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<title>Geoduck Letters RSS</title><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/index.html</link><description>Geoduck RSS</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright Douglas aalseth</dc:rights><dc:date>2015-10-04T08:21:54-07:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2015 19:38:44 -0700</lastBuildDate><item><title>Island Life 4 October 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-10-04T08:21:54-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/6cfce0203d93163ed5ea5f8dcc863f5c-262.html#unique-entry-id-262</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/6cfce0203d93163ed5ea5f8dcc863f5c-262.html#unique-entry-id-262</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I took a number of shots, all the way out to a 1, 3, 5, even a 15 second exposure in an effort to capture the scene. 

...Marsha and her sister Margaret were in Tofino on the west side of the island that night.   Even though they were on the &lsquo;wrong&rsquo; side of the island they did see the eclipse as well. ...  While I shivered on a rock on the beach, ankle deep in sand and seaweed, they got to enjoy the eclipse from their hotel balcony with a glass of wine.&nbsp;


...As he passed them Marsha did hold up her hand saying &ldquo;High Five&rdquo;, but he didn&rsquo;t fall for it. 

...Margaret was a bit perturbed by Marsha&rsquo;s &lsquo;wild&rsquo; driving on the way back, but I think that was more the road.&nbsp;


...We have twisty mountain roads around here, so I really don&rsquo;t think it was Marsha&rsquo;s fault.


...3: This guy knew the best spot was the tip of the point and dammit as long as he has a wetsuit a high tide wasn&rsquo;t going to stop him. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 8 November 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-11-08T08:20:27-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/3b71b614dd1a179de23e94ef3374f453-261.html#unique-entry-id-261</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/3b71b614dd1a179de23e94ef3374f453-261.html#unique-entry-id-261</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Last week I mentioned that I had been called to do something for the One Act Play Festival.   Well, after frantically making plans and rehearsing this Friday We presented The Table for a live audience.   It was received quite well, and I&rsquo;m still getting positive feedback.   So this week I present a recording of The Table. 


...There&rsquo;s a couple bursts of static, source unknown.   But overall the audio came through pretty good. 


...PIX: I&rsquo;m sending you a video.   OK It&rsquo;;s a blank video but it is on YouTube so it counts.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 13 December 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-12-13T08:17:59-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/83ea49cce7df93387685a2e65690f1b8-260.html#unique-entry-id-260</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/83ea49cce7df93387685a2e65690f1b8-260.html#unique-entry-id-260</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It&rsquo;s Christmas Card Time.   Here is the front picture.   If you want to do something official we're attaching a PDF version of the full card.   Print it, fold it, and you&rsquo;ll have something to put on your tree, or mantle, or table, or wherever.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 27 December 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-12-27T08:13:36-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b36463bfb4fbbe6392f3184a2e772eeb-259.html#unique-entry-id-259</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b36463bfb4fbbe6392f3184a2e772eeb-259.html#unique-entry-id-259</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well, after a while as some people had their big Christmas bash, and wine, on Christmas Eve this got pushed back to the 24th. 

...We finished up some projects, secured some things for the holiday week (we&rsquo;re closed between Christmas and New Years), and got things ready for when we return on the fourth of January. ...  Those of you that know me know that I&rsquo;m not 100%&nbsp;comfortable&nbsp;with children, and having a bunch of them hug me was, a bit much.   Let&rsquo;s just say that I checked to make sure I still had my wallet when they were done and leave it at that.


...Except that we didn&rsquo;t set out until after nine, and we didn&rsquo;t hit the big box stores where the crowds were, and we didn&rsquo;t buy lots of stuff. ...  At Best Buy we finally got to see an iPad Pro, something I had wanted to see for some time. 

...OK , that&rsquo;s not an actual holiday but we did go to see Merry Christmas George Bailey, which was very enjoyable. they did a good job. 

...But once that is done, I get to play the rest of the day, while Marsha works on Taxes. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 20 December 2016</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-12-20T08:12:06-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/fd40ff11f11d70d7b5b447f36e9570e7-258.html#unique-entry-id-258</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/fd40ff11f11d70d7b5b447f36e9570e7-258.html#unique-entry-id-258</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[To cut them some slack, it was just before Christmas, they had a guest speaker talking about fossils and&nbsp;dinosaurs, and it was early in the year so they weren&rsquo;t as mature as the kids I&rsquo;ve seen in April or May. 

...We&rsquo;d been corresponding&nbsp;back and fourth for a few days prior to the interview, to set up a time and what we&rsquo;d be talking about.&nbsp;...  Right now some poor schlep sits in a room, reading the thousands of&nbsp;comments that come in every day, trying to weed out the offensive, the off topic, the trolls, all the while&nbsp;being accused of &ldquo;censorship&rdquo;. 

...We had all sorts of equipment on display and answered questions as needed, though mostly I&nbsp;tried to stay out of the way. 

...Several planes will be arriving every day and we hope to have&nbsp;resettled ten thousand by the end of the year. 

...They were trying to share a phone and in the background was the noisy&nbsp;chatter of the food court at the curling rink in their little town in Saskatchewan. ...  Over the next hour and a half Penny got&nbsp;a call, every fifteen minutes, from the people in Saskatchewan each time drunker than the last. ...  They had a long conversation with Dave on the phone staring at his picture on&nbsp;Facebook, without ever noticing that the &ldquo;Skype&rdquo; picture of Dave never moved.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 6 December 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-12-06T08:11:05-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/6a1f855b9032b1c21af7224a43a38d2c-257.html#unique-entry-id-257</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/6a1f855b9032b1c21af7224a43a38d2c-257.html#unique-entry-id-257</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Even whether to take this cookie or the one next to it, will is some way, like the flap of a butterflies wing change all that comes after. 

...From then on something will come to mind and you&rsquo;ll think &ldquo;was that before or after we&hellip;&rdquo;.   Or start reminiscing and say &ldquo;Yup, it was in the summer of twenty-ought-six that we&hellip;&rdquo; People that talk like that of course are generally known as old people, but that aside, this sort of a moment, whether it is graduation, or getting married, or having a child is your own personal Crossing the Rubicon event.&nbsp;


...For those that haven&rsquo;t studied history, or don&rsquo;t have a memory for useless bits of trivia as I do, here is the history of the term. 

...We both love their material so I said how bad it was that if you mention something like the Stateroom Scene from Night at the Opera, kids these days will give you a blank look. ...  But anyway, for anyone that doesn&rsquo;t know about it, here is a link to the Stateroom Scene from Night at the Opera.&nbsp;


...In fact, as she&rsquo;s been the Queen since before I was born, it is a nice bit of continuity to have her as the head of state. 

...I wouldn&rsquo;t swear that we didn&rsquo;t actually say &ldquo;I promise to be a total git at a Queen concert if Elizabeth brings the drugs at II,&rdquo; because I really have no idea what the French version said.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 29 November 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-11-29T08:09:55-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b1bbb09b95c211a6e15644a5b6e53119-256.html#unique-entry-id-256</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b1bbb09b95c211a6e15644a5b6e53119-256.html#unique-entry-id-256</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Odd enough that rather than just replying I called her with FaceTime and asked her what was going on. ...  Marsha was working in her office and Imoto had been a bit more adventurous than normal, even hopping up and walking across her desk, which was unusual.   So, when she heard Imoto running around in the living room, at first Marsha didn&rsquo;t think too much of it. 

...Imoto was off the cabinet in a flash after it and when Marsha got over there Imoto was pawing at it. 

...Imoto was, of course, not too happy at having her new toy taken away, but sometimes you have to be the adult and do things that your kids don&rsquo;t like. ...  She even took the iPad out onto the deck and showed me the little bird laying on a towel on the cabinet. ...  We have also been really good about not leaving doors open, actually with the cats we&rsquo;re careful about that even in the summer.&nbsp;


...Marsha was still in her office working so I was able to transfer everything from the take-out containers to proper plates, with silverware and napkins and such. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 22 November 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-11-22T08:01:28-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/74b412a2d379e64561a70e419ab4f6c8-255.html#unique-entry-id-255</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/74b412a2d379e64561a70e419ab4f6c8-255.html#unique-entry-id-255</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[You&rsquo;d think this would be a simple job but as it went on the trip just got stranger and stranger. ...  There was whole wheat macaroni, lemon macaroni, Halal and Kosher macaroni (and I&rsquo;m not even sure how macaroni wouldn't be), organic free range macaroni, and on and on. ...  Maybe they&rsquo;ve grown up and are all working together in the baked goods industry to get the rest of us to join them.&nbsp; ...  I wonder, if I go to the aisle of school supplies if they&rsquo;ll have &ldquo;gluten free school glue&rdquo;. ...  You know the one in a big box with an Italian sounding name, and a chubby Italian grandma&rsquo;s face on the front. 

