Baba Rocks

       What or who is Baba you say? Baba is a radio host who has an amazing knowledge of music and who has an unorthodox presentation. 


       I do not listen to commercial radio. I listen to CBC and CKUA. CKUA is one of those special stations that is independent and listener supported. By listener supported I mean they have fund raisers and run the radio in that way. CKUA listeners are passionate about their station. 
   
      Now back to Baba. Baba has a thick east Indian accent that you might hear on a news interview , but here he is on a music program. Baba has an amazing knowledge of music when it comes to performers, writers and all trivia. So when you listen to a Baba show you hear about the singer and musicians. Baba is able to interview many of the musicians that he features. You get an idea of the background. What influences shaped the singer and musicians. When you know more about the music you can appreciate and enjoy the music much more. Baba is very able to cover a wide variety of music.  So you will hear him on folk roots , blues, jazz rock... the whole gamut.


     Listening to Baba read community messages and give the weather is a totally new experience. So here's someone who was not trained in broadcasting and he's out there having fun and providing listeners with a first class music experience. 


     CKUA is on the Internet. All you have to do is Google CKUA and you can enjoy this fine station.

Sleep Clinic Challenge

     When I started blogging, this as the fourth post I made. I found out that nobody read this post because I didn't have any readers so I decided to post it again.


    Last Friday night I slept at the sleep clinic . Now sleep clinic is an absolute misnomer as you don't get much shut eye . However , the sleep clinic is the end of my story .

      How did I get to the sleep clinic ? Was it when my daughter slept in the same hotel room and complained the next morning that she had a very poor sleep as one of us snored (my wife of course ) and the other choked . Was it when my children were infants ? Was it stress from my work ?

    Well, let's start from the beginning . I was born in 1939 to a young farm couple who had a very meagre residence ...three rooms ...no insulation or central heating . Eleven and one half months later I had a baby brother and by the time I was two years old I also had a little sister . My poor mother ! But that's another story . This one's on sleep . I can remember the three of us sleeping in one bed which wasn't crowded as we were little . As children we slept soundly even though three little bodies rolled and thrashed around and occasionally fell out of bed .
Later a new house was constructed and we had our own rooms ! Sleep was great . I was young . The house had central heating and was insulated .
I left after high school to attend college and lived in various boarding houses with shared accommodation . I did wake up from time to time with noise from other roomers coming and going . I changed localities very often in my early twenties as I taught and went to university . I spent three years in a very noisy single staff accommodation were there was much coming and going through the night . I remember being awake as I would hear people coming and going in the hallways . Sometimes there were all night parties .

    I lived in a remote northern settlement were my wife was the nurse . She was on call twenty four- seven . Many nights she was required to attend to a sick person . We weren't in the habit of locking the house door until people walked into the house and into the bedroom to get the nurse .

     Children arrived and took my attention . I felt a great responsibility for the welfare of my children while they were infants .Hungry , cold or ill children had to be looked after . Teenage children were another thing . From a young age my son liked movies . He would try to sneak downstairs to watch a movie and would get caught . He said ,"Dad, I never got downstairs to watch a movie . You always caught me ."

      My children left home , but my interrupted sleep became worse . For many years I have set my thermostat so that the furnace does not come on after bedtime as I found a running furnace always awakened me . Through all of my poor sleep patterns I never felt fatigued and was always a morning person . I never needed an alarm clock .
In January of 2006 I began to feel fatigue and found it difficult to rise in the morning . When my daughter made the choking observation , I could immediately think of sleep apnea as I would be waking up with a jump . In 2007 My family physician referred me to a sleep specialist . The sleep specialist ordered a sleep clinic experience .

     So there I was last Friday evening . Now the sleep clinic really wants to see how badly you sleep so they wire you up from head to toe . They will miss nothing . Sensors are attached to your shins and arms . A belt is put around your chest and another around your stomach . A box about twice the size of a mouse is attached to each belt . All these gizmos are firmly attached with liberal amounts of plastic tape . They tell you you can sleep in any position ...just try it!  Then they say ,"Have a good night!"

     As you can well imagine I did not have a very successful sleep . It's not easy sleeping in a strange place with all kinds of material attached to you .
I have not received any results from this ordeal, but I would rather go through the investigation as it is well known , that sleep apnea can lead to many health complications . What happens with sleep apnea is you stop breathing and oxygen levels decrease and your blood pressure rises . The combination can lead to other health problems so I will put up with the discomfort as it may prevent other options which are not positive .

     So , Friday night in a sleep clinic !!! Kind of a bad joke !!!!

A Sad Encounter on Remembrance Day

       On Remembrance day I met my neighbor in the back alley. He asked me if I had been to the remembrance day activities. I told him I hadn't been to the ceremonies. He then got on a rather nasty rant. 


