Solstice Sentiments

It’s Saturday Morning and I’m listening to Pipedreams from NPR while I leisurely browse the Web and catch up on E-mail.  If you’re reading this I’d appreciate a note to let me know that I’m not just blathering to the ether. 

 

Here in Oakville, Ontario by the lake the Waterfront Festival is going strong without me—at least they have ideal sunny temperate weather for event.  I like to avoid crowd scenes and the thought of unreserved seating for a popular rock star frightens me. 

 

Work

 

Countdown to retirement 13 months and not a day too soon.  Can’t say as I enjoy a 4:00 AM to Noon shift.  I end up getting my major rest as an afternoon nap so that I can enjoy my evenings despite an alarm that goes off at 2:30 AM.  This week when I arose at 5 PM on Thursday I’d lost track of which day it was.  I often awaken thinking I’m late for work until it dawns on me that it couldn’t be light at 4:00 AM.  Since I last made a serious attempt at catching up here the lighting in the oldest section of our office was revamped—it’s now so bright in there as to be blinding.  After two and a half weeks I threw out the mess of fluorescent tubes the workmen left behind believing they had no intention of picking them up; having them around was a hazard as they were getting broken by careless individuals.  Friday the poor snook who finally showed up got a bit of a blast from me when he came to pick them up.  The interior of our workspace is being repainted yet again.  Why I’m not sure as I’ve been busy putting up all the posters, bulletin boards, and notices that littered it in the first place.  Canada Post has joined the ranks of employers monitoring employee use of the internet—no more hockey fights.com.  With summer upon us new homes are going up like crazy and Monday we initiate 10 new Community Mailboxes or close to 400 new homes.  All our routes are full and we are working on number 57 and 58.  I can’t imagine what’s going to happen when they start building north of Dundas to 407. 

 

On the thirteenth of June I got up to Milton to pick strawberries.  There’s no way of getting there without passing through road construction and a trip along Derry Rd proves why Milton is one of the fastest growing communities in Canada.  Springridge Farm is no longer out in the country—fortunately the prevailing westerly wind keeps the construction dust off their berries.  John Hughes retired a few years ago as professor at Guelph University’s school of agriculture and is even now in the process of passing the torch at the farm to his son and heir Tom.  Farmer John’s pride is obvious.  The proud grandparents are also busy sharing pictures of the third generation. 

 

I’m still busy occupying my free time with DVD’s.  Many reviewed on my sister blog.  Splurged to pick up discounted sets of the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series.  Should keep me out of mischief for the summer.  Spent $188.00 to have my 25-year gold watch ‘revised’ by Birks.  Hopefully it gives me 10 more years of trouble-free service—the batteries are free.  I’m still struggling to keep up with the podcasts I download to iTunes. 

 

The blurb below on the Safety Village below was occasioned by a visit there for a Meet and Greet with the new Superintendent of Police for Oakville.  Must confess I still have trouble keeping track of the various ranks and even more with the revolving door of officers who fill them.  Also picked up a plaque marking over 5 years service to a community policing committee. 

 

Watching Endless Summer made me wish I was twenty again and healthy and wealthy enough to go surfing.  Mind you the thought of surfing 30 foot waves in two feet of water over razor coral is just a bit intimidating. 

 

The rant below is prompted by the forced update I will be making to my Lavasoft Ad-Aware Software.  Mind you I bought the SE version 5 years ago before they came up with the idea of subscription fees and have had a “free ride” ever since but they’re terminating the updates at the end of this year so I decided to update while the offers were good.  How much trouble removing the old version and installing the new will occasion may be the subject of a future rant.   My computer has been trouble-free of late and I’d like to keep it that way. 

