Our weather changed very quickly in the last 24 hours.
Yesterday Mar. 30 was a bright warm sunny 15 C day. I was able to just wear a T shirt. As you can se by the following mural photos it was bright.
Robin , from The New Dharma Bums wrote this morning about a shape her brother had seen in the clouds. Kind of cool that he saw a robin shape in the clouds for his twin Robin.
Well, this reminded me about an incident where children were looking for shapes in the clouds.
I was hitch hiking back to my school in mid November of my first teaching year. I was picked up about 2:00 PM by a young family that was on a long road trip. I was in the back seat with two young kids around five years old. They were super little kids. One thing their parents did to keep the kids amused was to look for shapes made by clouds. They were occupied with this activity for an hour until it became completely overcast and they couldn't see cloud shapes. Then they looked at books they had.
I was with these people for about 100 miles when I had to take a different road. By now it was around 4:00 PM . I had to walk for about 45 min before I could start hitch hiking again. A couple of famers picked me up in their truck and gave me a ride of 20 miles before they turned off in the country They had taken a load of pigs to town. By now it was completely dark. It might have been a highway but it was rural and very little traffic after dark. One car passed me and that was it. I could see a village about 5 miles away so I started walking.
The village was quiet. No one was on the streets. The businesses were all closed . But wait there was one place with dim lights on. The Chinese Cafe was open. This cafe did not even have electricity but it did have a phone booth. I phoned one of the farmers in my school district to come and get me. About an hour later he showed up and I got to my land lady's house about 11:00 PM.
It was an afternoon that I'll never forget.
I have pictured myself, incorrectly, as a handyman. I've written about it on a few posts. I've done simple plumbing and electrical. Rough carpentry, like fences. Fixed appliances. I get some satisfaction from doing these jobs but a couple of years ago I wrote that I would quit.
Well, I didn't quit.
I've still repaired some things but it's difficult to see with trifocals. It's also difficult to bend to get in the right position. Fingers don't work like they used to.
Well I was dumb enough to try "a very simple" procedure the other day.
Our house is old enough to have a storm door. The space between the two doors is now not enough for the lock sets they sell today.
So I didn't have a lock on my storm door. I wanted to be able to leave the main door open at night so that in hot weather a breeze could blow through the screen in the door and cool the house over night. So a simple fix would be to put a small dead bolt on my storm door with the screen. Now I've put many of these bolts on . They're the kind you use to put on gates and shed doors.
Well, this one was to be a little different. I was modifying it's use. So needless to say it was difficult to measure and get things to line up. I couldn't close the door to measure. I had to keep the door open and "eye ball it. " The first time it didn't work so drill all those holes a little further back.
So one of those little jobs that should have taken 45 min. took me all afternoon.
When will I ever learn?
On any given day, we can usually hear some yelling. Sometimes there are good excuses for yelling and other times yelling shows a lack if personal control. If someone is going to accidentally encounter risk someone may yell to get the person's attention and evade the danger. Other times we can see someone yelling uncontrollably about an issue that is not of much importance.
I was a teacher. Some teachers used a very loud voice to control the situation. Some teachers just yelled. The yellers showed that they had lost control of themselves.
Now the other day I saw someone yelling. I probably would have yelled too.
There are computer generated voice responses on phones. I've ranted enough about call centers. The computer generated voices respond to a limited number of responses. If you don't happen to use responses the computer understands the computer usually puts you through to a real person.
Yesterday I found one of these critters that did not pass you on to a real person. It just kept going around and around. If you didn't give the correct response it kept going over the same routine. We wanted something different and that's where the problem was.
Now for the yelling!
The Micro manager does not understand technology very well and has little patience with it. So she thinks the more you say that the machine will better understand what you want. Well the poor machine was more confused. Then she thought (well . I don't know if she thought) that if she talked louder the machine would understand what she wanted. Well, that didn't help either so then she was really ticked and yelling.
