FIRST RANT OF 2022

        I'm sick of  this pandemic just like everybody else. 

        However, I have completely lost patience with the idea of antivaxxers. 

        I can see the points the antivaxxers bring up but it's what they do  with the information is where they fall off the bus.

       Today I listened to a call in show and that's the bee under my bonnet today. People called in and were not in any way prepared to listen to science people and the research they quoted.

       Yes, we know vaccines are not 100% protective but that's no reason to not be vaccinated. We want as few people as possible to not get sick or die. We want the pandemic to fade away.

      Yes, there may be things people don't want to put in their body but there are many other things they put in their body. Have they ever looked at food labels to see what's in the food they eat? It would curl your hair to see the stuff that goes in processed food. To look at medications and across the counter medications would scare you . I just looked at one of the things I take regularly and I'm going to ask to be put on something else. 

      The freedom of choice thing is a complete joke. Our freedoms are regulated so that it's fair for all. So some of these freedoms are for the good of all. Somewhere we must have a little care and responsibility for others. Somehow, we must not want people around us to get sick and die. Is it too much to get vaccinated to protect others?

      People mix apples and oranges when it comes to comparing viruses to other germs. Polio, measles etc. have almost been eradicated .

    Many people die from influenza each year. Influenza is not a pandemic. Flu shots are available to prevent most from getting flu. 

     In Canada we have truckers making a trek to Ottawa to protest about their lack of freedom because the government has mandated that they be vaccinated to cross the border. The American government has done the same thing.

     The list of whiny excuses is almost endless. I'm just as frustrated as anybody by how long the pandemic has gone on. I would very much like to be able to come and go freely without getting covid or endangering the next guy. 

     Protests are not going to make the pandemic go away any quicker. Irresponsible behavior will ensure that the pandemic lasts longer. 

     

SUNRISE

        The sun rose today at 8:26. I took these photos just before 8:00 AM. The light was changing quickly so the second shot, less than a minute later, is much lighter. 

A POST WITH A SCAN

        In a previous post I got my scanner set up. In a previous post I wrote about journaling. Today I'll put them together. 

      I kept a daily journal until 1982. I know , I know! Most of you weren't born by then. I have commented about my journal before and wished that I hadn't been so brief. I also wish that I had continued with it. However, there's no sense crying about that now. I'll enjoy what I've got. 

     I also commented before how it was cool that a few brief sentences could bring back a whole day , so I thought. Somebody posted a few days ago about our memory and how it works. apparently we fill in the blanks quite liberally. So many of the things I think I can remember probably didn't happen that way.

     I like scanning because you get a fairly decent image , except if you are scanning from an old exercise book. So enlarge this so you can red it. I still have a thing or two to learn about sizes. 

     So I took one page of my journal at random. This is Dec. 16 to Dec 20 1980. I can't believe how much as a family we did in a day. We were busy. I look at this now and cannot think of how we did so much. Now I know this was about fifty years ago. Things were different back then . So was I!

    I recorded weather most days and quite often mentioned birds that were feeding in my yard.  

     On Dec. 18 I went to a meeting after school and was back to the school before 7:00 PM to supervise a student dance. the dance would have been over by 10:00 Pm and then I would finally get home  after getting to school about 7:00 AM

     My kids delivered papers twice a week . they were both involved in activity that required parental attendance My son played hockey . At that time my daughter was still in girl guides. 

     At that time my kids were old enough to go to the movie matinee by themselves . So I would have to take them to the movie and pick them up. 

A FEW THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

       This past year I think many people have begun to take climate change seriously. Things have happened that are making a big impact on our daily lives. 

      My neighbor province of British Columbia , Canada, has suffered this year. You know , the beautiful province with mountain scenery and forests.  This summer they had major forest fires for most of the summer. Homes and businesses were  lost. High temperature records were made. I live in the province to the west , Alberta, and we had heavy smoke for a good part of the summer. 

       This winter British Columbia has had torrential rain and major flooding. The major highway was washed out in many places. The two railroads were also damaged. 

      This is one place and it had some very obvious changes and they don't want any more. 

       Just this year we had a major conference on climate change. You know, the conferences that do nothing! Plans and promises are made but nothing happens to control warming. Most of these plans involve the big guys. Big business. Big industry. Big government. They all look after themselves to make it look like they are doing something when all the time they are creating more schemes to line their pockets. Carbon tax? Carbon trading? These are games to funnel money around.

