TubaOrNotTuba

I am pretty sure then I have fallen off the radar for one industry. The fast food industry. Or as others know it the fat food industry. Put it down to demographics or geography or change in income but I no longer receive those bundles of coupons that invite me to come in for yet one more burger. I still have a postal box but no sign of any interest in them giving me something for free. That is probably a good thing. Since I no longer go to their restaurants I tend to eat in a more healthy fashion. Smaller portions that are prepared here at home. If I have a hamburger it is by design not hunger pangs. I watched some footage that talks about the changing industry. About how some of the bigger names are going to disappear. The clientele is still out there but there does not seem to be the uptake or uptick in client numbers. When I hear about someone that took the time to eat a fast food burger every day I am left with a sense of curiosity. Was it the sauce? Or the convenience? Going home from work and preparing meals is labour intensive. The fast food industry depended upon that. With multiple restaurants on every corner in a larger city there was always someone willing to sell you a burger and fries for cheap. Remove the clientele and the business model makes much less sense. Or dollars. I am hard pressed to remember the last time I went out and bought something like a bucket of chicken. Measure that in years. Or a foot long sandwich. Something I might do while traveling a long distance in the car but otherwise much easier to go home bread and some cold cuts. As for soda from the fountain? I do not miss it. We purchased one of those machines that allows you to carbonate your own liquid’s and even there I use much less fizzy water than before. Still have it in refrigerator but not on the table. I think I may have broken clear of the fast food industry. I will let them attract clients as they see fit but I do not think that they miss me nor I them. Funny how that changes. When I bought my first burger for $0.10 I thought that the world had changed. I agree, that was a long time ago. And there are no restaurants in my immediate area offering products that make me want to go to them. Not even a pizza because I have a refrigerator and a freezer at home.

I believe in weather forecasts. I have for most of my life. Once we stop turning to the farmers Almanac which would assure us that we were going to have snowy weather for three months the year we wanted something more precise. The government believed in our needs and provided regular weather forecasting. Hence my sense of disbelief that our neighbours to the South are getting set to dismantle their part of the weather forecasting service. I guess that if you do not deliver bad news then there is no bad news. Science for the rest of the world. Yes we have people that watch the weather all over the continent and they take the time to provide what they see to a network. This works for the main part because we have weather observation stations that are kept in good states of repair. Not pointing fingers at our local wind observation station which seems to be offline for months at a time. That is just a flaw. And my own weather observation station does a good job even if I do not manage to keep the contact with the world network online all the time. I am lazy. The equipment works just fine but the flaw is me. So back to weather observations. This is a true science based on observation and collection of data. With enough data points you can get a supercomputer to predict what the weather will be over the next couple of days. And then you can tell the world about it. When I listen to the weather forecast on local TV I rely upon the scientific foundations of that exercise. And the supercomputer summers in upper Canada. I can only wonder what they’re going to do down South when the forecasting of significant weather is no longer there. I’m sorry but looking out the window will not let you know that there is a tornado inbound. Which reminds me that I really should try and get my own weather station back online if only to provide data points to a much larger network.

Take a moment and remember one thing that happened yesterday that was important. Keep it brief. Limit yourself to a couple of seconds. Now how well did you do? One of the premises often used in TV drama is to ask someone to recall something they saw as a witness. We all know that this rarely turns out well. I’m going to flip the coin in this one and point out that this is actually a feature. You can do the math. How many seconds per day of intense input does your brain receive. Sound and video if you will. Now. Try to imagine if you were unable to filter any of that out. I hate to think about the volume of content we all receive in a given day. Expand that out through your life and you will start to guess what I’m getting at. Our brains are not designed to process the quantity of data we now all receive. It probably was always like that. Prehistoric mankind was as overcome by a beautiful sunrise as we are today. They may have had more time to watch the weather or build piles of stones into something to help them recall a moment but mankind has that issue we are unable to remember everything. As you get older people will warn you that you will start to forget things. The image of walking into a room and asking yourself why you came in. It is real. It is a good thing. If everything caught your attention nothing would catch your attention. This is our brain doing what is designed to do. So do not despair when you find that you have forgotten some particular fact. As long as it does not involve your own identity you’re probably good to carry on. Besides how would you tell if a letter was meant for you if you did not have that filter of knowing your own name. And for your own sanity do not get caught up in the endless amount of details that we all have to deal with. Our brains were designed to filter. Let it do that. So what if you watch a movie for a second time or listen to a piece of music on repeat. That is life.