...It is the middle of November, it&rsquo;s after Halloween, you kinda have to expect them to roll out the egg nog and wreaths about now. ...  If you remember, this particular sub plot in A Charlie Brown Christmas was that Charlie Brown chose this scrawny natural tree rather than the shiny plastic and aluminum ones. ...  So, they&rsquo;re commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of this film, by selling a tiny ARTIFICIAL Charlie Brown Christmas tree. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 15 November 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-11-15T08:01:06-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e36363b9c92a8596123526bc1bb05e3e-254.html#unique-entry-id-254</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e36363b9c92a8596123526bc1bb05e3e-254.html#unique-entry-id-254</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It turns out there are a bunch of rules dealing with the choreography of hugs that I didn&rsquo;t know&nbsp;existed.   You see when I give Marsha or anyone a hug who&rsquo;s about my height I use what I think of as a neutral stance. ...  It is&nbsp;just one step above a guy &ldquo;chest bump&rdquo; which, as you might expect, would be most definitely not appropriate with&nbsp;someone of the opposite gender.   Most importantly, it&rsquo;s not appropriate for a loving couple, which is what Peter and Anne&nbsp;are.   As Heather, who plays Anne, is a bit shorter than me I then tried a hug with her arms under mine. ...  I find it amazing however, that there are apparently all these rules for hugs&nbsp;that I didn&rsquo;t know about. 

...Most times they apply the discount right at the pharmacy, but on certain things we have to submit a paper&nbsp;form for reimbursement. 

...Fortunately I&nbsp;caught it but I do wonder what they would have thought if it had showed up with my claim. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 1 November 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-11-01T07:53:31-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d0719609a8543ad210204c0bdd935b5f-253.html#unique-entry-id-253</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d0719609a8543ad210204c0bdd935b5f-253.html#unique-entry-id-253</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[That night Marsha was watching the first game of the World Series, but she had to leave to go to water aerobics. 

...In July I&nbsp;got together with Mike, who I had performed with in Ethan Claymore, to do a read through of the play for timing and to work out any bugs.&nbsp;&nbsp;

...On Tuesday, a bit before 9:00 pm I got a call from Mike in his role as The President of Echo Players.   It seems that one of the groups in the festival dropped out at the last minute so they had a hole in the&nbsp;schedule. ...  This Friday we&rsquo;re going to be reading it off of the scripts, kinda like a radio play rather than a full staging. 

...I have to admit though, there have been some Christmases that I could have use a case of beer, just on Christmas Day.


...Now, I&rsquo;m not familiar with the geography of Florida but I swear I heard the&nbsp;Agent say &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to take them to a really nice area, Cape Sand Blast.&rdquo; ...  I mean, if I lived in Cape Sand Blast I think I&rsquo;d really rather not leave my car or anything else I cared about outside. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 25 October 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-10-25T07:51:08-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/49e1524caabf8217213d9929bd694d11-252.html#unique-entry-id-252</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/49e1524caabf8217213d9929bd694d11-252.html#unique-entry-id-252</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[(Have to go with the Royals - marsh) For me, I&rsquo;ll be in the area but I won&rsquo;t be going out of my way to see them. 

...I had nine dollars&nbsp;which only got me about two gallons but that&rsquo;s OK. It would be another two weeks before I needed to fuel again. 

...Did you know that nobody really knows why it is called a Monkey Wrench?   I wondered about that this week so I pulled out the iPhone and said &ldquo;Siri, why&nbsp;do they call it a monkey wrench?&rdquo; 

...There was a nautical term &ldquo;monkey&rdquo; for small things, but the monkey wrench wasn&rsquo;t made for the navy, and anyway it&rsquo;s quite large.   All we know is that&nbsp;Loring Coes patented it in 1841 and started selling it as a &ldquo;Monkey Wrench&rdquo;, and nobody seems to know why.


Anyway the monkey wrench came up this week when our friend Super Dave came over to paint the peaks on the ends of our house.   I wasn&rsquo;t comfortable&nbsp;climbing up the ladder to do it myself, and Marsha was very adverse to me climbing up a ladder and doing it myself. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 18 October 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-10-18T07:47:46-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/abfda554adc867673284fd57eb4a00ba-251.html#unique-entry-id-251</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/abfda554adc867673284fd57eb4a00ba-251.html#unique-entry-id-251</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[These are converted to inside things when WE deliberately bring them into the house ourselves, through a process I call &ldquo;magic&rdquo;. 


...As this refugee from Eight Legged Freaks strolled across the floor I set a lid on him and ran off to get Marsha to dispose of the monster. 

...I was listening to the CBC that morning when as part of the news they read a warning from Environment Canada about bears. ...  At this point Rick Cluff, the host of the morning show, and I suspect former comedian, started talking to the microphone with a Barry White voice. ...  When he finally came to an end he paused, and then in his normal voice asked &ldquo;So Amy, what&rsquo;s up with traffic this morning?&rdquo; 

...Somehow I don&rsquo;t think a mountain lion would respond to Barry White, so we&rsquo;re just going to be careful.


...This road starts in the middle of Lantzville (it just doesn&rsquo;t feel right to call it downtown) loops down by the beach and then up into Nanaimo. 

...I have to admit that I have no idea what normal would be for a Wooly Bear caterpillar. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 11 October 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-10-11T07:41:53-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e84cfdd7df91ad16bbf62deeff39cefd-250.html#unique-entry-id-250</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e84cfdd7df91ad16bbf62deeff39cefd-250.html#unique-entry-id-250</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I skipped working out, I just took a shower, hurried through taking care of the cats and then ran upstairs to grab a&nbsp;quick bite before I set off for work. 

...Friend With A Cold: Yeah I think I&rsquo;ll go home, curl up with a blanket and a big cup of hot iced tea.


...They went on to mention that they&nbsp;have produced an actual calendar for sale in the lobby to go with the Calendar Girls production.&nbsp;


...There is one spot he&rsquo;s &ldquo;keeping an eye on&rdquo;, but I chalk that up to&nbsp;him being &ldquo;Dr. Mary Sunshine&rdquo;, so he has to find something to fret over. 

...They were actually ready on Wednesday, but as I mentioned before my phone was dead so I didn&rsquo;t get the&nbsp;message. ...  Better yet&nbsp;the right eye is doing well enough to get a contact lens in there as well so now I&rsquo;m seeing sharply out of both eyes. ...  There&rsquo;s a couple&nbsp;of minor things they want to do to the right eye still but overall it&rsquo;s a huge step forward.


...Normally we&rsquo;d get wind too, but the hills just to the west,&nbsp;shelter us so it has been mostly calm here. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 27 September 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-09-27T07:40:10-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d62abde31edc0c4bf1c583d66436ea16-249.html#unique-entry-id-249</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d62abde31edc0c4bf1c583d66436ea16-249.html#unique-entry-id-249</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Margaret was reading, (more about that later), I was playing video games, Marsha was laying on the couch, and Imoto the cat was sleeping on the couch next to Marsha. 

...And speaking of college kids, later in the week Imoto was playing with her catnip fish.   She played with it long enough that when I moved and she looked up she had this unsteady, glassy eyed look of a cat that&rsquo;s imbibed over enthusiastically. ...  I swear she gave me the same &ldquo;If I play it cool they won&rsquo;t know I&rsquo;m stoned,&rdquo; look I saw many a time in college. 

...I discovered just before I graduated that a number of people I knew in the Geology department at the U of Oregon thought I was Mormon. 

...It appears that Discovery Channel, or possibly Google, used the same software to do the Closed Captioning as most phones use for autocorrect. 