     Individuals have to do their part. Maybe that will bring about change. One thing I would like to suggest is that we have rationing. Let's say rationing on gasoline. Rations that would influence enough so that people would have to drive less and drive smaller cars. At times my neighbor across the street has five vehicles. Two of them are large trucks. This guy drives to Tim Hortons to get a coffee. He makes a special trip to the store for smokes. If we had rationing this guy wouldn't be able to get gas to drive those vehicles. 

    So it's just an idea I throw out . We have to get on climate change sooner than later. 

THAT PRINTER !

      You guessed it. I had to have a serious discussion with my printer. 

      I bought a half decent (not all the bells and whistles) printer about 5 years ago. I do very little printing. The printer also has a scanner and I do much less scanning than printing. 

     I will admit now that I was extremely challenged when I set the printer up. Some nice people at Brother guided me through the process. 

    Somebody in my house said that they didn't like all the cords with the computer. So the said somebody suggested that the printer be connected to the computer  by Wi fi. Now connecting computer and printer by Wi fi was another epic challenge

     Once in a while Wi fi, the printer or the computer forget that they are supposed to stay connected so they can chat.

    I don't scan very often...maybe a few times a year. So these three may have not been talking to each other for quite some time. Enough time has gone by so that I forget how to connect them again. Fortunately , I kept instructions. Even then there were things that I had a tough time to remember. How do you write 8 on a printer that doesn't have a keyboard? I finally remembered how to write number and put in my pass phrase. 

    Now doesn't it feel great once you've solved a problem. 😊 So I scanned a recipe and emailed it . 

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

       I have an astounding lack of knowledge when it comes to computers. 

       Now I'm not talking about the physical aspect of computers. The wires , hard drives, fans.. I don't think I need to know about them. I do vacuum the inside once in a while.

       Where my lack of knowledge is in using all the whatevers we have to use like say blogger, email, face book , you tube, and all those searches.

       Well my outlook email did something to me that was very maddening. Outlook changed all my inbox emails. These were emails that had been sent and new emails I received. This was a challenge. I had my emails in order by date. 

      My method to fix things like this is to click on any icon I see on the page. Sometimes I click on them twice. sometimes I click them many times. I had no idea why the order of my inbox emails had changed. Later on in this process I start thinking. I came to the conclusion that the order of the emails had changed. But why? What made the order change? Had I accidentally changed the order? And how do I get the order of my inbox back to dates?

     In the upper right corner there was something called filter. I had clicked on it a few times. However, one time I noticed that there was a drop down menu and on it was order. There I saw all the ways I could have my inbox organized, The first choice was date. I quickly clicked on date and immediately my problem was solved.

    So on many of the pages we use there are 20-30 icons that do many wonderful things. Do I know much about any of them? Obviously not. The blogger post page has more than 40 icons on it.  Now the micro manager has to look at all the icons and wants to know what each one does. All I can say is, "I don't know!". 

    So once in a while my puzzler has to work to solve something. 

      

A DAY OF WORRY

       Jan. 6 came and went. There was worry and fear as to what could happen on this day. Fortunately, the day passed quietly. I hope that it means that there will be a change which will bring about some progress that the government will start to be concerned about the people who elected them. 

       When one looks back it's hard to believe that such dangerous and scary things could happen. It was unimaginable at that time to think that the Capital could be attacked. Looking back you see that many people were more than willing to lie and that more people again were willing to believe lies. 

     I hope that as we get further away from Jan. 6 some sanity will return.

     The United states has drifted into problems before and as a country they have gathered together and worked things out. I hope the same thing happens again.

     I had to call my roofer a few days ago. He's an amiable and pleasant fellow. We got on to Covid and government. He has been pulled into all kinds of conspiracy theories. It's hard to discuss things with him as he plays fast and loose with the truth. He doesn't listen to reason. He has his own rules for making deductions. He thinks that government and big business is ripping us off so he just doesn't want a different political party in power. He wants a different government. So when some of the loonies start saying that changes can be made he is ready to follow and does not consider what negative could go along with his choice. 

    Some days I feel hopeful about society keeping on a sensible path and other days I'm worried.

     Have we learned any lessons? Can we change?