It was funny watching this, but I would have been upset as well as you were not given an option. You went around in circles and there was not option to get out.
So yes, there was some yelling yesterday.
The March storm or storms is quite well known here. Today we had a March storm but it wasn't too severe. By this time of year the air has warmed up and holds more moisture. When a cold system comes in ,we can get lots of precipitation...SNOW. We usually get most of our snow fall in March.
Today we had a spring storm. It probably started just before 6:00 AM. At 7:00 AM there wasn't very much snow on the ground but it was snowing heavily and very windy. By noon it had stopped snowing and by 5:00 PM the sun was shining.
So I hope my series of photos gives you a bit of an idea what a spring storm is like here.
The first four photos were taken shortly after 7:00 AM
I come from and age when communication was of high quality, reliable and trusted. For most of my life, I've been able to read things and accept them as fact.
When I was brought up, we had no TV, not an awful lot of radio and only a couple of weekly newspapers. We did know what was going on in the world. In fact, we knew a lot about the world.
I remember hearing Hitler speak. He was scary and as a little boy , I recognized that. I remember a broadcast describing troops loading on ships to come back to Canada after the war.
Most of all , as an adult, I've appreciated well written news items. Items that were in clear writing and had been well researched. We could rely on the news we were getting.
Over the years, the news industry has cut staff so there are fewer good writers and they do not have time to do thorough research on a topic. Things have become very sloppy. Errors were easy to spot.
With the news business becoming weak as in not good quality, an opportunity was set up so that unscrupulous groups found out that they could produce news features that could be twisted so that their extremist ideas could be widely publicized.
Large and profitable news organizations have been formed to pass off slanted material as truth. They are making fortunes. Unfortunately many people are believing and influenced by the garbage they put out.
The the war in Ukraine, I realized that both sides are peddling their own views of the war. I pick the Ukraine as the good guys. That's easy. But I have recognized that the Ukrainians are spinning the story the way they want the world and Russians to see it.
So recently , I've had to ask myself , "Who do I trust?"
So for those whose eyes aren't glazed shut, who have we got that we can trust?
About once a week the micro manager visits with our daughter on messenger. And do they visit. From one to two hours of gossip. The usual time is 7:00 AM when suits them both.
Today the Micro manager was wondering if Janey was going to call so she was up about 6:30 AM to get ready on Facebook. 7:00 AM came and went and there was no call so I got up to check and see if the micro manager had things right.
I moved to where a call would come in and it said calling so I thought great. they'll have visit after all.
Well out of the gloom of an unlit room appeared a gray face! It was Willis, my friend from high School. Willis was confused. He wondered what the time was. Well, you know most of the world jumped one hour ahead this morning. However , where Willis lives the time doesn't change. Most things on the internet change times automatically. So Willis's alarm went off an hour early. I was wondering why I was talking to Willis instead of my daughter. I had not called anybody . Then I had to get my hearing aid so that I could hear Willis.
Willis was happy that I had called. I was wondering why Willis called me!
Well, we finally got ourselves sorted out and quit laughing at our own jokes. We exchanged news and had a good chat.
Willis and I were in high school together and have kept in touch . We finished in June of 1957.
Well, here we are in gr. 10 . Willis is four from the left in the back row. I'm standing right behind the teacher.
I wonder how many other people were a little confused this morning because of the time change?
A few posts ago I posted a piece about my daughter that I had written when teaching middle school writing. I wanted to show the students that I could do their assignments.
The other day as I was cleaning up once again I found a piece that I had written about my son.
The five notes at the bottom were things my students asked. They were making suggestions as to how to improve my writing.
In my last post, the truck convoy people were continuously shrieking about freedom. They wanted freedom never recognizing that they already had freedom. Their wants about freedom tended to revolve around selfish personal things. By their actions they seemed to want the right to bad behavior without consequences. And they had no end of idiotic thing that they could do. They took sandwiches from a homeless kitchen. They urinated and defecated all over the place. They made tremendous noise. They made a general nuisance of themselves. It seemed that they were very creative in coming up with disgusting behavior.
