do not want to spoil that little bit of dessert. And knowing that more and more I can watch old programs releases me from having to try and remember what the plot line was. Actually most of the plot lines were very simple. Something to allow advertising to come into our homes. And as for the fashions? Sadly I have none of those old clothes around. Perhaps I outgrew them. But it does distract one for an half hour at a time to try and put ourselves in a world that no longer exists. Because I was on one of those afternoons of watching old content I also went back to check out some of the programs that were big when I was in elementary school. The days when we had shows about tiny men that we attached to a handkerchief (parachute) and threw them up in the air until they got caught on the telephone lines. Not going to name the program but you can pick it out for yourself just.. a Google adventure.