...It&rsquo;s been really nice, She&rsquo;s decided to do the cooking, which is a nice step up from the fried paste and SPAM I usually make.   She works for the same company Marsha does so she&rsquo;s also been doing some training and work while she&rsquo;s here. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 20 September 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-09-20T15:48:06-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/5387e33c05557ff26c67019eec2e0917-248.html#unique-entry-id-248</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/5387e33c05557ff26c67019eec2e0917-248.html#unique-entry-id-248</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[When I was in college I had a professor, Prof. McBurney I think, who was known to drop things into the middle of his lectures to see if people were awake. ...  Really the only thing that happens in these remote sites would be the occasional dead whale dropping to the bottom, at which time there would be an explosion of sea creatures converging on the carcass. ...  &hellip;&rdquo; He went on like this until he could see that most of the class was utterly confused, then with a &ldquo;Well, anyway&hellip;&rdquo; he&rsquo;d get back to discussing what subduction zones did to the chemistry of these sediments. 

...This came to mind this week when a report came out about a surprising number of whale carcasses that had washed up on the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. ...  After looking at the carcasses and ruling out common things like getting hit by ships and entanglement with fishing gear they concluded that it was algae.&nbsp;

...And more recently someone was paddle boarding, a crazy activity at the best of times if you ask me, when a pod of killer whales passed. 

...Me on the other hand never had an opportunity to think "why would anyone in their right mind ever do that?" 

...And finally, I want to tell you a story about these two old guys that lived in Eugene when I was growing up. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 13 September 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-09-13T15:46:26-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/10743ed2526599fc151ca0aab591044a-247.html#unique-entry-id-247</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/10743ed2526599fc151ca0aab591044a-247.html#unique-entry-id-247</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I don&rsquo;t know but that&rsquo;s what they wanted so we were testing that change as well as a bunch of other patches and fixes. 

...I suggested Furlongs per Fortnight, which did gain some traction as it WOULD be proprietary, if a little archaic for our clientele. 

...As it was a hereditary position, when he died in 1837 without an heir, they just bronzed his face and it is hanging on the wall in the capitol in Oslo.   To this very day anyone can walk up to his beard and get the length of a standard Bangund. 

...We would manage your money after you pass away and then, when you are reincarnated, you just have to come by, reclaim your assets, and you&rsquo;d be off to a good start in your next life. 

...We&rsquo;d get the people who wanted to go somewhere else but all the good places were booked up. 

...He went on to explain that when the market is rising rapidly, it&rsquo;s tempting to jump in, but by the time it&rsquo;s obvious that it&rsquo;s rising, it&rsquo;s usually near the top and about to go down.   On the other hand when there is a huge drop in the market it&rsquo;s too late to dump your assets and get out. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 6 September 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-09-06T15:43:17-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/1c96eb0e21876b5ed733efd42446fcf2-246.html#unique-entry-id-246</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/1c96eb0e21876b5ed733efd42446fcf2-246.html#unique-entry-id-246</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I was even able to get out a few minutes early and made the line up for the 5:45 ferry, which I wasn&rsquo;t sure I could. 

...You may have a motorcycle worth thousands of dollars, but if it&rsquo;s not running and you can&rsquo;t get one screw off to fix it, in reality the bike is worth no more than the cost of that twenty five cent screw. ...  At that moment my Prius, one of the most complex and advance cars sold in the world, was worth exactly twelve cents, the cost of enough electricity to get it booted up and running. 

...Well Friday I took the car to Nanaimo Toyota to make sure that this wasn't a sign of something else wrong, and that the guy jumping the car hadn&rsquo;t damaged anything in using his F-350 sized booster kit on my tiny Japanese car.   Everything was fine, I had just run the battery down and even though it is a ten year old battery, they didn&rsquo;t even see a need to replace it. ...  By the time I had confirmation the car was OK, even if I&rsquo;d grabbed the very next ferry, not that likely on the big weekend, I would have made it to the hotel in Seattle by about 7:00 that night. 

...I was in communication with Marsha while I waited for the tow truck and when I finally got home we commiserated over a video call. 

...Last week I came across a guy in the salad dressing section taking a picture of the shelf and sending it to his wife so she could tell him exactly what one she wanted.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 30 August 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-08-30T15:38:44-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e4bfd64acc6a93deb28e822551c3194e-245.html#unique-entry-id-245</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e4bfd64acc6a93deb28e822551c3194e-245.html#unique-entry-id-245</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;m a good cook for things like fish and chicken and vegetables, the latter is a remnant of the 20 years I was a&nbsp;vegetarian. ...  And I guess when I was a kid it was our job to&nbsp;&ldquo;make dinner&rdquo;, which usually consisted of taking the roast, in a pan with veggies, out of the fridge and putting it in the oven&nbsp;when we got home from school, hopefully after turning the oven on. 

...For those of you that don&rsquo;t know, pirogies are pouches of dough&nbsp;&nbsp;filled with a mixture of mashed potatoes,&nbsp;white cheese, onion and spices. 

...Now, I&rsquo;m not a business person so maybe it&rsquo;s just me, but I have an aversion to anything called Cheemo. 

...We could get them bulk but by an odd quirk, bulk is more expensive&nbsp;than packaged, at least that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;d found up here in the past. ...  Even after we found the package we weren&rsquo;t sure they were normal rolled oats until we opened it up&nbsp;and tried them. ...  Now I&rsquo;m not a business person&nbsp;and I don&rsquo;t mean to sound like an old guy shaking his cane at &ldquo;the wold going to hell in a hand basket&rdquo;. 

...I don&rsquo;t know if they&rsquo;re running it in the states, there&rsquo;s an ad up here for Best Buy. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 23 August 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-08-23T15:34:43-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e007e8a7c2213a3021b1d4ffc9cd4788-244.html#unique-entry-id-244</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/e007e8a7c2213a3021b1d4ffc9cd4788-244.html#unique-entry-id-244</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[As they were spread out over an hour it was tough to have a camera ready, but we did get a couple of shots of it.&nbsp;


...This can easily run into millions of dollars on even a small fire, so that&rsquo;s brought down the number of cigarettes tossed from car windows and such. 

...This week they have been fighting old fires, new fires caused by dry lightning and other causes, and some that have crossed the border from Washington State.&nbsp;


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/washington-stickpin-fire-closing-in-on-residents-of-grand-forks-b-c-1.3198984


Things are so bad they&rsquo;ve not only been using the Martin Mars converted for use as a water bomber and the Bombardier 415 that was purpose built to be one, south of the border they&rsquo;ve been using converted DC-10s to drop retardant on fires.


...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/80-year-old-wally-yahnke-son-lose-homes-and-vehicles-in-oliver-b-c-wildfire-1.3198721


...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-fires-rock-creek-woman-saves-horses-from-wildfire-1.3193996


...Sure it&rsquo;s been dry, we think we might lose some trees and shrubs, but we&rsquo;ve had no evacuations and the smoke hasn&rsquo;t been too bad. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 16 August 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-08-16T15:31:29-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2d5066da309f285493cbf5382d0748c4-243.html#unique-entry-id-243</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2d5066da309f285493cbf5382d0748c4-243.html#unique-entry-id-243</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It seemed like a good idea to start on that end, as the patchwork quilt effect was getting a bit old. ...  Not only did it keep us from painting that morning, the wet marked the exposed end so we had to do a light &ldquo;dry brush&rdquo; coat over most of it to get rid of some glossy spots. 

...There were a few votes for the other two colours, and one write in for tan, ugh, but overwhelmingly the consensus was 3 or 4. ...  I did suggest that we just do blue and red stripes, but Marsha didn&rsquo;t think that would be a good idea. 

...I was in the office while my boss was conferring with one of the machinists on how to make a particularly difficult part.   Now these are middle aged machinists that have eaten their share of cutting oil and have grease permanently embedded in the skin on their hands. 

...The conversation continued for about fifteen minutes and it sounded like a couple of high school math teachers designing a really nasty homework problem. &nbsp;  I wish I could have recorded it, just so I could play it for any kid who says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never use trigonometry.&rdquo; or &ldquo;When will I ever use algebra in real life?&rdquo; ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 9 August 2015: Politics</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-08-09T15:27:11-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2dc6f4fc13c02b97e46de67063e74c17-242.html#unique-entry-id-242</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2dc6f4fc13c02b97e46de67063e74c17-242.html#unique-entry-id-242</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[You know how sometimes you hear a piece of music, and like it but don&rsquo;t know what it was or by whom. ...  It would be performed in movies and as background music here and there but I could never find out the name of the piece and by whom. ...  (A side note; when I Googled the name the first hit I got was for Mel Tillis, also a talented musician, but not really what I had in mind.) ...  What&rsquo;s more, all forty singers each actually have their own individual unique score, all of which were written to compliment and synchronize with the others in order to pass the melody around the Cathedral. 

