Yesterday I had the most amazing meal. Marsha and I stopped by the Saigon Kitchen for lunch. Usually I have the spring rolls but this time I went for something a bit different. It was the tofu and vegetable griller. After a few minutes the waitress brought my meal. The first sign of it being served was the loud sizzling noise and the cloud of steam and smoke. She set my order down on the table and I looked at it. I looked at Marsha. Then I looked at the meal again. There was a hardwood plank to protect the table. On top of the plank was a cast iron casserole that seemed to have been heated to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly Celsius. I almost couldn’t see Marsha through the steam and smoke and had to strain to hear the waitress over the sizzling as she said, “Be careful, it’s hot.” You think? I would never have guessed from the heat radiating from the plate and the smoke filling the room. As I was trying to figure out how to attack this hissing monster in front of me something even more surprising happened. Someone from another table, someone I didn’t even know, came over and asked what I’d ordered. The sizzling, smoking monster had made quite a show and he wanted some of that. Best of all, once it had cooled a bit, the meal was wonderful, one of the best I’ve had. If you are in Nanaimo sometime, stop by Saigon Kitchen and order one of their grillers. (They have non-vegetarian options so you don’t have to do the tofu.) It’s delicious, fabulous, wonderful, and the floor show alone is worth the, rather reasonable, price.

When we moved to Canada we know there was a bit of concern about our safety (and sanity but that’s another discussion for another time). I’m glad to be able to tell you that in Canada we plan for every contingency. They have earthquake drills. They have plans for severe weather and snow. They are even ready for a Zombie Apocalypse. This came up in Parliament when the Minister for Foreign affairs was asked if Canada was working with the US to prepare. He replied “I want to assure this member and all Canadians that I am dead-icated to ensuring that this never happens,” This came about from a report that the Public Security Department in Quebec is using a hypothetical Zombie Apocalypse as a training exercise. It’s good to know that Parliament is looking out for us.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/13/canada-will-never-be-a-safe-haven-for-zombies-foreign-minister-john-baird-tells-house-of-commons/

Speaking of security, I came across this article from Wired magazine this week about the new robots used by Homeland Security in the US. One of them is the Versatrax 150, which made by Inuktun Services, the company I work for. We actually make a number of robots, some with cameras, some with a water cannon, some that are designed to run under water, some that are designed to crawl through narrow pipes and then unfold when they get into a larger chamber. Here’s the article
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/dhs-drones/?pid=1801
and here’s the list of robots we make on our company web site:
http://inuktun.com/crawler-vehicles/

Word for the week.
Thagomizer: The spikes at the end of a Stegosaurus’s tail. Originally from a Gary Larson The Far Side cartoon, it’s been adopted by the Palaeontology community. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, The Smithsonian Institution, Dinosaur National Monument and several BBC documentaries have used the term. I like it when the perfect word appears. For a hundred years Palaeontologists called it “the cluster of four to ten spikes at the end of a dinosaur’s especially Stegosaurid dinosaurs, tails”. This worked, but it was clumsy. There needed to be a word for this and Gary Larson supplied Thagomizer. Who says cartoonists don’t make a major contribution to society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer

PIX A day at the beach