Cycling Season Starts

       Skating season finished last Tuesday. so what comes next? Cycling! Actually for me cycling started about a month ago. April can be an excellent month for cycling or terrible. This year was so so. I got in about 80 km of cycling.


      As I've described in a previous post, I do at least 1000 km of cycling per summer. Our city has an extensive system of bike trails. All my cycling is done on the bike trails.


     I cycle by myself. I find it easier to concentrate on the trail and travel at my own pace. You can travel in your own little world. However, if there's any reason to stop and visit, I won't miss it. Tonight I stopped to see if I could find the frogs at the side of the trail. 

    Along with the thrill of cycling comes the headache of flat tires. I haven't had a flat for six years so this is my year. I had a flat a few nights ago and walked 5 km home! I think the only solution is to buy a new tire and tube. Safety is an issue. As you see I wear a helmet and have worn one for twenty one years. It's also important to keep the bike in repair . I hit speeds of 55 kmh (downhill that is)and you don't want something to happen at that speed or any other speed. I have a fair number of road rash scars.

Red, the mechanic , in action.

Do you think I'll make it?

     So I'm off to set my goal of at least 1000km for this summer. 

Telemarketers: Let's Get Rid of Them

      A few minutes ago I received a call that said name and number unavailable. I did not recognize the number and  I was not familiar with the area code. I did not answer the call. They did not leave a message. Does this sound familiar to anybody?  Sometimes we can get two or three calls a day.


     I Googled the call I just had and found out that it's a scam. They want to lower your credit card interest rate. All you have to do is give them your credit card number and they will do the rest!!!!


    In Canada they have established a do not call list. I put myself on the list. I still get telemarketer calls. There are loop holes in our law. Telephone surveys are legal so that means make a little survey and then sell. Enforcement of do not call is a sad joke so the bad guys will see if they can get away with things. Canadian do not call laws do not apply in the U.S. So calls can be made from the U.S. and our do not call list has no authority.


    Sometimes I tried talking to the caller and trying to waste their time. Most of the time they were only too willing to visit. Questions like how's the weather there and where do you live were pleasantly discussed.


    Now recently I  learned that I can use a feature on my phone and block unwanted callers. Most of you probably know this as I'm usually far behind in these little technical features.  Not all phones have this feature. Now I block every telemarketer. I can block up to twenty numbers. Once I hat twenty I should be able to take the first numbers off as  they usually don't use the same number for very long.


    So all who dislike telemarketers block their numbers on your phone. I'm sure if we all get together we can put them out of business. Just think..no more calls in your dinner hour.

Ice Skating Finished for the Season.

       Last Tuesday was our last skate of the season. We started skating on the first Tuesday of September and finished on the first Tuesday in May. It was a most enjoyable season.

Ready to go.

      In our city we have senior skating twice a week at one of the local arenas. Seniors are anybody 50 plus. We skate for an hour and then it's time for coffee and a good visit. The skating groups are very supportive of one another. We have a picnic in June  which gets the group together once in the summer.  


     We have from 10 - 20 skaters of various ages and abilities. Our oldest skater is 89. 

Still a strong sporty skater at 89.

      So I will get busy with looking after my yard and garden to keep me fit and out of mischief.


      

Working at the Casino

       For the past few days I have worked a shift at the Casino on behalf of a non-profit group that I am involved with. I have previously posted on "hooked on Casinos" where I maintain that non profit groups depend  heavily on Casinos for funding.


     In Alberta a nonprofit organization can be "given" a Casino to work at for two days. Over the two days thirteen people are required to cover all shifts. The two days will give about $25000 for the organization. My shifts started at 7:30 PM and ended about 2:30 AM. I find the work interesting as there's always something new to learn. Working with your team and the adviser is fun. The system set up to operate the tables is amazing for the sets of checks and balances that regulate the flow of cash and chips. Both nights we balanced exactly.


    The casino consists of slot machines and gaming tables. Charitable groups work on the gaming table aspect of the casino operation. For gaming tables chips are used for the play. A player buys chips at the table to play the game. Somebody has to tightly control the cash and the chips. That's where we come in. Let's say the  casino has $200000 in cash. They also the same value of  chips. Groups provide a banker, manager, cashier and chip runner. An extremely capable advisor tells us exactly what to do. All this is done with computer transactions. I was a banker...the guy who looks after all cash and chips. When I start the previous banker transfers all chips and cash to me. I give the cashier about $10000 to pay people who bring chips for redemption. When more chips are needed at the tables I also fill out chip orders. The tables need more chips when players take their chips and cash them in. The banker gives the chips to a "chip runner" who takes the chips to a table that needs chips. The manager supervises and relieves other workers. So the operation works very smoothly under the expert advice of your advisor. At the end of my shift I had to balance the cash with the chips. An able advisor really makes you look good. Also at the end of my shift I trans fer all cash and chips that  were in play to the count room which does the official count. 