 

 

Another Rant about Software Providers

<Just out of interest the automated response I got from the particular company to which I sent the E-mail upon which this rant is based identified my letter as spam.  A pox on all your houses.>

 

Just once, I wish a company would make it clear when a customer updates or upgrades their software whether:

 

1. The old software must be manually removed

 

2. The new version will un-install the old version

 

3. The new version will install over the old

 

4. Special software must be downloaded to ensure all vestiges of the old software have been removed from the program folder and the registry.  As is the case with Nero or Norton for example.

 

A thorough search often yields no information on this subject.  It would seem techies feel no need to share this kind of information with mere mortals. 

 

While I’m on a tear I’d comment that I also lose patience with installation processes that want to go online to update the software and update definitions and/or register the software.  In the first place why should I have to update software I just finished downloading; why wasn’t it properly written in the first place?  When I install software I reboot without starting programs so that backup, firewall, and virus-ware programmes do not interfere with the installation process.  Therefore in today’s dangerous environment on the net I am ill-advised to go online totally unprotected.  Furthermore many companies’ updater softwares do not seem to understand ASDL internet access and cannot recognize that I am online in any case. 

 

 

Halton Regional Police Service Safety Village

Spent part of last evening at the Halton Regional Police Service Safety Village. Where else would you find a Petro Canada Station, Canadian Tire, Royal Bank, MacDonald's, a school bus, a school, working traffic lights, and a railway crossing complete with marked roads, cross walks and street signs all in a small miniature village? During the school year busloads of elementary school students get to experience this special community. The youngest ones walk the course, the older ones ride bikes, and the oldest get to ride battery powered miniature cars. Montessori would be so proud. Sponsored by the Oakville Optimists this is a unique way to learn how to be safe on our streets. Who says cops don't have a sense of humour?

Catching Up

What happened to me, you may well ask.  I’d fully intended to make an entry in this blog last weekend but once again I got overtaken by my penchant for trying out new software and getting myself into cyber hot water. 

 

With the increasing proliferation of threats on the World Wide Web I’d decided that now that I have sufficient computer resources to enable the use of a full-time firewall I’d try out Agnitum’s newly minted Outpost Firewall Suite.  The problem with a new innovation such as this programme represents is the fact that no one can be on the Internet without previous anti-viral software and one is reluctant to take it on faith that a new innovation is going to provide comparable protection and furthermore one has probably paid good money for that protection.  Therefore I discovered first hand that Agnitum and Norton do not play well together.  After a month of difficulties gaining online access for my favourite software I finally had to make the decision that the hassles involved didn’t justify the outlay of funds Outlook Firewall would represent.  The un-installation seemed to go well; I removed the folders left behind and the 87 remaining registry entries but it was then I started discovering the damage the two programmes had been doing each other.  The next stage was the repairing of Norton Systemworks Pro—it must be removed, it can’t be repaired!  For anyone who needs to uninstall Norton Products don’t attempt to do it via the Windows Control Panel—Norton’s built-in self-protection makes that attempt extremely messy.  Norton supplies a small download called the Norton Removal Tool for that purpose.  It does work.  Next follows the re-installation process, approximately 100 MB of updates in 4 sessions each of which requires a reboot, the reconfiguration of each individual component, the obligatory complete system virus scan, resetting Norton Ghost and its back-up—somehow Norton retained its registration files and did not require reactivation.  All this by way of explaining my silence.  When will he ever learn?  Probably never. 

 

I just finished wading my way through the 401 pages that Leonard Cohen’s Stranger Music represents.  (Review elsewhere on my books blog.)  This compilation of selected poems and songs spans the arc of Cohen’s life from naïve neophyte to angst-ridden observer of the Holocaust to sexual libertarian to old-age-driven reconciliation with his maker.  As I’ve previously opined, this is not a book for children. 