...There&rsquo;s a long way to go and with a bit of work we can ignore all of them for at least another year. 

...It was the same night as the Republican Debate in the US and I&rsquo;m very proud to say we managed to avoid both of them. ...  This week I called and was told that we couldn&rsquo;t be sworn in until the end of December at the earliest. 

...The Mayor and two councilmen, one of whom was the Mayor&rsquo;s wife so she kinda couldn&rsquo;t quit, were all alone in city hall. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life&#x2c; 2 August 2015: Photography</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-08-02T15:21:51-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/f414a049ee78801a7f9c75e669d8b4f0-241.html#unique-entry-id-241</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/f414a049ee78801a7f9c75e669d8b4f0-241.html#unique-entry-id-241</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The SP120 is the&nbsp;largest of the cameras and comes in two models, a Standard Definition version with 36x optical zoom and a High Definition version with a better imager, but only 10X&nbsp;optical zoom.&nbsp;


...Well, a couple weeks ago the Rental/Demo SP120 SD was back, for the&nbsp;first time in months, and I decided to try an experiment in the spirit of Galileo. ...  There was plenty of&nbsp;light (I actually had to turn the brightness all the way down to keep it from washing out). 

...Now I just have to figure out how to combine my&nbsp;telescope and it&rsquo;s superior optics, with the systems remote control functions. 

...First though I think the neighbours probably wonder if we&rsquo;re going to do the whole house as a patchwork quilt, and we thought about it. 

...Oh I like&nbsp;that.&rdquo;, and then she held out his hand to the clerk and said, &ldquo;Can we get a sample of this as well?&rdquo; &nbsp;


...I mean we didn&rsquo;t know this person at all, but&nbsp;there&rsquo;s Marsha jumping in with both feet and everyone rolled with it. 

...I suspect that&nbsp;from now on it will be made in the same plant and out of the same stuff as Lego blocks, cell phone cases, and McDonalds Nuggets..
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 19 July 2015: Sand Castles</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-07-19T15:10:26-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/aea126b1dda179e122f49069c27373cc-240.html#unique-entry-id-240</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/aea126b1dda179e122f49069c27373cc-240.html#unique-entry-id-240</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This week they announced that the island and coastal regions of the mainland were in a level 4 drought. ...  We should try to minimize water use so we&rsquo;ve been washing dishes by hand, reducing the number we&rsquo;re dirtying, and skipping showers. ...  I don&rsquo;t like to think what it&rsquo;s going to be like by the end of August. &nbsp;


...The only issue is that we have another load of mulch to put down.   As I&rsquo;ve mentioned we lay down newspaper, wet it in really good, and then put the mulch on top of the paper. 

...They have a festival every year though I haven&rsquo;t been there for a couple of years. 

...We shopped and looked at all the pretty stuff but didn&rsquo;t buy. so, all in all it&rsquo;s been a warm, summer week. ...  We haven&rsquo;t had too much smoke this week as the wildfires nearby seem to have settled down. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life&#x2c; 26 July 2015: Living Here</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-07-26T14:58:20-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/23c340f4e8910db13f6a51c340301057-239.html#unique-entry-id-239</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/23c340f4e8910db13f6a51c340301057-239.html#unique-entry-id-239</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The top story for most of the day was a small deer (they called it a baby, but it was more likely a yearling) that was wandering around downtown. &nbsp;

...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/baby-deer-on-the-loose-in-downtown-vancouver-1.3161871


...They kept at it for eight hours in the hot sun until the rising tide freed the orca and it was able to rejoin its pod.   The best part of it was that not only did people help out without even hesitating, most didn&rsquo;t think there would be a question. 

...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/stranded-orca-saved-by-volunteers-who-kept-it-cool-for-hours-until-high-tide-1.3164728


...It was a reminder of how bad fires are and how we all have to do what we can to prevent them and report them if we see one.


...Then they see who can pilot these little, they&rsquo;re about the size of a kayak but shorter, uncomfortable craft from Nanaimo Harbour to Nanoose Bay and back. ...  As you might expect after two hours kneeling in a bathtub that&rsquo;s pounding through the cold water getting drenched by spray many of them aren&rsquo;t walking too well. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life 12 July&#x2c; 2015: Food</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-07-12T14:52:13-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/96a55fbb5cfb522cce7fe14ca9b5bb04-238.html#unique-entry-id-238</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/96a55fbb5cfb522cce7fe14ca9b5bb04-238.html#unique-entry-id-238</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I was at the deli counter and one of the things they had was Montreal Style Smoked Meat. 

...I mean if I said that I was going to make smiley face pancakes you would know that I meant the pancakes would be in the shape of a smiley face. 

...No, it was filled with blackberries and I thought it was perfectly logical and clear but you wouldn&rsquo;t believe the grief I got over it. 

...Fortunately as the week went on the wind shifted and cleared out the smoke, which brings me back to us being on the menu.   You see, because of all the fires, the air quality was really bad and we had closed up the house to keep the smell out.   Wednesday morning I realized it had cleared a lot overnight so I opened up the doors and windows to air the house out a bit. ...  Some people don't even have screens on their windows because they are just not a problem.   That's why it was such a surprise when, about fifteen minutes after I opened the windows, I realized that a swarm of mosquitos had come in. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Island Life: 5 July 2015</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-07-05T14:39:59-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/00681400cd9e5fbec4aec03ee29b639f-237.html#unique-entry-id-237</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/00681400cd9e5fbec4aec03ee29b639f-237.html#unique-entry-id-237</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Add to that the fire last weekend on Mt. Benson just above Nanaimo and it&rsquo;s looking like it could shape up to be a really nasty fire season. 

...I made it clear that I was auditioning for other plays so I was likely only going to be able to do a couple minor roles. ...  Everyone including me had a couple flubbed lines, but everyone really got into the characters, from the old uncle and nasty Mr. Potter to the seven and eight year olds that play George Bailey&rsquo;s kids. 

...Then in the second half we read various parts to let the director get a feel for how we&rsquo;d do as each character. 

...Unfortunately, because it looks like I&rsquo;ll get a major role in Sound of Murder I had to withdraw from the holiday play.   Too bad, it looks like fun but I can&rsquo;t do a major role in that while I&rsquo;m rehearsing for Sound of Murder. ...  Unfortunately, between the smoke from the wildfires near town, the firetrucks heading toward the fire, people going the other direction to get out of the way, and me not knowing the town of Cedar very well, I never found the building where the audition was being held. 

...The play itself was actually pretty good so the game was a lot of fun, even for someone like me who is not the biggest baseball fan on earth. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Barb&#x27;s Party Weekend</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-06-21T05:52:46-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/51b557c2872a45cab99ea122333906eb-236.html#unique-entry-id-236</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/51b557c2872a45cab99ea122333906eb-236.html#unique-entry-id-236</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[For the last three summers the cherry tree has had lots of cherries but by the time they were ripe, the birds had eaten them all.   This year we decided that it would be nice if we got some of them so we covered the tree with a fine nylon netting. ...  We tried opening some of it but no matter how much of the netting we removed, the blasted bird would stay caught in what was left. ...  Of course the tree was now unprotected and I swear I heard birds from all over cheering &ldquo;Yay for Barney&rdquo; as they came in to feast. 

...Barb had also gotten greetings from people as far away as Australia who couldn&rsquo;t make the party but wanted to send their best wishes. 

...Music, as you&rsquo;d expect was a keystone of the evening, culminating in everyone singing happy birthday when they brought out a cake with eighteen candles on it, one for every five years.&nbsp;


...No matter if Barb&rsquo;s there to celebrate with us, we&rsquo;re going to have another bash like this one. 

...I did get a nice video of Mike playing Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain but I don&rsquo;t think most of you would appreciate a 100MB e-mail.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Road Trip Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-05-10T05:49:30-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/101122ae4c5a6493ebb1e12312b1f742-235.html#unique-entry-id-235</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/101122ae4c5a6493ebb1e12312b1f742-235.html#unique-entry-id-235</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[We got Tillimook Cheese and Grape Nuts and then hit Target for assorted things we can&rsquo;t get in Canada any more (~sob~). 

