Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Question: At the time, this was Saskatchewan’s largst building of its kind, and also North America’s.

I picked just the right time to phone, despite missing the initial reading of the question. I had little time to think or do a Google search of the question. The callers before me guessed something on the UofS campus, and I was going to go with RUHospital [having not heard the question fully yet], but after the Legislature wasn’t the right answer (I thought it might be possible too), the next caller mentioned a barn near Swift Current. I adjusted my answer to the large horse barn (stable) that I knew to exist long ago somewhere in the province. I’d seen it online when showing a Wood Mountain bus driver the Internet at the library, but I couldn’t remember the name for the life of me, and my frantic google search turned up empty. My guess of it being near Maple Creek wasn’t good enough. The next caller got the correct answer.
Built in 1914 and dismantled in 1921, but the foundation remains today near Leader, Sask. W.T. Smith’s Barn 60′ high, 128′ wide, and 400′ long, was the right answer.

Alarming news is coming from Fox News today, from a new study conducted very recently in the rainforest.

“… the Amazon now appears to be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the possibility that it could start dying next year. The immense forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough in itself to increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent. “

Actually, Fox News didn’t report this, but I had to throw that joke in because it added some humour to what is a critically serious issue for all life on the planet. I’d eat my hat if Fox News reports that climate change is coming, before New York is flooded with rising sea levels. They’d say that the city streets are “freedom canals”, or “liberty lakes” before they inform the public as to the seriousness of pollution and climate change.
If this isn’t just another “doomsday” announcement from those whacky well researched and peer reviewed scientists, it could foreshadow the immediate future for all of us. I have a feeling that many people are content with letting climate change happen at a steady pace, but few would go as silently and willingly if their daily life in a couple years includes a struggle to breathe or find good food. It hits home a bit more if you forget about the struggles of far away cities like New Orleans, and instead imagine nearly ever crop and garden around your town or city cooked by heatwaves, as constant forest fire smog floats around you, and water rationing takes on a militant form.

What bugs me most about the crowd that denies climate change can take place, is that they probably also admit that nuclear winter is possible and should be avoided. If it’s possible for humans to cool the earth by blocking sunlight from heating the surface, why can’t they wrap their heads around the concept of trapping heat by increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere?  It’s not a complicated concept, and you can experience it on any smoggy day, or in any greehouse, or even in your unshaded automobile for cripes sake! Worse, the solution they are fighting against is no less than the removal of air pollutants, which any normal person agrees with. The only people who don’t want a cleaner and healthier environment for everyone are those who are afraid a change in the focus of the economy would destroy their life. It’s possible for humans to adapt to a new economy, but we won’t adapt to breathing smog - our cells won’t like that.
You’ve seen trees die before. You know it can happen, and how are the trees in the rainfoest any different if they don’t get the rainfall they need? We’re used to the “tipping point” concept. Many of us operate our lives around it in things such as employment, relationships, and health. We’re content with our jobs until a tipping point is reached then we quit and move on, or we find a spouse but they cheat so we change partners, or we are OK with our junk food until we have an ongoing allergic reaction to a pointless food colouring in Cheetos and use that as the impetus to improve our diet.

We aren’t used to environmental tipping points though, we expect Summer to come after Winter, but what if Summer just doesn’t end, or Winter lasts only a month? We have no way of knowing how long geologically speaking it takes for climate change to forever (in human terms) alter the face of the earth. I just hope it isn’t in 3 years, and before we’ve had a chance to get our pollution under control.  I don’t want my last words as I gasp for breath to be “I told you global warming wasn’t a science hoax!”

Update: Hello to Small Dead Animals readers! Everyone, check out the Saskatoon event plan, and provide your input or let us know you’re coming.
Pictures of the July 22nd BBQ in Lakeshore Park Regina, are finally here. The following bloggers were in attendence for all or part of the day’s events:

Kate (AKA SmallDeadAnimals.com writer), Lance (Saskblogs Aggregator creator), Krydor (came with family), Hecticity (provided her own SK themed birthday cake), Eric (better late than really late), Pilot (brought exploding coals), Andrew (carried bocce balls), Brandon and Lins (cool blog t-shirts), and Uncle Meat (fellow juggler), Thoughts from an Old Man (my brother), Robert (a friend of mine), and several other non-bloggers who came along just to bask in the awesomeness of computer users who like to “talk big” online. Unfortunately Stephen and Amanda were unable to make it. Amanda’s car died on the way.

We were able to work around the gaps in volunteers though, due to the generosity and well preparedness of the bloggers, who in fine Saskatchewan fashion brought more than enough food to a potluck event. We have enough paper plates to last through the Saskatoon and possibly Kipling get-togethers as well (which are both in the planning stages right now). Lance has asked to take the lead on organizing the August 19th [tentative date] event in Saskatoon, and look forward to going.