 

The past year has seen more severe and unusual weather than has ever existed in a similar period in living memory.  Asthma sufferers such as me feel the impact of the lack of ground frost to kill the fungus and mould in our soil.  Northern communities miss safe passage over pack ice and the loss of free ice roads to transport heavy goods.  Southern Ontario swelters under photochemical smog for longer and earlier periods—February?!!  The hurricane season begins earlier and spans more super-storms; tornados reach severities that push the upper boundaries of 5 on the Fujita scale.  This past week three inches of rain in one hour literally drowned Calgary Alberta where rivers in flood from the spring melt run-off were already swollen.  Southern Ontario yesterday spent most of the late afternoon and evening under a severe thunderstorm and tornado watch.  As the cold front came through the temperature dropped 25 degrees Fahrenheit.  This morning’s cerulean blue skies belie the fact that I was awakened from my afternoon nap yesterday by crashing thunder, gusts that shook the trees outside my windows, a sky that was as black as night, and wind-driven rain that sluiced down my balcony windows. 

 

Here I take a break to wind my centuries-old 8-day striking clock, make toast for breakfast, set the dishwasher, and prepare to start doing laundry. 

 

The past week or so I’ve been working on updating RSMC Routes, making case plans, and checking out new growth.  It’s frightening the speed at which Oakville is growing.  It may be a town in name; but it has big city problems.  Having had to rewrite bylaws to accommodate the building of a castle-like 50,000 square-foot home in East Oakville the town is now facing the spectre of a condo-tower/commercial Complex on the site of the former Holiday Inn on Iroquois Shore Rd that would punch up to three towers 30 stories into the sky overlooking the QEW and Ford of Canada.  And we thought we had traffic problems before. 

 

Not much has changed in my life.  I’m still attempting to keep up with the podcasts I download in iTunes—at least I have 600 GB of disk space on which to store the overload.  I’ve listened to music by Sir Malcolm Arnold, Sir Hamilton Harty, Howard Hanson, and Amy Beach.  I’ve been acquiring new DVD’s faster than I can watch the ones I already own lately.  I’ve reviewed a few of them on my Movie Blog.  My reading has suffered lately but I’m still plugging away at short stories, poetry and Whyte’s The Eagle.  I’m attempting to keep up with my electronic subscriptions to PC World, MacLean’s and Reader’s Digest in Zinio Reader.  Ironically I’ve been reading the Austin City Chronicle in .PDF because of the difficulty of finding our local EYE and NOW.  The world is on pause awaiting the July 21^st release of the final Harry Potter; Amazon has pre-sold 1,255,901 copies at time of writing.  Whatever else, this is quite a coup for Raincoast Books in Canada.  I’ll go on the record again predicting that Harry dies in this version.  Lately I’ve been doing my best to keep Amazon.ca viable with my shopping.  Were I able to find the books I find there at Chapters, the movies at Blockbuster, or the music at HMV I would not be doing so much shopping online. 

 

So here I’ve over-compensated for my past silence; however my inbox is empty of personal correspondence so I won’t be taxed by answering it. 

Rant of the day for June 9, 2007

What’s the point of having a blog if one doesn’t use it as a platform for one’s personal rants? 

 

I’ve been listening to Guardian Books podcast coverage of the Guardian Sponsored Ten-Day Festival of Books at Hay-on-Wye in Wales.  Hay, a small town with less than 2000 residents has over 30 bookstores!  Even if the majority of them actually are used book stores this is still a remarkable feat.  One that is not possible on this side of the pond.  If you have to ask why, then you haven’t been following the juggernaut that is Heather Reisman’s Chapters Indigo.  Chapters is to book selling what Staples is to office supplies, Wal-Mart is to department stores, Tim Horton’s is to doughnuts, MacDonald’s is to fast food… an attempt to monopolize its sphere of enterprise.  The ascendancy of Chapters in the book market has made life difficult if not impossible for independent book sellers.  Their demise has led to a lack of diversity in the book trade and a loss of the kind of personalized service a small bookseller can give.  When any business corners up to 90% of a market the old saw about “absolute power corrupting absolutely” starts to come into play.  The ability to dictate terms to book publishers, ban books one dislikes from one’s stores, market titles weeks before independents get their hands on them, ban free tabloids including the Montreal Review of Books (?!), sell klap trap like candles and crystal, refuse to do customer book orders—“buy it online”….  Whether or not I like Amazon.com, Chapters has driven me to their arms in protest. 