...You see with the cancer in full retreat, it was time to deal with another old issue. ...  That is, they decided that the best strategy was to remove the cataract implant, clean up the vitreous humour that had leaked, let the eye recover for a couple of months, and then we can try again with a different artificial lens. ...  For the moment I have less sharp vision on the right eye, there is no lens in that one. ...  Somehow when I was a kid watching The Six Million Dollar Man, I thought that by the 21st century we&rsquo;d be a little more advanced than just having a spirit level in your eye.&nbsp;


...First as we drove around I had the iPad out and was trying to follow our course with Maps. ...  I don&rsquo;t have a cellular equipped iPad so it must have been finding open nearby WiFi networks and grabbing position and map data as we went by. ...  While we were in the middle of the ocean, we used the cellular data feed from my phone as a WiFi point for the iPad so we could log into the Pizza Hut web site and place an order. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Well&#x2c; Didn&#x27;t See That Coming</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-05-03T05:47:31-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d21ea36c899e1f9cd9ad58507032a899-234.html#unique-entry-id-234</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d21ea36c899e1f9cd9ad58507032a899-234.html#unique-entry-id-234</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Actually it was the semi annual general meeting of Echo Players, where the board, committee members, performers, directors and the public can drop in to see what&rsquo;s going on, and then retire to the green room where they socialize, eat really good hors d'oeuvres, and for some at least, get blotto.   The announcement of the meeting said that it would include the President&rsquo;s report, the Treasurer&rsquo;s report, a report on the building inspection of the theatre, and some news about the upcoming season. 

...It&rsquo;s a thriller called The Sound of Murder, I have to admit that we did keep slipping and calling it The Sound of Music at the social afterwards, but it&rsquo;s not. 

...I mean not only was I giving up the new phone, I was trading it for her year and a half old iPhone 5C, the red headed stepchild of iPhones. ...  So now I have the 5C which is more comfortable for my use and Marsha has the 6, which she finds handy because of all the messages and e-mail she does for work.&nbsp;


...They did a CT scan, Ultrasound scan, PET scan, and finally decided just they didn&rsquo;t know what they were so it was time for a needle biopsy. ...  The plan was for the biopsy to take half an hour or so and then there would be a couple more hours of watching to make sure I was OK before we left.&nbsp;


So I went into the CT lab so they could do a scan to locate exactly where the lumps were and then use that as a guide to where to poke me. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Easter Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-04-12T05:44:09-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/eefbcf4a02bc7be0884fdbf6e84a99bc-233.html#unique-entry-id-233</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/eefbcf4a02bc7be0884fdbf6e84a99bc-233.html#unique-entry-id-233</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Monday it was back to school and if you still had the jitters from all the sugar you ate, that was your tough luck. 

...However it was worth it as the Director, who is actually British herself, said my British accent was pretty good. 

...They found that there is just as much difference between Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus as there is between Apatosaurus and several other related genus. ...  But now if some four year old tries to correct you when you call it a Brontosaurus, you can tell them that the latest research says that that toy they&rsquo;re holding could be a Brontosaurus. 

...I told her that I had also tried full 100% cranberry juice and yes it is horrible, but the blends with ~25% were pretty good. ...  Who wandered into camp one day saying, "Hey everyone, I found that if you wade out in that leech infested swamp and collect these berries they are good to eat, as long as you take the juice and mix it 10 to 1 with sugar". ...  Who one day said "You know, if we take the stalks of this weed, and add massive amounts of sugar, we could make a pie. 

...If I want to rough it I'll sit on the deck, in the shade, but only if I can connect to the WiFi.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>This Weeks News</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-03-22T05:41:35-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b00d48ece6eb3c920e923bcecf944ba8-232.html#unique-entry-id-232</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/b00d48ece6eb3c920e923bcecf944ba8-232.html#unique-entry-id-232</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It apparently threw it&rsquo;s rider and ran off down the road evading oncoming traffic and Constables trying to bring its break for freedom to an end. &nbsp;

...Currently a disabled veteran, one that has lost an arm or a leg etc., has to contact the Ministry to verify their disabled status every year. 

...On Friday Federal Industry Minister James Moore, along with James Lunney, MP for Nanaimo-Alberni, and Mark MacDonald, the nominee for the new riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith, (plus a bunch of other VIPs who I couldn&rsquo;t identify) stopped in for a photo op.


...Several were out on the bench for testing when they came by so I just left them there as part of the demo. ...  They were even more impressed when Colin told them that we make nearly everything, we don&rsquo;t buy parts out of a catalog. ...  The only disappointing bit was that the reporter shot lots of pictures of our stuff in action, Colin talking to the Minister, and such but none of it ended up in the story. 

...Maximum eclipse was at about 2:30 in the morning for us and the sun kinda has to be UP to see an eclipse, so we didn&rsquo;t bother checking.   You had to be near the Orkney&rsquo;s or Svalbard, or the upper tip of Greenland to have any chance of seeing the event and as I expected most places were weathered out.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Vendictive Weather&#x2c; Kitty Prozac&#x2c; and Telephone Swaps</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-03-29T05:35:53-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/94ee1559aa28592a7b9bf1c26422efda-231.html#unique-entry-id-231</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/94ee1559aa28592a7b9bf1c26422efda-231.html#unique-entry-id-231</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[For one thing moss only grows so high so it doesn&rsquo;t need mowing, though I&rsquo;ve done it a time or two to keep the remaining grass (which I guess now qualifies as a weed), under control.&nbsp;


...Marsha and I got two of them when we went over to Koodo after we finally got clear of our original cellular contracts with Rogers. ...  When Marsha got her iPhone a couple of years ago I inherited her LG (after replacing the battery that is) and it kept going strong. 

...Some of the keys were a bit fussy, but I didn&rsquo;t use them that much so it was OK. But then in the last couple of weeks I kept finding it had turned itself off in my pocket. 

...If I had to upgrade I was going to go state of the art, a brand new &lsquo;dumb phone&rsquo; didn&rsquo;t have the cachet of the antique LG. We are an all Apple house so iPhone was a gimme. ...  For one thing the screen is around four times larger than the old LG. And of course it does about a billion things my old phone didn&rsquo;t. ...  Maybe I&rsquo;ll become one of those guys in the grocery store that takes a xpicture of the salad dressing and sends it to his wife because he can&rsquo;t decide which she wanted, (true story).


...Not sure what they used it for or how much screen time it will get, only that it was used in &ldquo;a residential scene&rdquo;. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>April Fool&#x27;s Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-04-05T05:32:48-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/ae8b1f2be95ea577ff4309857a367e1f-230.html#unique-entry-id-230</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/ae8b1f2be95ea577ff4309857a367e1f-230.html#unique-entry-id-230</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I mean they will have to build a network of warehouses and control centres all over to replicate what existing delivery companies already have all so they can use a less reliable way of delivering packages that exposes them to a large liability risk. ...  And the worst part of this: How do you think the packages will get from Amazon&rsquo;s headquarters in Seattle to their new warehouses? 

...It has the logo of a product on the front and whenever you run out of something you just tap the button and it&rsquo;s ordered, presumably to be dropped off within 30 minutes by a drone.&nbsp;


...My company closes on both Good Friday and Easter Monday so I got an extra long weekend, but Marsha didn&rsquo;t. ...  You see this all started a week ago with that call from the Doctor that I missed because of the unreliable LG phone. ...  I suspect that call was to prepare me for a call from a different Doctor&rsquo;s office that came in on Marsha&rsquo;s phone about 4:30. 

...We scheduled an appointment for the following Thursday, and spent the week sweating bullets about what they may have found. 

...The week of worry and a nervous trip down to Victoria turned out to be just a big, if inadvertent, April Fools' gag.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Canadian News</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-04-19T05:31:08-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/036eb4e20f5b73a28170f8ac7742efe9-229.html#unique-entry-id-229</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/036eb4e20f5b73a28170f8ac7742efe9-229.html#unique-entry-id-229</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In WWII she was aboard the SS Caribou as a nurse when the ship was torpedoed and sank off of Greenland.   For her actions in trying to save others she received the Order of the British Empire, the only Canadian nurse to receive the honour during WWII. 