Last night in that. Before dawn things got strange outside. We had been in the light of a full moon and then it faded to red. Now I have been alive long enough to know that this is a regular event. Not a scheduled event but one that you can predict. Hence all the time they spent during the evening weather forecast talking about how it will get dark outside. No rain needed to fall. There were no clouds. Just a bright night that went to dim for longer than I want to calculate. I actually did not bother getting up although someone else in the house had a camera focused on that red orb. I used to care about such things but I have learned that they are of little significance in the day-to-day existence of people in this part of the world. No need to sacrifice a goat or burn funny herbs. And now that the event has come and gone with no other evidence outside I have to assume that maybe it was just a dream. There will be others. Remember I did say that these were events that you could mathematically calculate so we know exactly when the next one will be and it’s duration. And unlike the solar eclipses which tend to move mountains figuratively when the moon goes red we just put a note on the calendar that this is going to happen. As it did. I listened to see if any of our local wildlife had any reaction and there was none. No changing of their habits. Clouds coming go all the time and so if the moon is under a veil it’s just business as usual although I imagine that if we had more owls they might take note. The eclipse also had no effect on the remaining snow that is melting away under its own schedule. Or maybe that is related to the temperature. So many details. And since I no longer watch the sky I have to assume that this passes virtually unnoticed by all around me. You know. They saw some stars and then they didn’t and then they did exactly the same as when the clouds are overhead.

The best story I heard yesterday involved a product announcement. This was on our national network and I learned that a brewery in eastern Canada has released a party pack. Not exactly the name they gave it but close enough. In the pack more than 1400 cans of beer. The selling point was that the buyer would get the truckload of cans of beer delivered to the place of choice and then they would sit back and drink one can of beer each day until the end of the current political regime in the South. I thought about this for a moment. Beer has a limited shelf life even in a can. And some temperature control is recommended. I tried to imagine just for a moment what a four year old can of beer might taste like. Probably not what the brewer had planned. Also the upfront cost would give pause too many. And the whole idea of spreading your beer out over four calendar years means that the average college freshman would still have some left by graduation day. Not likely to happen. I am certain that this product will not be offered next year or the year after. This seems to be a media event. Thank you to our national news outlet giving the company the coverage they want. Why not offer something a little more traditional? I think that I have some old sweatshirts they have been around for a decade. You can still read the logo and in the case of advertising that’s the part that counts. I have sent the story on to one of my sons who has a good take on how the brewing business works. Still waiting for his take on the subject. Funny how advertising works. Most companies want to be known to the world without depending upon their product having a limited shelf life.

The premise was to talk about the best job I ever had. I’m gonna take a right turn on that one and go for the best job I never had. When you were young you apply for jobs without fully understanding what is involved. I was in high school and someone mentioned that the local pop company was looking for people to ride on their trucks. This was in the time when soda pop was delivered in glass bottles in wooden crates. Two dozen bottles to the crate as I remember. And the job for the guy on the delivery truck was to get those boxes off and back on again full and empty. I can only guess how much a full creative pop actually weighed. My own impression was that the people who did this for a summer ended up going out for the football team because they were suddenly much stronger than anyone else around them. Also I had this illusion that you got to drink all the pop you wanted. I never got the job so it still remains as an illusion. No big muscles and no lasting effects of drinking too much warm soda as the truck bounced up and down the city streets. I am guessing that you remained capable of burping better than anyone else around you. Jobs like that did not pay much. Minimum wage was still a dream so you were likely to get whatever the company imagined it could pay to the stupid child looking for a job. I did notice later in life that there are very few people who stay in that occupation for very long. I made it out without the lasting effects. I found other things to do. But I realized looking back that sometimes not getting a job is the best thing that can happen to a young person. Did I have other jobs when I was in high school? Not really. I did a lot of babysitting because I came from a large family. And I learned that your pennies needed to be counted if only to make sure you had enough to buy a single bottle of pop when you made it to the store. I could probably do the calculation knowing that the average pop bottle contained about 350 grams of liquid and the glass made that much again and then you multiply. But the truth is that on a hot summer day those crates weighed far more than you would want to lift by choice. And remembering the format used by delivery trucks you spend a lot of time lifting the crate over your head. That could leave you crippled for life.

Some things are in the eye of the beholder as I say. From my experience landforms fit into this. I live in a province that has no mountains. In fact we rarely get around to using the term hill. Flatland. But there are several places in the province that have names that reflect mountains. Are these simply memories of the people that moved there because they do not qualify in terms of topography. We found the same thing to be true in the second province that I lived in. They had bigger hills. A lot of them. And one close to town was actually called a mount and it probably was substantial to anyone with a horse and cart. But not a true mount. You would not go there to ski nor would you go there to climb with ropes. Just a hill that you could walk up even on the hottest summer day. In my third province there were hills in town. More than a kilometre from top to bottom. And like elsewhere all of those hills had names. Oddly they just called them the hills. And if you had to go up on a summer day on a bicycle you would be grumbling and mumbling under your breath but you would always make it to the top and you would always make it back down. I’ve lived in other places that had true mountains. Nothing to rival the Rockies or there height but true mountains just the same. And the names gave hints but you needed to find a true topographical map to get the statistics. Right now I have the opposite condition. A lot of small ponds that have been given the name of lakes. Not deep or wide or long but more than a puddle. In truth the majority are actually saltwater lagoons. I will be keeping an eye out in future for the veracity of places’ names. Too much room for exaggeration on the part of those who dropped the titles on the map. We have no large forests. No large trees anymore. But I will be watching. The next time that somebody tells me about a giant tree I will be credulous. Or is it incredulous. I must sort that out.

