Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

I got some free potting soil, so I refreshed some of my indoor plants, and put some pots on the balcony to get them ready for some tiny veggies or herbs. I tried planning a couple radishes, and a couple yellow peppers, so hopefully they sprout. There is plenty of rain forecast for this week. I still need to get out to my garden and plant some things. They didn’t turn the water on a few days ago, because of freezing nights.

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On Saturday I dropped my crippled bike off at Dutch Cycle. Even though I got there at about 2 minutes past closing time at 4PM, they were nice and let me in the door. The missing wheel can apparently be repaired for about $35 (used), and I’m hoping they throw in a speedometer magnet with that too. I can possibly get it on Tuesday, but I bet it will turn into Saturday or Wednesday if I’m lucky.

Saturday evening I dragged two friends out, to Bushwakker’s, and I had potato skins. I cut off a bite, and when it touched my lip, it burned it. Then I was in that awkward situation I hate, where you know if you finish putting the food into your mouth you’re going to burn it, but if you spit it out, you’re going to look rude. I went with the pull the food out of my mouth with my fingers technique.

Sometime shortly before or after that I was bugged for swirling my water glass around the top of the table whilst making a “wooo” sound. So I proceeded to prove that I was still sober by stacking a salt shaker on top of two glasses, then a pepper shaker on top of the salt, then a menu, and then tenting two coasters on top of it all. I threatened to balance a full water glass on top of the menu, to cries of objection. I wouldn’t have really done it (because I couldn’t have).

I was considering leaving this mostly unfounded jab fall by the wayside, but I see Dr. Dawg has responded eloquently to it already. I just would like to point out though, that one week we’re “self-centered bigots” for not knowing something took place, and the next week we’re supporters of “fringe anarchists” and “paranoid fabulists” because what we should have known according to Robert, actually didn’t happen (again according to Robert) because the person who recently pointed it out is Mr. Annett, “and we can’t let him make a mockery of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”

So Robert, which is it? You can’t cut both ways, just to suck up to Kate’s crowd. Because that’s how this comes across, at least as much as your probably sincere worry that further investigations will somehow delay the compensation already settled upon. Seems easy enough to pay the settlements due, and if there’s further injury proved, then to pay again to the families further injured. Bring on an investigation.

Chris has some disappointing news, presented in an amusing way.

“That was really close,” one councilor said. “Just imagine. If we’d created those bike lanes, cyclists might have gotten used to them! Heck, some people might have even tried biking to work in safety for the first time and enjoyed it. It could have been habit forming.” When asked if he was trying to equate cyclists to drug users, the councilor replied, “what do you think?”

Another councilor agreed. “Drivers can rest assured that this council will not do anything to jeopardize their unquestioned supremacy on the roads,” she said.

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Comment moderation gets turned on at Rawlco radio news site/blogs. For the time being, my comments sections will remain open, and I hope they always will be able to be, since that’s really the standard of blogs on the Internet (at least the blogs that the most people enjoy the most).

One problem that not moderating eliminates, is being accused frequently of deleting comments. I was beginning to wonder where my comments on John Himpe’s ridiculous rant about cyclists, had gone. Then I figured out that the same terrible blog post was on both 980 and 650 news sites, and the comments don’t transfer from one to the other. I was looking on 650, but commented on 980. Fortunately, Michelle who also works at a Rawlco station, had much better thoughts on the subject.

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UPDATE:

Commuter Cycling Workshop

Learn How to Ride Your Bike to Work : safety tips, road skills, and much more.

Workshop 1 - “Bike Commuting 101″

Thursday May 8 @ 5:30 pm

City Hall Forum

Light Supper provided

Workshop 2 - “Cycling On” (Practical)

Saturday May 10 @ 9:00 am

SIAST Wascana Campus

Bikes and Helmets Required

(Pre-requisite: Workshop 1)

To register, email greenribbon@regina.ca with “Commuter Cycling” in the subject line. Registration is free.

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Answers to Questions about Cycling

Canadian Cycling Association: ABC Bicycle Check

City of Regina: Multi-Use Pathway System

My Grandmother in Winnipeg apparently hated eulogies. She requested there not be one at her memorial service. So this isn’t a eulogy per say. Let’s pretend it isn’t, even though according to the dictionary it probably is… It’s for my benefit anyway. I’ll want to have this written down, because as much as oral history is important, written lasts just that much longer.