...As we understand it, when they built the set, the hole in the wall and tunnel the bad guys had dug was larger than the script had called for.   The director then decided that it would be better to have Sherlock crawl down in there instead of the robot. ...  The only way you could see the cable in both cameras is if the major internet cable connecting Europe and North America only ran in a four foot diameter circle in the basement of this Long Island house.&nbsp;


...It&rsquo;s kinda like what you&rsquo;d encounter if you took a nuclear reactor, melted it down, and then climbed around on the smouldering pile of debris. ...  This level of radiation would be fatal to someone in seconds, so three hours for the robot isn&rsquo;t too bad actually. ...  Some of the articles made a big deal about how they were just going to have to cut the tether and abandon the robot. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Spider Free Letter</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-04-26T17:24:27-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/8366af8a12bef0cad7dd49c375be8f21-228.html#unique-entry-id-228</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/8366af8a12bef0cad7dd49c375be8f21-228.html#unique-entry-id-228</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I sing in the key of &ldquo;it&rsquo;s too noisy in here for anyone to hear me&rdquo;, so the Lantzville Pub or The Rod and&nbsp;Gun, are great places to see him.


...I don&rsquo;t drink coffee so I don&rsquo;t know much about them other than they are&nbsp;very expensive, are made my companies with names like Kordwald, or Kneurod, or KobaKabana something like that, (EDIT: It&rsquo;s&nbsp;Keurig. ...  Mention a drip coffee maker to them or&nbsp;coffee from McDonalds and they will snort and look down on you like you suggested drinking bilge water.&nbsp;


...What makes them think that people who paid serious bucks for a gleaming stainless steel computer controlled&nbsp;Knorgwal coffee maker to set next to the matching Krupp bread machine, the T-Fal cookery, and the KitchenAid Professional mixer,&nbsp;would even consider the coffee loved by plumbers the world over? 

...There has been a&nbsp;major earthquake in BC&rdquo; and then they went to five minutes of commercials, and then a couple of songs, and more&nbsp;chatter, and traffic. ...  I sure as heck want to know if there&nbsp;has been a tsunami warning more than the latest song from Mumford and Son. 

...Now&nbsp;there are many who will blame it on this or that but nobody is mentioning what I think could be a major issue: The water. 

...But the part that got me was that the investigators decided that the spiders aren&rsquo;t harmful, if they took them down they&rsquo;d just come&nbsp;back, and that pesticides would be inappropriate as it would contaminate the treated water. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Quiet Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-05-17T17:17:33-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/a5022313be406d45506ad15e08a76a18-227.html#unique-entry-id-227</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/a5022313be406d45506ad15e08a76a18-227.html#unique-entry-id-227</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[We had a couple of visits with my local eye Dr. She&rsquo;s been astonished with how fast the eye has been healing. ...  In just a week nearly all the retinal swelling has disappeared and I&rsquo;m using the eye, though I have to wear either sunglasses, reading glasses, or safety glasses all the time, even when I&rsquo;m asleep for the next few weeks as the eye is very fragile. &nbsp;...  He was a thin guy about my age, in a suit and tie, grey hair at the temples and a slight British accent. ...  So he took the images of the retina and when they came up on the screen he commented &ldquo;Oh yes, that&rsquo;s quite good. 

...The eye is healing, I&rsquo;m driving again, and as I&rsquo;m not allowed to carry heavy things Marsha has to do the yard work and haul groceries. &nbsp;...  I&rsquo;m actually surprised that the right eye makes an image at all without a lens but right now it&rsquo;s about ~20/100. 

...Unfortunately as many of these pictograms are somewhat ambiguous, it is very easy to jump to the wrong conclusion as to the intended meaning. 

...As a public service, and because it&rsquo;s been a slow news week, I hereby offer definitions for the more common of these symbols:
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Weird Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-05-24T17:15:52-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/37f4acf3775aa98ddbd0adc5b4df67fb-226.html#unique-entry-id-226</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/37f4acf3775aa98ddbd0adc5b4df67fb-226.html#unique-entry-id-226</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So it was with a good deal of surprise that I heard Marsha the other week commenting &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t matching your&nbsp;socks right&rdquo;. ...  Well it turns&nbsp;out that sometime in the last five years Hanes changed from a black thread close the toe to a red one. 

...Well, I mean it said protest something, but we had a devil of a time&nbsp;trying to figure out what. ...  The result is though, that I think a bunch of people will be gathering&nbsp;at Bowen Park next Saturday and every one of them will be there to protest something different. 

...But anyway the reason we were going to Rona was that they had mulch on sale. 

...Yes one of the ads appeared to offer poutine, french fries covered with gravy and cheese&nbsp;curds, as a sandwich between two Belgian Waffles. 

...As he was unloading we noticed that on his T&nbsp;shirt it said O&rsquo;Brian&rsquo;s Pub so we asked if the pub had a cat.&nbsp;


...Things like, well, um, I mean,&hellip;come to think of&nbsp;it there isn&rsquo;t much at most bars that could be thought of as healthy. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Feeling Smug in my Smuggy Smugness</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-05-31T17:13:41-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/a8268237731a583abecc172630e5d541-225.html#unique-entry-id-225</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/a8268237731a583abecc172630e5d541-225.html#unique-entry-id-225</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This doesn&rsquo;t happen often but every once in a while I feel the urge to just sit back, and enjoy the show. 

...In a related vein I don't wear a muddy stripe from the rear tire up my back, and I don't need to carry a change of clothing.   At the end of the day I don&rsquo;t grumble to all that can hear, about how hot it is.   I get in my car with the AC on and the radio playing and drive comfortably home in half the time it would take me to bike, a quarter if you count recovery time. ...  But let me make it clear I did do my part for Bike to Work Week. 

...I replied &ldquo;I think it should count if I toss my bike in the back of the car and drive in&rdquo;. 

...I think the organizers of Bike to Work Week had a suspicion this was going to happen though.   On Tuesday they handed out the shirts and took the group picture of all the people taking part in Bike to Work Week.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Quiet Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-06-07T17:12:00-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/46476d68ee8a4bdb65784ae21fd961fd-224.html#unique-entry-id-224</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/46476d68ee8a4bdb65784ae21fd961fd-224.html#unique-entry-id-224</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This time of year we go to bed when it&rsquo;s still light out and even I get up after the start of dawn. ...  Here on the island we were correspondingly dry and it looks like we&rsquo;re going to have a really bad fire season province wide. 

...Regaliceratops peterhewsi is similar to the more famous Triceratops but with smaller horns over its eyes and a spiky frill around the edge of it&rsquo;s shield.


...Some of you may remember a year ago I thought I had a part in A Woman in Black sewn up and that fell through. 

...And finally, there&rsquo;s been this project I pondered for several years, and started working on in ernest a few months back. ...  I suspect that many people say they don&rsquo;t like poetry because they haven&rsquo;t had a good experience with it. ...  They had to read Chaucer or Dante in high school for a grade when they would really have rather been doing anything else. 

...You see I figured rather than someone standing up and..reading..each..word..out..stiffly..and..mechanically how about someone approach the poem like a script. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Cherries</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-06-14T17:10:05-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/01054bfd00c39ca5483f007569f9ad1c-223.html#unique-entry-id-223</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/01054bfd00c39ca5483f007569f9ad1c-223.html#unique-entry-id-223</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[One of those weeks where you start with a list of items to get done and end the week with a longer list. ...  That and getting the oil changed on my car, and taking care of the cat, and both of us working 8+ hours a day. 

...She&rsquo;s on Prednisone for itching and, as that&rsquo;s not been completely effective, she&rsquo;s also been wearing a &ldquo;cone of shame&rdquo; on her head. ...  We&rsquo;d hold her, open the mouth, put it in, close the mouth, and we find the pill on our hand, or on the couch, or on the floor. 

...Friday we went to the Smoke and Water to see our friend Heather (who was in the play Ethan Claymore last Christmas) perform with her band, Eastbound Train. ...  Their selection is very eclectic with songs from John Denver, to Kansas, to John Cash, to ABBA, to Nancy Sinatra, and everything in between. 

...Saturday night we split a bottle of champaign and talked about the things we&rsquo;ve done over the last twenty-eight years. ...  It&rsquo;s been a wild ride and we agreed to give it a go for another twenty-eight years.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Sunrise Alert</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-06-28T17:07:27-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/86404c62016ec24a41515e4065fe35ea-222.html#unique-entry-id-222</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/86404c62016ec24a41515e4065fe35ea-222.html#unique-entry-id-222</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[On Wednesday we got a bit of rain overnight, but otherwise it&rsquo;s been hot and dry, especially so at work. ...  Finally on Thursday the front office sent out a note saying in part &ldquo;They have figured out what the problem is and the part is in stock.   They have ordered it and will be back in a few days to fix the AC once and for all.&rdquo;   OK but if the part is &ldquo;in stock&rdquo; why did they have to order it and wait a few days?


