10th
May
2007
People love flowers. We’re in full “go to the garden centre and buy” season locally, with the weekend lawn farmers busy sowing and hoeing and doing all those busy as a bee things that follow the fallow of winter. I’m a minimalist, but at an earlier stage in my job history (when I was but a seedling) I was the industrious slave of a greenhouse operator in central Ontario. I loved the work. Even if I was too early in the season to actually see the blooms, I knew what awaited the buyers from having planted thousands of those informative plastic tags in the flats of plants. I was a walking horticultural encyclopedia.
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posted in economy |
6th
April
2007
So today was a holiday. Holy day, holiday, day off. No doubt in my mind that there’s been a certain change in the religious priorities around here. At one time, Good Friday meant an afternoon in church, less food than usual and no meat. Now; well let’s just take a walk through the busy schedule that I had to deal with, shall we?
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posted in environment |
31st
March
2007
No, I didn’t take leave of my senses and seek sand today. March is going out “like a lamb” but the beach is still several months away. Ahh, yes; sun, sand, water, isolation. The perfect way to spend a few hours in mid-summer.
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posted in environment, travel |
9th
February
2007
Explaining any chain of related activities can use one of two directions, the scientific and the illogic. My studies in philosophy stopped too early in life to have learned any other, so those of you who are on your way to a true PhD can simply abstain from comment.
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posted in media |
2nd
February
2007
It will soon be daylight. My ephemersis (actually a nifty javascript that I found on a Russian site some years ago, but the word is cool) tells me that the sun will rise while I’m on the bus, so my ability to judge if i am casting a shadow will be somewhat diminished. The spirit will be there, and that’s all that counts.
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posted in history |
29th
January
2007
One of the marvels of the modern desktop is the view from Google Earth. Forget the glimpse of your city from an airplane window, or a passing passenger train (not likely). Imagine things from a different perspective; from high above, higher than an eagle’s soaring eye. But just as sharp, unless the pixel pixies are busy.
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posted in media |
13th
January
2007
With the rest of the family out of the house for the evening, it was time to try something new. We don’t have a home theatre, which is why the Happy Gang went to the local cinema. I, on the other hand, have a radio which tunes in CBC and the Randy Bachman show. Guess who gets more value for their dollar?
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posted in computing |
21st
December
2006
Today is the three hundred and fifty-fifth day of the year. An important number, since it matches the number on the front of the city bus that takes me home at the end of an average working day after a slight pause on the university campus. A campus where the odour of learning is omnipresent, as an aside. We are dangerously close to the end of another calendar page, and with remarkable foresight I have already laid in provisions of such pages for the next trip around the sun.
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posted in environment |
10th
December
2006
My life in a second language world gives personal relevance to the quote from Steve Martin – Those French, they’ve got a different word for everything.” Every day, I get to puzzle my way to the top of the pile, and the next day start all over again. Sisyphus is my idol.
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posted in economy |
28th
November
2006
Recently, a “before and after” story came across my desktop, where certain celebrities were shown in photos that were either very flattering, or not at all. Cherrypicking, certainly. Eyeopening… well, the cosmetics industry has been in on the secret for ages. Just ask Cleopatra. But how about software?
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posted in economy |