They had large expensive vehicles that they had no problems to run and not use them to gain income.
Now I know that comparisons are difficult to make. We can't go back. It's always a bit about comparing apples to oranges. Or as I have found out lately comparing the various senior living facilities.
Now it makes me laugh when I think back to my childhood in the early forties, Yes, that's right. The early forties. The second World War was taking place. There were all kinds of restrictions. There was rationing. Some products were not available at all. My parents were young. They had very little money. Gasoline was rationed so much of the time we went to town with the horses. We couldn't buy any more gas.
The photo shows me with my two siblings . I believe we were 2,3 and 4. All of our clothing was donated! Nothing new on us! A great aunt in the states sent several parcels a year. Our Grandma also found used clothing for us. Clothing wasn't rationed . We didn't have enough money to buy new clothing.
Candy could not be bought during the war. Dad loved candy. After the war the first candy Dad could buy was a bag of marshmallows. He brought them home and gave us each a marshmallow to enjoy. We didn't know what they were. We played with them on the floor as blocks. They got dirty and inedible.
We did not find these things to be hardships. Mom and dad wanted the war to end so that we would be safe. We didn't miss what we didn't know about.
I can't help but think that the freedom convoy people are very spoiled babies.
Usually there are three or four topics rolling around in my head for blog posts. They gradually hatch and become a blog post.
Recently I've been in a dry spell.
The crazy old Ukrainian war has kept my attention. I'm angry with what is going on in the Ukraine. I see all kinds of news about the war. We can't rely on what we see. I have limited information on the war so I'd best not post on it. I have seen some great blog posts about the war and I appreciate them .
In Canada we've just had a truck convoy occupy Ottawa. The protesters were extremely ignorant and ill behaved. They had no idea what they wanted . They had no idea how the system works and that the system does work. They confused the Canadian system with the American system which are both good systems of government. These two systems function well if left to do so.
Covid has distressed me for more than two years. I have not had covid and have had my three shots. The virus itself is frustrating as it keeps being able to change it's form and hit us again. It's not been fun staying away from people. It's not been fun seeing people misbehave in a very selfish way about vaccinations or covid rules.
These three issues have kept my mind whirling around. There's no easy fix. there's great risk from all three issues.
So maybe if I write about these three issues, I will be able to think of something else.
It's interesting how our thoughts and ideas run from topic to topic. One idea puts us on to more ideas. It's how a conversation takes place. Ideas are linked.
My neighbor across the street rarely if ever wears a jacket in winter. It got me thinking that high school and college kids did not wear winter coats a few years ago . I guess they thought it was cool.
When it comes to winter clothing I'm a bit of a fussy pants. I've spent a lot of time outdoors hiking, skiing and snowshoeing in the Rocky mountains. I know how to keep warm and comfortable. If a kid was cold usually all you had to tell him is put your tuque on and in five minutes the kid was warm.
This got me thinking about a person in the 1960's who did not wear a winter jacket. But George did wear winter fleece lined under wear and a heavy shirt
Then it got me thinking about who George was. George was a rather well known Canadian. The first big Alberta oil strike was Leduc #1 in 1947 . You guessed it. George was the driller.
I met George and his family when I was teaching in a town where they lived. George was a drilling supervisor. They moved regularly. Most oil people did at that time. George and his family lived in a small house trailer. George's trailer was 8 ft. wide. Most trailers were ten or twelve feet wide. When George had to move , he just closed the trailer door and hooked it onto his truck and away he went.
George was a large man and so were his kids. We often wondered how they fit in such a small house trailer. When we asked his son, he would just laugh and say they were used to it.
George was a story teller. We heard the story of Leduc # 1 blowing in many times. They were taken by surprise. Most of the holes they were drilling were dry but this time they were lucky.
Now this could keep me going to other ideas but, I'll stop for tonight!