Take your new stories as they come. Today, or yesterday, this country received a new Prime Minister period. Designate. He is not being sworn in and might not be. That’s how we do things up here in Canada with a total lack of clarity. And for those of you who are outside the country being the Prime Minister is not the same as being the President or the King or any of those other really good jobs. This is a chance to be abused by your peers. For years. A chance to get a private car that only takes you where the others want to go. So where does this leave us? Apparently we will have an election. Or actually hundreds of them because again this is Canada. Soon but the date is not yet chosen at least not publicly. And when they finally get around to announcing the election campaign we will spend far too much money on advertising. Our way of showing up the failing resource is of the media world. I have no choice but to watch it. I am a member of a captive audience. Besides it could be fun. Once in a while the insults rise above the innocent mundane level used in Canadian politics from time to time. My favourite through the years? Selective deafness. You can look it up. And since the House of Commons is in recess for another few weeks. Take that as you will. By the time it all gets sorted out the interest of the public will have moved on to something else. Canadian politics is so polite. It also keeps those across the border from really understanding what is going on. The title Governor Trudeau is already too old to matter. I didn’t even get a hat or a T-shirt. I do need some new T-shirts but the hat leaves me indifferent. I also, will have to check in with the children to see that they are awake and paying attention. Hate for them to miss the most interesting time of the year. Maybe they need a new hat. Or a lawn sign. Something to keep as a family memory.

I have been fortunate during my life to do some things that are a little out of the ordinary. One of my proudest periods was when I was a member of the mice that lived in the pit. That is, the group of musicians who sat in front of a stage or below it and provided the sound for an ongoing show. Think Broadway musicals because that is the way that I look at it. I was in the pit for either four or five different shows my memory grows dim for some of it. It takes a long time to get a show from let’s do all the way to bring down the curtain. Months of practice with musicians that may or may not be familiar with the task at hand. Now usually I was in the percussion chair which meant that I had lots of toys to play with and lots of time to count measures. There is nothing worse than tacet at 100. The usual scenario was that you would get chosen to be a member of the pit and then you have practice all the time I hate to say every day but it felt like it and the worst were the sectionals when you sat down and played along for one part of the show with one group of instruments. Looking at you clarinets. And then as we get closer to the counter being done we would prepare for our time to shine. Not that anyone could see us because we were in the pit. I never had to learn a dance step or sing along with others. I could just bang on my drum or play with my base or play the flute. I would love to try some of these things again because there is a sense of comradeship that grows among those who live in the pit we have seen the worst that theatre arts has to offer. There are a lot of people who think they can sing and dance but who fall short of the edge. In the worst cases they would literally fall into the pit with us although that did not happen often. The tunes as we call them stay with you for the rest of your life I cannot hear the opening bars of any of those shows without having them come back to mind in their entirety. Yes I know the words even though I never had to sing them. Therein lies the true fate of the members of a pit orchestra. We know all the lines there it ever ever having to save them.

I think the point is to maintain your brain in a state of being alert. In other words do not sleep your way through life. However getting exercise for your brain is really rather simple. Go and study something that you do not already know about. This morning I watched some videos on the breaking systems used on railway trains. Air mainly but there is some mechanical involved and the reality is that I do not have a real car to go out and poke around and see for myself. If I want to understand the principles I have to find a simulation of some sort. I have basic familiarity with the systems. I have watched trainman tie break lines together for most of my life. Old technology that is still in use. And of course there have been improvements overtime. That is a positive thing. I can remember watching old movies where someone jumped up on top of a box car and rotated a large hand wheel until brakes came on or came off. Those systems still exist I believe. But we now have things that are better. Computerized. Able to compare air pressures all by themselves. To be sure this kind of thing is important in the real world. Last year we visited the site of a rail disaster. One that came about because the train was parked on a very slight grade and someone did not set F is sufficient number of handbrakes. The train got away and crashed and burned. Not a good thing for anyone involved and the reason why we have a memorial site is that it affected greatly a small town. No need to name names. Just take it from me these systems are still used and learning even a minimum about them is a good idea. I will never run a train but I feel better knowing the why of things. Part of being educated. And to reassure you I have no intentions of going out and trying something dangerous. You can go back to sleep now.