Trials & Tribulations

I’d thought of several witty aphorisms with which to begin this blog but this morning I just don’t seem to feel witty so let’s begin with an explanation for nearly three weeks of silence.  In a word hard disc failure, not just once but three hard drives in one week and this on a brand new computer.  There’s a reason I don’t gamble; I also do regular backups to an exterior hard drive.  Restoring data is not how I’d planned to spend a two-week vacation but that’s how it turned out.  This leads to my next rant:

 

MONOPOLIES IN THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY    There are two companies who make hard drives; Western Digital and Seagate.  Memory?  A single plant accounts for 90% of the world’s production—forget brand names.  Processors?  Intel.  Operating Systems?  Microsoft’s Windows; everyone else is a very distant second—there’s a reason Bill Gates can afford to buy most small countries lock, stock, and barrel.  Browsers?  Internet Explorer.  Search Engines?  Google owns 50% of the market.  The equivalent in Automobile supply terms would be GM having a monopoly on the production of the world’s supply of motor vehicles; owning all the internal combustion engine plants; the tire plants; and the petrochemical industry.

My printer, (Canon i560) went wonky about the same time.  I don’t do that much printing but you miss something when you don’t have it.  I was going to use my shopping list software to print my grocery shopping list until I remembered that wasn’t possible.

 

On to another rant.  Why is it that the first thing people ask you when you tell them you’re on vacation is when are you going back to work?  Is there something about working that validates one’s existence?  What will they say in a year’s time when I tell them I’m retired?  I’ve taken May holidays for years to avoid the worst of the tree pollen season.  It’s so bad this year I’m virtually under house arrest.  Just went out to pick up the weekly flyers and a gust of wind released a veritable yellow cloud of pine tree pollen. 

 

WHAT I DID ON MY SPRING HOLIDAYS

 

 

Housecleaning.  Given another year and I might make a respectable dent in the ocean of papers I’ve saved over the years.  Thank goodness electronic clippings don’t occupy closet space.  I need library space for my CD’s, Books, DVD’s, and VHS tapes though.  Listening to music:  on CD, podcasts, and online.  DVD’s:  I’ve posted a few reviews.  Browsing and reading E-mail.  I’ve even made a bit of progress on my books.  Finally got out and did a bit of shopping.  And I did my laundry.  Doesn’t sound very romantic.  More like I caught up on necessary tasks and spent some time feeling lazy. 

 

 

Coming up on an Anniversay

In just over two weeks I’ll have been blogging for a year and in that time I’ve uploaded 170 entries or an average of almost 1 every two days! I suppose you could say that I’ve been infected with the bug.

Although it’s cool outside it’s definitely Spring here in Southern Ontario. There hasn’t been frost in some time; the grass is green but then there wasn’t enough ground frost to kill it this winter, the spring bulbs are flowering, the forsythia is in full bloom and with the air so cool it is quite brilliant yet; outside my window the silver and red maple trees have almost finished flowering and the leaves of summer are unfurling. The growl of lawn mowers has been apparent for several weeks now.