Aside from juggling and frisbee, I never got to to try real Bocce ball, so maybe next time. I did juggle the Bocce balls with Uncle Meat - Kevin, who has practised more than I at knife juggling apparently. Kate offered chainsaws for juggling, but I insisted they not be started if I tried. I probably could juggle chainsaws, but they’d probably put my back out when I heave them high enough.
I was so busy cooking, eating, fretting, and driving Robert from the airport on his way back from Nova Scotia, that I didn’t get enough time to talk with everyone who was there. I never even asked Paul if Scrappins the lab/border collie also blogged. When I got back to the park, my brother and his fiancee had shown up.

By the time I finished talking to Brandon and Linsk, who had brought popscicles that I had no room left for in my tummy, it was time to go to the football game after quickly taking some group pictures.

The Rider game was dull for most of it, until about 5 minutes after many people left when there were only 3 minutes to go and we started scoring touchdowns again. I was stunned that we didn’t go for the 2 point convert after the first miracle touchdown, and it burned us in the end that we didn’t have it. I also missed the biggest hit of the game, as I beat the crowd in the halftime rush to the facillities underneath. The electric lights were not working properly, so as I fumbled in the dark, I figured the game must have been sponsored by SaskPower this time. Here’s a photo of a hyper-exhuberent me hamming things up, and Wynn taking a $400 ride off the field to find out he was just knocked a touch senseless. Smalldeadanimals.com had pictures of the little girls practically dancing on his “grave” at halftime.

After the game Ashley, Robert, Justin, and I walked back to Robert’s place and washed up for supper. We went over to the Freehouse to find that only Lance and Kate had come too, and the Freehouse had not made the reservation for 8 people at 9:00 PM like I phoned in earlier last week. It didn’t matter, there was plenty of room, and only 5 of us there. We had supper, talked about blogging, bikes, engines, roads, computers, and the disapointing football game. Ashley and Robert aren’t well known as talkers in groups, so I monopolized the conversation from our end of the table. I think Kate was the only one to order dessert, and it was apparently disapointing. You can almost tell why from this photograph:

More photos at Pilot’s World, and Saskboy’s flickr account (see my blog’s mainpage sidebar for link). Sorry for the poor quality photos, I resized some a touch too small. If anyone would like a large resolution image, just let me know and I’ll email the original to you.

I can’t wait for the Saskatoon Meet in August!

Being back from holidays for just a week, I’m still behind posting photos from my vacation. Now I have the Saskbloggers BBQ to add as well, but that will be another night. My spam filter has now caught over 2050 spams since mid-March 2006.

I saw a Flickr Badge on Doublecool.com and learned how to make one for myself. Using a bulk uploader saved time that I’d have wasted on Photobucket uploading instead. The photos from Whitewood, SK to Toronto, ON Union Station are visible on my sidebar tonight. Clicking the More option will show about the first 50 best photos from the vacation, some with descriptions of what’s happening in them.

On the navel gazing front: Alexa has me in the top 2,500,000 websites, TLB has me at about 1600 Marauding as a Marsupial, and Technorati is hovering around the top 5000 blogs in the world.

Far and Wide writes what I was thinking when I saw him on Question Period:
“McKay Makes No Sense”

Peter McKay’s interview today was a study in contradiction. McKay went to great lengths arguing that Canada is not puppeting the American position, then articulated the American position.

A return to the status quo is a victory for Israel. Many will not agree, but look who has the land and the support of Canada and the world? How is stopping the fighting with no new land for Hezbollah/Lebanon, and possibly a UN or NATO force in Lebanon going to be any kind of victory for Hezbollah?  That’s just nuts to claim that. From the perspective that’s been bounced out by mostly conservatives where “terrorists win if Israel stops offensive action with Hezbollah now,” I just don’t see how that’s any different than things were three weeks ago when presumably Israel was winning the war on terrorism.  After all, people weren’t saying that Israel was losing the war back then, were they?

Population : One Person is One Pixel

Here’s something possibly based on the idea behind the scale model of the hydrogen atom that I posted a few weeks back while I was on holiday. There’s a lot of scrolling to the right to see all of this page.

Today I was on the road after sleepingin significantly. Ashley and I drove around town shopping, finally finding a store with the right selection of goods, and we had supper at her Grandma’s in Briercrest, and I left as a thunderstorm started wholloping the area around her family’s farm. In Melville, a group of teens had trouble getting their gascap off at a cardlock pump I was also using, so I removed it [easily]. Before driving off I checked they’d be able to recap their tank, just to be a bit of a wise cracker.

It’s incredibly hot right now, and I’m going to bed. Here is a photo of Briercrest:

Here are some Saskblogs photos, with more to come later:

Hecticity’s birthday cake she made herself [the Saskatchewan flag]. Pretty cool icing, eh? I had some “golden wheatfields” gold area of the cake.

Next to Justin at the left is Ashley, and Kate [the province's most famous blogger], then Paul and his children, Kevin, Robert, and Saskblogs Aggregator creator Lance about to take a sip from his Tim Horton’s mug. (More photos with more bloggers, and links to their sites to come later.)

Cynically Tested is a Canadian comedy group that makes videos for the Internet. The video Emily of the State is a good demonstration of what an ISP who spies on its users for the government is really like when conducted upfront.