...And they wonder why I walk around here with a smirk on my face so much of the time.


...We came across this story of a lady that came face to face with a cougar in her back yard.&nbsp;


...Fortunately this year my garden consists of a pot of lettuce on the deck so I don&rsquo;t have to got too far each morning. 

...I&rsquo;ll stick to pools, walk on the beach in shoes, use SPF 10,000 sunscreen, and wear eye protection when I crack an egg.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A New Year</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-01-04T19:44:33-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d4372ee2a452ec9db1afbccfe9494eb9-221.html#unique-entry-id-221</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/d4372ee2a452ec9db1afbccfe9494eb9-221.html#unique-entry-id-221</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I mean yes we do pay them to hurt you but it isn&rsquo;t us with the needles and stuff so our hands are clean. ...  So Technically that means if you get stepped on in the dark that would be your fault.   Ok, ok, so let&rsquo;s all agree that we will never deliberately hurt you, though that doesn&rsquo;t exclude accidental harm, which we&rsquo;ll stipulate would be your fault.   And it would also not exclude us paying someone else to hurt you as long as they have DVM in their name. 

...When we picked her up, Imoto was called So-So after a character on Orange Is The New Black, but as we&rsquo;ve never watched the show it meant nothing to us. ...  The new cat is a four year old female while Momiji is about eight so we chose Imoto, Japanese for Little Sister.&nbsp;


...I mean getting off the grid is all well and good but I nave to have a cold fridge,... and power for the computer,&hellip; and the TV. 

...So this week I&rsquo;ve been catching up on all the things I didn&rsquo;t get to while I was in the play. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Of Stones and Pi</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-03-15T19:37:45-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/df46965da73a12be349b80f3abb74a2d-220.html#unique-entry-id-220</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/df46965da73a12be349b80f3abb74a2d-220.html#unique-entry-id-220</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Pi day would be on the 31st of April, but there isn&rsquo;t&nbsp;one so in this case we go with the US convention. 

...If you wanted to be exceptionally geeky you could have toasted Pi at 3/14/15 9:26:57, but that&rsquo;s a bit too much for even us.&nbsp;


...Also we're farther North than those of you in the&nbsp;US so depending on time of year, the sun can rise and set along about two thirds of the horizon so we&rsquo;re not really sure about East or West&nbsp;either. 

...Fortunately we did not make them in Minnesota, as we would have wanted to bring them with us&nbsp;and they&rsquo;re really heavy. 

...You can use a shovel or such to mix but I found&nbsp;that to work out the lumps and to get a really complete mix you needed to get your hands into it. ...  On the other hand you don&rsquo;t want it to be too dry and stiff or&nbsp;it won&rsquo;t get as hard as you might want. 

...This is to make sure all&nbsp;the nasty wire ends are buried inside the concrete and not sticking out where they&rsquo;ll snag on your bare foot. 

...For a week or so, each day go out and wet down the stones with a hose to keep them from drying too fast. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Good Spring So Far</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-03-08T19:35:36-07:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/20efb9ab5a5db508c9c4db7ce3714b91-219.html#unique-entry-id-219</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/20efb9ab5a5db508c9c4db7ce3714b91-219.html#unique-entry-id-219</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[On Monday, while I was talking to the guys in the service department at work, I noticed a bright red KitchenAid mixer on the shelf. ...  I was the first person to ask about it, so that&rsquo;s how we inherited a KitchenAid&nbsp;Professional 5 mixer (retail price ~$600).   The bowl and whisk are missing which would be about $75-$100, so for now we&rsquo;re not sure what we&rsquo;re&nbsp;going to do with it. 

...We don&rsquo;t like the countertops but we just can&rsquo;t bring ourselves to replace them yet as they&rsquo;re only a few years&nbsp;old and in good condition.&nbsp;


...I told him that we &lsquo;d be very happy if&nbsp;he wanted to replace the fence. ...  He&rsquo;s only using about half of the posts for our back fence so my share of that cost should be about&nbsp;$150 bucks. 

...So this weekend we continued with spring cleaning, spring yard work, pruning, mowing and trimming, plus we completed a project on the side of&nbsp;the house. ...  As part of the big remodelling&nbsp;project we had the shed ripped out, the wall covered with proper siding, and this weekend we finished off the landscaping. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Ambiguous is my New Favorite Word</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-03-01T19:31:43-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2f7b10d6aa096d5a3f411783e64b1795-218.html#unique-entry-id-218</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/2f7b10d6aa096d5a3f411783e64b1795-218.html#unique-entry-id-218</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[For those of you that don&rsquo;t remember this is where they take a tracer containing highly radioactive material that generates&nbsp;anti matter out of a steel and lead shielded container and inject it into your arm. ...  While this is going on they hide in a remote lead lined shielded room telling you how safe the procedure is over the intercom.   Afterwards you can go home, as long as that does not involve crossing the border or going to the airport or anywhere near pregnant women, children, or anyone with an immune disease.&nbsp;


...As we were going across the water to the mainland anyway, we went over on Thursday and spent the night in Bellingham, Washington, The Happiest Place on Earth. ...  Their top of the line kitchens and such were still decent looking, though if we were going to pay that much we&rsquo;d go with a better brand anyway, but everything else below that just looked cheap. 

...I then want them to wheel me in PRECISELY at 1:12, with a sign on the coffin that says &ldquo;Sorry I&rsquo;m Late.&rdquo;


...So as to not keep you in suspense I&rsquo;ll just tell you that it was pretty much clear. ...  He said there were a couple of spots that looked &ldquo;odd&rdquo; and they wanted to keep an eye on them. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Penny and the Sasquatch and Other Stories</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-02-22T19:27:40-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/bf0b129eed0eb60a606fb1f59fc53def-217.html#unique-entry-id-217</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/bf0b129eed0eb60a606fb1f59fc53def-217.html#unique-entry-id-217</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Now for those of you who didn't grow up in the Pacific Northwest, a Sasquatch is a mythical large ape that is supposed to live in the mountains around here. ...  Then if those kids married a regular person their kids would be one quarter Sasquatch, and that's what she'd seen, someone who was a quarter Sasquatch. &nbsp;...  He was especially not happy when, for the rest of the weekend, the grandkids kept coming up with excuses to touch the fur on his legs and arms because "Grandpa is a quarter Sasquatch."&nbsp;


...Marsha has a tendency to trip on them so I took my foot and scooted them over to the closet, or I would have, but as soon as my foot touched the pile of slippers one of them jumped up and ran out the door. 

...I just don't understand how they can look at a bunch of dogs and say, &ldquo;This Schnauzer is better than that Great Dane but neither are as good as the Beagle." 

...We were always very happy when Sophie won Best Lhasa Apso, but I never understood how Sophie, as beautiful as she was, could have been better or worse than a totally different kind of dog. ...  Now if the show were for similar items, say an all Beagle show or an all Clydesdale show, or an all Siamese show, then I could understand how you could decide one over another.   But when they are comparing creatures that have about as much in common as I do with an orangutan I just don't get it. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Command Performance</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-02-15T19:23:16-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/cdfb947ec56d8207f301583a6f36c9a8-216.html#unique-entry-id-216</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/cdfb947ec56d8207f301583a6f36c9a8-216.html#unique-entry-id-216</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[As it turned&nbsp;out they were doing a unit on the Earth, and Marsha mentioned that I had studied Geology and had a lot of rocks and fossils.   After a&nbsp;bit of discussion it was decided that I should come in and talk to the class about rocks and fossils, and Earth history, and such.&nbsp;


...It&rsquo;s amazing how kids can be a few feet away, yet if they are&nbsp;paying attention to lunch and the story the teacher&rsquo;s reading they won&rsquo;t notice you setting up on a table in the corner of the room.   Oh&nbsp;they knew we were there but we were able to set up my surprises and cover everything with towels without anyone really picking up&nbsp;on what we were doing.


...My approach is to say that rocks can tell you their story,&nbsp;where they came from, what happened along the way, how they got to where you found them. 