AN INTERESTING AUTOBIOGRAPHY

      I'm reading Ernie Lyall's autobiography right now and I've just got to tell  you about this story. I never met Ernie but he was well known in the north. I did teach his son Pat. They lived at Spence Bay NWT  and Pat attended school in Inuvik which was 1000 miles away from his home.

     Ernie Lyall was born somewhere on the Labrador coast in 1910. He spent some of his growing up years at Port Burwell, Canada where his Dad worked for a Moravian mission. There was no school so his parents and a police officer taught him some very basic numbers and reading. Ernie went to a Moravian boarding school for two years and that was his education.

      Ernie decided to go working for the Hudson Bay company as a fur trader. When he was 17 years old in 1927, he set off in the company  ship not knowing where he would be placed. 

     This was the beginning of his 65 years in the arctic. 

     At that time the Hudson Bay ship, the Nascopie, took supplies and staff into the Arctic every summer. It would be the next summer before the ship came back. They picked Ernie up and put him at another post. He also got letters from home. So he got mail once a year. There was no radio contact as the Technology hadn't been developed. He became fluent in the Inuit language and many times was used as in interpreter for the police and government. 

    It was four years before he went south to visit his parents. It took him four months to travel to his parents home in Labrador. 

    The next summer he went back to the north and he loved the north so stayed there. He made many very long trips with dog teams. Many of these trips were incredibly tough. 

    He was moved many times from trading post to trading post. 

    He fell in love with and Inuit girl and he married Napisha and they had 8 children.

    He said he wrote the book because there was so much bullshit out there that he wanted to correct it. He spent much time criticizing a well known Canadian author , Farley Mowat. Farley Mowat wrote several books on the arctic and usually only spent a short time in the north where he put together enough information to write a book. I've read ten of Mowat's books and liked them as Farley tells a good story. 

     Later in life Ernie was hired by the government for various jobs. One of his many jobs was Justice of the peace.  He said that the first wedding he did that he was more nervous than the groom. 

    So Ernie has filled this book with many incredulous adventures during his 65 years in the   Arctic. I loved all of his stories. His stories make you feel as if you were right there with him. They make sense to me as I was in the North. 

PHOTO BLOGS

     I like photo blogs and there are many of them to pick from. They can be photo journals that picture everyday life. 

     Some blogs focus on topics like birds, landscapes. sunrises or sunsets, trips attractions such as parks.  . Some blogs show pictures of their local area everyday. Apparently they have many photos to choose from as they can pick excellent photos to choose from. 

     I like birds so I follow several blogs that feature birds. Along with the photos these bloggers have a great knowledge of birds. 

    Some bloggers concentrate on sunrises and sunsets. They show many beautiful skies and post their photos on other sites. Everyday the sunrise and sunset is different. 

    Some bloggers give a great descriptions of some of the places they tour. It's almost like going along with them. 

    Some photo bloggers post one photo every day. Some may concentrate on street scenes or wildlife scenes. Some are just random shots. 

    Then there are photographers who want to illustrate and teach how to take good photos. 

    Some photographers just want a good place to show off their photos.

    I don't mind admitting that I like photo blogs.

    Notice that I haven't singled any one blogger out. If I did, I would likely leave out some excellent bloggers. 

    How about you? Do you follow any good photo blogs?

BLOGGING

      Once in a while a few thoughts run through my mind about blogging. Blogs can be sorted into various types. I'm not sure that there would be a good reason to sort blogs. We would probably get into a long discussion about types of blogs and which category a certain blog would fit into. 

      Now that I've bumbled along and confused everybody this is what I want to say.

      Many blogs are of the blogger's day to day activities. These bloggers tend to blog everyday. These blogs are journals. It's a brief record of what they do everyday and they or anybody else can look back to see what happened. Some bloggers openly say that the purpose of their blog is to let friends and family know what they are doing from day to day. 

      Before the days of computers and blogging, people wrote journals. Some journals were detailed and lengthy. Journals have been valuable as they can be used as a source for research material. All kinds of people wrote journals. Our local well known naturalist Kerry Wood  journaled. His journals are in the local archives. 

     I journaled for about 10 years. My journal entries were very brief. However when I read an entry it tends to remind me of all I did on that day. I wish I had written a larger more detailed entry. I wish I had continued journaling. 

      So here's one page of my journal. The year was on the front of the book I used to write in. I'm always surprised at how much I did in a day. 

    Okay, I forgot how to use my scanner so the reproduction is poor.