       He stated that anybody who doesn't go to the Remembrance day ceremonies should not be able to take advantage of the day off and should remain at work. We had talked about Hitler and that Hitler had to be stopped because he was a threat to the world. If Hitler had taken over we would have lost all freedoms and would have had to conduct ourselves exactly to Hitler's wishes. I couldn't give any more points to my neighbor as by this time he turned on his heal and left as he does not like nor is he able to defend his views


      Bloggers I follow who  posted on remembrance made  excellent points about remembering the men and women who fought to maintain our freedom. Each post was different. Each post was very significant. I'm sure that each blogger had their own way to remember and I would guess that very few attended a formal ceremony.


     The sad thing that my neighbor had in his head was that all people should be forced to remember the same way. To me that's not what freedom is.  With my neighbor's view, how long would it be before other forms of directed behavior would be prescribed? How long would it be before we would have another madman who would try to take our freedom away? How many people who would be forced to attend remembrance services would actually remember anything? How long would it be before we would lose other freedoms?


     On a Remembrance day I was saddened to hear a rant about losing the freedom to remember in a variety of ways.

Remembrance Evolves Over a Life Time.

       Remembrance of those who served our country goes back a long time and things change and evolve. On thinking about remembrance I began to think about the various stages that we have gone through.


      I was born a few days after the WWII started. I can remember some things about the war through a young child's eyes. I had uncles who were overseas and my parents told me about them. My Mom was forever sending parcels to her brother and cousins. I was impressed with the many men I saw in uniform. We lived a short distance from a major training airbase and had many planes fly over each day.


      I remember young men coming back home and trying to reestablish their life. Most of them left the district after a few years for better opportunities elsewhere.


      My high school teacher was a navy veteran and some days I felt like he thought we were recruits he was training. He was an excellent teacher and influenced many a kid to do better.


      The first Principal I taught under in 1959 was a veteran. He was an able administrator who cared for his students and staff. Since my teaching career began in 1958 , there were many veterans teaching in the school system. When I was in the Arctic many government people were former service people as they had been given employment by the government. Of course, there were the baby boomers who attended school and most of  their parents had gone through the war.


     Most of these veterans who went through my life contributed immensely to the communities they lived in. There was a job that had to be done in the community and they just went out and did it. For example, many indoor hockey arenas were erected. They had learned this attitude during their wartime experience. They had a job to do and they went out and did it whether it was extremely unpleasant or not. 


      Over these years of my contact with service people I did not hear very much about their war experience except for the hijinks they were involved in. Much of their memories and experiences were kept to themselves or sometimes shared with someone who had gone through the horrors of war with them. 


      My son was in the reserve forces in Canada and that influenced the way I thought about our forces. I attended one remembrance service with him.


      Now many of the armed forces people from WWII have left us. Those who are still here are very elderly.


      So over the years my remembrance of what occurred has changed as things are added to my experience and understanding.


      I now have a friend who went through the war as a Flight Sergeant. He has been very good about telling of his war experiences. He has not shied away from telling of some of the horrors he experienced. The war shaped his life greatly. He had just finished high school and thinking about what to do with his life when the war came along and made that decision for him. He found his life's partner as he was training. They decided to marry after the war. The five years of war caused him to miss the normal experiences of life in a community. When he returned it was a struggle to become established. He worked hard and was successful in business, family and community.


      Today at 89 he still contributes. He leads a senior skating group and is the driving force behind its success. It's still the same . A job has to be done and he just goes out and does it.


      So I am thankful for all the people who went out and did the very nasty job of fighting in WWII. Their sacrifices were many. Many sacrificed their life. We owe our gratitude to the men and women who went out and "did the job."


      

More Positive Points for Bloggers

      I recently did a post called "I Stand Up For Bloggers." I received comments on the blog, Face Book and on the street. I began thinking more about bloggers and what makes them tick.


      Some blogs have gone on for two to five years or more. Other blogs wither and die. I have started to follow half a dozen interesting blogs only to have them fold up and disappear.


      So what makes bloggers continue to make posts on a regular basis? Probably quite a few things motivate bloggers. These characteristics probably vary in levels of priority from blogger to blogger.


      First, I think you would have to like writing as a way of expressing yourself. One needs to be able to write with a certain degree of ability. After that your purpose in writing is to communicate with others. There is the odd blog which is not open to the public for what ever reasons the writer may have. Most bloggers want contact with others through their writing. The comments allowed by blogging are what gives a blogger some idea as to whether his/her ideas are being appreciated by readers. Comments give a writer much more to react to as I have said at the start of this blog.