Don’t have that much to report regarding the week that was. On Monday went down to Bronte for dinner before I came home—hot spinach salad and pulled pork at the Coach and Four. Waitress tried to tell me it was too much but she reckoned not on my appetite. Tuesday went in to the Post Office to attempt the work of two men. The Dock man had already alerted me to the fact that he wouldn’t be in. Bungled my way through the day without hitting anything or getting anything or anybody too upset. Picked up The Queen and Alpha Dog at Future Shop, then came home and after my nap watched The Queen—see my review. Wednesday picked up an order I’d placed at Amazon after a long wait in line at the RPO. Listened to the Classical music I’d just gotten including music by Amy Beach and Howard Hanson. I’m still working my way through last season’s The OC. Thursday stopped by Oakville Place and picked up EYE, NOW, and Exclaim which I worked my way through over Chicken Salad at East Side Mario’s. When I finally got home slept until early evening then read myself to sleep early. Friday, began my day by installing Agnitum’s Outpost Firewall and Security Suite on my computer. It’s a trialware version and I’m deciding whether I’ll buy it for fulltime use. At least in the main it’s a more user friendly application then Norton’s firewall. After working my way through 3 tedious monos of mail Friday helped Barry Bentley sort up Walk 65, then cleaned up the office and stacked monos. Don, the CUS Supervisor brought in his Mother’s spaghetti and meatballs and I got invited to partake of a plateful before I drove out to deliver Barry’s drops. While I was delivering the drops got waylaid by Jimmy McCarty when I stopped outside his door at Nelson and Belyea so after I’d completed the run went back to have a beer with him. Carrie was visiting and I learned she’ll be off til June after needing emergency surgery during her vacation. After my nap started watching The Patriot.

Spent Saturday lazily browsing the web and reading E-mail while I listened to music and podcasts. Was awakened this morning at my normal time of rising by the return of the drunks from the pub at 2:30 AM but managed to sleep in until 4—that’s sleeping in for me. I’ve been listening to more podcasts today while I catch up on folding laundry, changing my calendars to May, and putting away my humidifier for summer. Outside the sun is shining brilliantly even if it isn’t making much heat—at least we won’t be having any tornados such as devastated Greenburg, Kansas Friday Night.

Here in Canada we have news of a different sort. Sam Steele is turning over in his grave. First a madman managed to murder four RCMP officers near Edmonton when they raided his farm. Then we learn that the head of the RCMP lied under oath. Next we learn that the RCMP officials looking after their pension funds absconded with some of the cash. Now we learn that their officers ignored information about the threat of a bombing aboard the Air India flight that blew up east of Ireland which they received just days before the event. It used to be that the RCMP was known for always getting their man. Nowadays it would seem as likely that the man they need to get is a fellow officer. How have the mighty fallen!

My Week in Review.doc

“It’s not the cough that carries you off—but the coffin they carries you off in.”  That being said the whistling cough that is still lingering on after my unwelcome viral guest is certainly trying.  The sinuses are improving though. 

 

Ate out twice this week at the Niblick Pub at Upper Oakville Plaza and at the Swiss Chalet opposite the Oakville Go Station.  The latter was quite busy on Friday at noon though I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would attempt to have dinner with 6 preschoolers!  

 

Boris Yeltsin died this week and Friday we lost a fellow Russian Mstislav Rostropovich.  Thirty Years ago I saw him perform on the occasion of his 50^th Birthday at Royal Festival Hall, London.  It would seem that history will not be overly kind to Yeltsin though he did manage a unique feat in Russian political history by dying of old age in his bed. 

 

Midweek I managed to sleep in an hour and a half barely waking up for my start time.  I’m blaming the gentle music programmed on the classical station my clock radio is tuned to.  Ended my day by proving that I still know how to do a lock change for a Letter Box Assembly. 

 

Thursday I proved that I can still make coffee.  I didn’t get any verbal compliments but when I went to clean the pot all 60 cups were gone so I guess that’s as close as one gets to an endorsement. 