...No guesses so I proceeded to&nbsp;show them a nice piece of fine sandstone from the bottom of the ocean, and thern turned it over to show a fossil fish. ...  I then described a place in Egypt called the Valley of the Whales,&nbsp;(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Al-Hitan), It is a desert now and a long way from the sea but we find hundreds of fossils of&nbsp;whales there so at one time it was under the ocean. ...  He found it on top&nbsp;of a mountain in Nevada but it clearly lived in the ocean meaning that Nevada was lifted up and dried out to form the desert it is now.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Best Laid Plans</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-02-08T19:18:19-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/4cd411bdced4f8940d6e3cbfa505ae46-215.html#unique-entry-id-215</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/4cd411bdced4f8940d6e3cbfa505ae46-215.html#unique-entry-id-215</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Then the following was a Seattle playoff game so it would have been a really bad time to try to cross&nbsp;the border and find a hotel. 

...The only real time constraint is that once we get sworn in as Canadian Citizens, we&rsquo;ll lose our&nbsp;Permanent Residence Cards and I&rsquo;m not sure we will be able to cross the border and come back until we get our Canadian&nbsp;Passports. 

...OK, those of you living in the Prairies don&rsquo;t think about a freezing&nbsp;level much but here, where we have mountains it&rsquo;s very important. 

...We decided a long time Okanagan that it&rsquo;s better for all&nbsp;concerned for her to handle the taxes, and for that matter anything to do with money.   Between my creative accounting (what do you mean&nbsp;that accounting does not use Standard Deviation or Fourier Analyses) and my tendency to assume the worst (I can&rsquo;t find this 10 cents,&nbsp;I&rsquo;m going to jail), it&rsquo;s just for the best.   I did find it amusing that the company I work for sent out their T-4 forms (the Canadian equivalent&nbsp;of the W-2 form in the US) before Marsha&rsquo;s company. 

...It doesn&rsquo;t try to impose what it thinks would be best,&nbsp;rather it lets you do what you want so you have much better control over the result. 

...As this is Black History Month, and there is a long history of African&nbsp;Americans migrating to Nova Scotia starting at the time of the Revolutionary War it makes sense to name the February holiday after her.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-02-01T19:11:05-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/79f7a0ec5397c2ef8dfcecd50b8ec790-214.html#unique-entry-id-214</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/79f7a0ec5397c2ef8dfcecd50b8ec790-214.html#unique-entry-id-214</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[You see, I have this list of plays I've wanted to do, Same Time Next Year, &nbsp;Noises Off, A&nbsp;Shakespeare play, Charlie-Victor-Romeo, and a few others. 

...Then a few days after I passed on Bus Stop I got an announcement for an audition from the Yellow Point&nbsp;Theatre Group. ...  I like doing multiple characters, the stories sounded fun, and not to mention it would be a lot less&nbsp;stressful than a big part like Ethan Claymore. ...  Unfortunately&nbsp;they didn't send out the announcement until the afternoon of the audition and I didn't see it in my mailbox until&nbsp;just a few minutes before it was supposed to start. 

...I thought it would be nice to do a video for Ethan Claymore like I had done for&nbsp;Memory of Water, so I took Wendy&rsquo;s pictures, plus the shots Marsha had taken at the same performance,&nbsp;edited the whole mess down to a nice five minute slide show, set it to music, and uploaded the whole thing to&nbsp;YouTube.&nbsp;


...As soon as the&nbsp;upload was done I got a flag from Google saying that their systems had detected copyrighted music in my&nbsp;video. ...  OK sure it&nbsp;had been used in some cartoon once in the early days of television but how many people who weren't fans of&nbsp;obscure early TV cartoons would even remember that? 

...Between this, and the music for the&nbsp;Hallmark series Cedar Cove, and the Bob&rsquo;s and Lolo albums he produces with his wife Robyn and her friend&nbsp;Lorraine, and more, we&rsquo;re very proud of Mario.&nbsp;
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Word Fun</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-01-25T19:07:22-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/134aaf3fd5a58b6860b62b2202e8ea4e-213.html#unique-entry-id-213</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/134aaf3fd5a58b6860b62b2202e8ea4e-213.html#unique-entry-id-213</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If you met a nine foot long Nundasuchus with its big head full of teeth and legs built for galloping I doubt you&rsquo;d be too concerned with it not actually being a dinosaur. 

...The next time some bartender refers to himself as "a doctor of mixology" I think I'm gonna have to pull out my degree in whackology and make sure he spends some time around a real doctor.


...Anyway so I was laying there waiting for the test to start and I noticed on the side of the machine was a name. 

...That&rsquo;s just such a whimsical, feel good name for something that weighs a couple of tons, gives off such a slightly alarming mechanical whirring noise and for which the operator flees to a lead lined bunker when it is in operation. 

...This is why I love the Internet, it turns out that Siemens has a whole page of sales information on the SOMATOM Sensation16 CT Scanner, which is not to be confused with the SOMATOM Emotion 16 CT Scanner or the SOMATOM Sensation 4 or 64 CT Scanners.


...I mean Volume Zoom sounds like something where the patients would be stacked up like rounds in a clip to be stuffed into the machine and then ejected into a basket when we&rsquo;re done.   Or maybe a fast conveyer belt so they could scoot you through the machine, hand you a bag of fries, and fire you out to where your parked car is waiting. 

...I mean seriously, the whole purpose of a CT scanner is to investigate, to diagnose, to look in without causing any pain, any discomfort, any kind of, oh what&rsquo;s the word I&rsquo;m looking for&hellip; oh yeah, SENSATION. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Rough Week</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-01-18T19:05:37-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/faeae2a1541d2051a43edf550357a4b5-212.html#unique-entry-id-212</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/faeae2a1541d2051a43edf550357a4b5-212.html#unique-entry-id-212</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;m hoping that maybe Hudson&rsquo;s Bay Company, which still&nbsp;owns Zeller&rsquo;s will take advantage of all these now open leases on freshly remodelled spaces&nbsp;and relaunch the brand.&nbsp;


...It&rsquo;s in Rutherford Mall (OK technically it&rsquo;s Northtown&nbsp;Centre but most people still think of it by the name it had for decades), which is one of our favourite&nbsp;places to shop. ...  In addition to the soon to be empty Target space, there&rsquo;s another space just as&nbsp;big that used to be a Best Buy who closed up shop in Canada about three years ago.


...Tactically this would have been&nbsp;very bad because I was the one that was all paranoid before Christmas about catching a cold. ...  Also it would mean that I&rsquo;d still be fighting this into next week, I&rsquo;d be dragging myself into the office&nbsp;every day and doing a crummy job &nbsp;because I felt so lousy. 

...After launching a resupply mission to the&nbsp;Space Station, they tried to fly the first stage booster back and land it on a barge to be refurbished and reused.&nbsp;

...Marsha mentioned to them that it was&nbsp;my birthday and so they brought out their Birthday Sundae. 

...Actually as soon as we got there we knew it was going to be&nbsp;OK. At the next table a Mountie was having breakfast. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>&#x27;Fraidy Cats</title><dc:creator>Douglas Aalseth</dc:creator><dc:subject>Home Page</dc:subject><dc:date>2015-01-11T19:02:47-08:00</dc:date><link>http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/f846f1ac82ba689d8786087dc842630a-211.html#unique-entry-id-211</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://douglas.aalseth.net/blog-2/blog-9/files/f846f1ac82ba689d8786087dc842630a-211.html#unique-entry-id-211</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I'd like to say it was because she saw Imoto in the door or something but hey, she&nbsp;can't see a chair leg in broad daylight. 

...OK up here nearly everyone used to be&nbsp;a hockey player but he was actually quite good, even got as far as the WCHL I believe. ...  As he&rsquo;s single he's&nbsp;the go-to guy when they need someone and he usually does two or three games a week.


...He explained that they needed him to do some games over the holidays and as his family&nbsp;had already done the eggnog and dry turkey thing on the 25th he figured why not. ...  OK, as I&rsquo;ve never been on skates I&rsquo;d likely be dead within a minute of the start of the first game, but that&rsquo;s another story. 

...The people I work with were surprised I knew this so I went on&nbsp;to tell them how Cargill started as Carl and Gill&rsquo;s Grain elevator near St. ...  Due to some lucky breaks during the&nbsp;war, (the guy running the Canby elevator got drafted), they got a lucrative contract from the War Department and&nbsp;eventually were able to grow the company into the huge multinational we know today. ...  He was working at the University of Minnesota with Simon&nbsp;Hills of Hills Brothers Coffee fame trying to come up with a coffee plant that would grow in cold climates. ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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