      A blogger must have something which they wish to say. It's surprising how interesting people can make a post of their daily activities. Other bloggers have an interest which becomes the theme of their blog. I follow a great blog on weather , another one on birds and a third one on mountain hiking. Many artists have a blog to feature the art they produce. Some bloggers emphasize family activities. Some of my favorite blogs are where photography is well used to tell a good story. There are some extremely talented photographers out there.


      Then you get a blog like mine that jumps all over the place. I cover past experiences, current experiences in my life, music and occasionally wander off into the political field.


     So writing ability which is a basic talent for a blogger although I have seen some highly successful blogs which use the vernacular. What also makes a successful blog is to have some form of ability to make the page attractive. Pictures are extremely important. 


      So some bloggers combine a number of their abilities and churn out highly interesting blogs which are followed by many. So there's a wide combination  of writing style, topics and  photography that produces thousands of very active and successful blogs. 

I Stand Up For Bloggers

       This afternoon I was listening to Spark on CBC with Nora Young. I was only half listening with my worst ear while I was doing something else.


       The topic was on social media on the net and if it was effective for communication. One of the speakers said that on Face Book he had publicized his birthday and received greetings, Three or four days later he put his birthday on again and received greetings. So he did this half a dozen times and his point was that there wasn't a real communication because people did not catch on that he was repeatedly having a birthday.
   
    What really caught my attention was when he went on to say that personal bloggers were mostly blogging to themselves! He gave an example of his blog where he had blogged about five years and made about 1500 posts and had 5000 hits and of course half of them were his. He also only got 20 comments and some of them were his.


      Now I realize that some blogs may be pretty dead as very few posts are made. Some blogs may have an extremely narrow topic which few people would be interested in. Blogging requires some work and talent. But I think that bloggers do much more than talk to themselves. Bloggers who consistently post interesting material will be read. Bloggers who work at setting up a blog with proper commenting facilities will receive comments. There are many bloggers out here who are trolling for interesting blogs to follow. Other people on the net like to read blogs. I have friends and relatives who amaze me by following me continuously. One friend lists off my posts every time he goes by me. Thanks Bob.


      I see many very meaningful comments on the blogs I follow. I don't have enough time to read all the comments on blogs I follow. I would like to respond to more comments but I do have more of a life than just my blog.


      I can certainly find lots of blogs to read that keep me busy. I keep looking for more local blogs to follow. I would also like to find some more blogs on education, seniors and music.


     So I think the commentator was off base. He should read some of the great blogs that I follow.

I Was Baptised This Morning!

       Now to bgin with I wasn't baptised with water, fire or the holy spirit. No, I was totally immersed by Home Farm Girl's smooth manipulation to get me to do something for her that I had never done before.

       I've been baptised before. When we lived in an isolated Arctic community we had to bake our own bread because there was no store there. One Saturday morning she had just started a batch of bread when someone came asking for her service as she was a nurse in the community. So she asked me to continue with the bread making process. Now I had never had any experience with bread other than eating it. She promised me she'd only be a few minutes and she'd be back. I was to stir the dough and add flour. Just keep on doing it until I get back," she said. You can guess what happened next. She was away for quite a while and I was dedicated and kept on doing what I was told. By the time she got back I had mixed an enormous amount of flour into the mixture. She claims it's the best bread she ever made.

     This morning I was immersed in making ginger carrot soup. Home Farm Girl had recently been to a business which was holding a customer appreciation day. One of the many things she liked was ginger carrot soup and she came home with the recipe from the caterer. So this morning she was going to  a presentation at the health unit and she thought the carrot soup just had to be made today. So between her manipulative ways and my gullibility I said yes. So off she went and left me on my own. Now I like cooking and do quite a bit on my own. But this recipe was a way out of my comfort zone. First of all everything was by weight and we don't have a little scale. There were other things that had to be done by chance as the recipe had missed directions.

    So I got what I thought was five pounds of carrots. I had been instructed to do just half the recipe so all measurements had to be halved. Needless to say, I had to puzzle my puzzler and interpret things as I went along. I was to make a roux!  Now I had never heard of a roux in my entire seventy-two years. So you see that I was really immersed and why I refer to it as a baptism. The roux was amazing although a little scary. A roux is a mixture of butter and flour which is used as a thickener for the soup.

     So after two and a half hours of great stress I finally completed the soup just in time for Home Farm Girl to come home and eat it. I was  worried because I had to make numerous adaptations to the recipe. She thought the soup was great and almost as good as what she had from the caterer.

     After I completed this ordeal I said, "This would make a good blog post!" Then I thought. Oops I forgot my camera to show all the steps I went through. Some day I might just think ahead.

     Now this isn't the last time I'm going to be baptised because I'll never catch on to the treachery of Home Farm Girl!