     Now the group puts their time in so that they jump though some hoops to justify getting a bundle of money for the charity. Two and a half year later we get to do this all over again.

How Internet Advertising Finds You

      This morning I listened to Terry O'Reilly on the Age of Persuasion which is a CBC radio show. Terry O'Reilly is an advertising man who's been making advertising for large companies. These ads go on TV and in newspapers and are kind of a shotgun approach. They try to make the ad catchy whether or not you want a product or not. So the people who buy nothing but a Honda are showered by ads for Fords, Chevs...


     This morning's program explained that the big TV and newspaper advertising has suffered with competition from internet advertising. He explained how internet advertising operates.


     A couple of months ago I was looking for a new Internet provider. I checked out Telus. Ever since then I've had an ad on my Face Book page for Telus. So it works like this. If I want a car and I check out car loans. I put in the exact car in order to get a loan quote. Let's say I want a Honda Accord. The next day I'm going to have an ad on my home page for a Honda Accord and it will be at a good price and they"ll even throw in the wheels! You are one of the few people who gets this ad along with other probable Honda Accord purchasers. Terry O'Reilly explained how this happens.


     There are cookies that identify us. These are small bits of code. It operates much like a finger print. If the police have my finger print and find my finger print at a crime scene , they come to my house right away and say, "You're coming with us." They've matched the finger prints. Where ever we go on the Internet we leave traces. The places we go are picked up and matched to what we are interested in.   So another computer program sends us the exact ad for something we are interested in. 


      When we shop on line we leave information about ourselves. When we travel we leave information with airlines, hotels etc. These people are often very willing to share or sell our information. So along the way a tremendous amount of information is collected on us. If we use our credit card at 2:00 AM in a casino , our rating for credit card payment could be suspect? If we stay at a five star hotel or if we chose economy hotel information is built up as to what our tastes are. So after a while the Internet knows more about me than my wife does. 


     So it's very easy electronically to focus ads to very specific customers. This is cheap as compared to TV or newspapers. There doesn't have to be a lot of money spent to design a catchy ad. Internet ads  have  a big bang for the buck as people are targeted and very little energy is wasted..

Beaver Web Cam

     I have included a link for a beaver web cam again. They put a web cam in a beaver   lodge last year and it was not very successful. They now have a camera for very low light and have devised protection so that the beavers won't pile mud over the camera.

Photo by Judy Boyd

    This camera is located at a place called Ellis Bird Farm. A brother and sister farmed the land until the 1970's. They were bought out by a petro chemical company that constructed a large petro chemical plant. The Ellis's had developed a system for successful blue bird houses and were largely responsible for bringing back blue birds to this area. They also had houses for purple martins. Of course, they fed birds all winter.


    Since this couple had single handedly helped the birds, one of the stipulations in the sale of their farmland was to leave part of the land for the birds. The company funded a board to organize and manage the area.


    This has been a very successful venture as the birds have been well looked after and studied. It has been made into a sanctuary and facilities have been built to accommodate visitors and has become a tourist site. 


    So because of the importance of the site I like to put this link on my blog. I hope that those of you who like web cams will get some pleasure out of this one.

Large Volume of Writing Today: What Will Influence be on our Society?

      I find it challenging to even think of an answer for the question I have asked in the title. There are so many things to consider. What might the future hold that would influence the use and storage of all things written and saved today.
   
    There is a tremendous increase in writing volume today compared to any time in our history. In the 1950's when I was a little kid I would write two or three letters a year to my friends and maybe one to my Grandma. Today I write a blog that is nearing 400 posts. If conditions had remained as 1950 I would have written very little. 


      Today there are thousands of blogs and the common man and woman are able to write an exponential amount because of the use of  computer technology. If one  browses blogs for a few minutes you can find an endless variety of well written blogs which would never have been written before this time. Some blogs are made up of endless beautiful photographs which record our life. Digital cameras and computers have made it possible for almost anybody to take photos and post them for all to see .


     About 700 AD the quill pen and powdered ink was invented. A very limited amount of writing could be done. I would think that only a fraction of this writing would have survived. The common man did not write. The primitive printing press was invented about 1500. This not only allowed for more writing but more readers. The first fountain pens were developed in  about 900. This allowed more people to write and more writing survived. In the 1930's the ball point was developed and refined in the 1940's so pilots could use it during the war instead of fountain pens which did not do well with great altitude changes. Even with these developments few people wrote and little was kept. 


     My Dad was born in 1912. I do not know of any of his writing that has survived. We did find a letter he had written to our Mom before they were married. My brother found this letter in a stove where Dad was disposing of papers. Dad had just filled the stove but had not lit a fire. I'm not sure if this letter survives.


     I do not have an answer for the question I asked in the title. I can only assume that by the exponential increase in writing we will leave a vast amount of information about how we lived a this time. Archaeologists should not have to dig carefully around in the soil to find small bits of garbage to see how we lived.