 

At week’s end I decided to clean up the old files on my backup disk.  It may have a 250 Gigabyte Capacity but it was getting filled up.  Apparently Windows took exception to the 59 Gigabytes I deleted as when I rebooted it threw a temper tantrum.  Not being a fan of system restore especially since the nightmare memories of Windows Me I use Norton Utilities Pro which include Norton Ghost.  When Windows refused to start I was forced to dig out my rescue disk and use it to re-instate a restore point.  Lost a few E-mail that somehow got saved to Documents and Settings rather than my data drive E-mail file but otherwise I was pleased when I rebooted and things worked.  Still don’t understand how a keyboard and its blue tooth sitting 8 inches away can lose touch with one another.  Next challenge Saturday morning was a programme that froze during post and forced me to engage “Safe Mode” while I reinstalled it.  At that point my calendar programme lost touch with its database so I was forced to invoke Norton Ghost a second time to restore the programme and its database in Documents and Settings—that too worked—at least with Norton Ghost I can selectively choose the files I wish to restore. 

 

The weekend has been taken up with laundry, browsing, and checking files.  Spent some time updating my wish list at Amazon and on a whim decided to see if any of the online MP3 services had some of the music I’ve been having problems obtaining.  For the first time ever I actually bought music at iTunes and Puretracks.   Then placed an order for some books, CD’s and DVD’s at Amazon. 

Entering the Digital Age

I have truly entered the digital age. After work yesterday I drove over to Sayal Electronics in Burlington and picked up a Digital Audio Fibre Optic Cable for my computer's sound system. Getting it connected, configured, and setup took some time but it seems to be working. Time will tell if there is an improvement in performance but at least there is less possibility of electronic interference with the signal and I have noticed fewer pops and gaps in my music. I've yet to get around to playing anything that actually has a Dolby Pro Logic Signal embedded. My sound system even bears George Lucas' THX imprimatur. To date my association with that Logo is limited to the deafening ad anyone attending a public movie theatre has to endure.

Getting back to work after being off sick is always tough, the volume of junk mail everyone had to endure this week didn't make it easier. Coming home for my afternoon nap to the rat-a-tat-tat of the upstairs neighbour's hammer and chisel on ceramic tiles was just frosting on the cake--luckily he seems to go to lunch around 1:00. At week's end got word that we passed a householder mailing audit. The bosses were so chuffed I was actually thanked for my part in making that possible and even got a gift as reward!

The events of the last week highlight the holes in our health care systems--the American Model in particular; and the tension between an individual's right to privacy and the public's right to safety from potential threats. Having personally been attacked and narrowly missed death at the hands of an individual who had gone off his medication I have an above-average interest in the subject. I doubt the full extent of the mishandling of the events at Virginia Tech will ever see the light of day but what has been made public to date makes one shake one's head. Many questions arise. Why wasn't the campus locked down after the initial shootings? Why were the offender's English Professor's concerns taken so lightly? Why was an individual with such a history of stalking's and violence still at liberty and why was he able to buy the weaponry he used to commit his final rampage? Were his public communications which are still accessible online not cause for concern? Events such as just took place serve to emphasize that despite the modern every man for himself mentality that seems to pervade society our public good is determined by our treatment of the disaffected members of our community.

Decidedly Jazz Danceworks

The play I watched last night was everything I'd expected. Attending Decidedly Jazz Danceworks was an experiment; I really didn't know what to expect.

One of the games frequent concertgoers play is the press photo comparison test. I can safely say that it's been years since the males who showed up on stage met their sixpacks under that layer of padding. In a show that was about sexual attraction there were five females and four males--three of them black. The live music was provided by a four-piece jazz combo of bass, drums, guitar, and keyboards AND a BIG MOMMA who did her best imitation of Lady Sings the Blues. Unfortunately Jazz singers are not my cup of tea. The music was amplified to just short of the pain level--apparently to dance Jazz you need to feel it. I definitely felt it.

If Evangelical Christians eschew sexually explicit productions and theatre in general this show is what they had in mind--Magnetic Consequences, indeed. The choreographers here never heard of the missionary position. Alternative Dance provides an opportunity for dancers no longer able to get en pointe to prolong their careers; but some of these danseurs never found their toes. Am I prudish, possibly; but I certainly didn't expect Jazz Dance to X-Rated. These dancers at least had the good sense to know that taking their clothes would not have made them more provocative.