My Grandmother was named Nana. At least I thought so as a kid. It was a nickname she adopted for my benefit because I could say it as a small child, and it wasn’t until my teens that I became aware enough that she had more to her real name than the one I knew. This became apparent, when at a local horticultural show, she entered a door prize contest and when I was the nearest kid available to perform the draw hours later, I did not know the woman whose name I drew. It was my Grandmother’s entry in my hand.

She was born in Toronto, almost a year after the Titanic sank in the Atlantic. In talking with my mother today, I learned my Grandfather was born on the Ides of March, before the Titanic sank. Both were born at their respective homes, as was customary in that time. She grew up in the country. Graduated from the UofT in 1937 and was active in the Rebekahs and charitable causes through much of her life. Much of her married life was spent in California, and that’s where she’ll return. She couldn’t leave Grandpa there alone, even though she spent the last 37 years without him as of April 15.

From the picture above, it’s obvious she got me interested in writing to some degree. She wrote journals, and frequent letters to her children and grandchildren. She wrote to me even before I could read, and Mom would translate. My family convinced her of the benefit of fax machines, particularly after she lost most of her hearing due to noise exposure at work in the USPS (which caught up with her in old age). But she didn’t care to learn computers like my other Grandparents, and had zero interest in my blogging. So it’s a safe bet if there’s Internet cafes in heaven, she won’t think to look here for a eulogy, so I’m in the clear.

Even though she lived far away, she managed lengthy visits. I remember her walking kilometers a day, even into what must have been her 70s. It was always an adventure to visit her in Toronto, or in the last few years Winnipeg. Her affection for puns, and sarcastic humour is probably where I get mine from.

And this is why eulogies are no good. They can turn into rambling. And now if your mind hasn’t wandered, you’re probably feeling awkward, and not sure if you should say anything, or what you should say if you do. And that’s OK not to say anything. Because this isn’t even a eulogy, remember ;-)

Are old folks homes a human rights violation? It’s an interesting question. Nichole asks Africans what they think about Witch Camps.

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Hat tip to Michael

My province has been on the hot seat recently in blogs and in politics, as racial and discriminatory issues bubble to the forefront of public consciousness. A Saskatchewan MP once held very ignorant views regarding homosexuals, and was on tape expressing those views. He’s since said he doesn’t feel that way any more. Perhaps he’s lived a little and seen that he was wrong, since that time. People can change, let’s hope he has for the better.

Premier Wall has also had to apologize for immature or inappropriate behaviour on the same recording. He’s not having a good week, after having to distance himself from Small Dead Animals, who is batting 2 for 2 in having premiers say that the often crude, radical conservative blog doesn’t speak for the people of Saskatchewan. Now Kate’s on record as wanting a famine to toughen Canadian socialists up, and for drug users to die faster of disease. I really don’t know what other offensive territory she could tread into next, but I can wait to find out. Maybe I can make some suggestions? I haven’t known her to go after Romainian orphans, or bonspiel volunteers, but there’s still time to branch out and offend everyone!

And an apparent coup took place in First Nations politics, where the disgraced David Ahenakew managed to return to a previous post of power. A new trial being ordered is not the same thing as an acquittal, and we’ve all heard his very offensive thoughts to know he’s guilty of promoting hatred. If he’s not criminally responsible, it’s still shameful for the FSIN to associate with him on purpose at this point. Is he on record currently as being ashamed of his remarks about Jews? Not that I’m aware of. CBC reported he did, but last time I read he did, he recanted.

- UPDATE: Interesting. He declined the offer. That doesn’t let the FSIN off the hook though.

As if that wasn’t enough bad news from First Nations politics this week, there’s criticism that their exemption from tobacco tax is killing non-Natives too. Ignoring the fact that tobacco abuse kills a higher proportion of First Nations people than other Canadians is fine apparently. Any leadership organization stupid enough to reinstate a disgraced person like Ahenakew, isn’t going to have the fortitude to question the health effects of basing their economic culture on gaming and drugs. How frustrating it must be for people trying to work inside the First Nations power structure, to change things for the better? It’s certainly frustrating to watch it from the outside. Perhaps that kind of frustration is too much for some people like Kate, and they deal with it by telling people to die. I must take care not to lose my patience in that way.

Westerners, as a whole, have a harder time understanding the impact pollution has on our environment. This is due to a combination of things (not really our education system in relation to elsewhere). One factor is that a lot of our jobs are based on resource extraction and agriculture. These jobs require heavy equipment with diesel engines, and people don’t want to feel shame about their ‘office’ equipment. They didn’t build the equipment anyway (they just repair it). If it was so bad, no one would build it, right?

Another factor is that unless an entire forest is on fire, we just don’t SEE pollution in the air like more urban-dwelling Canadians do. Calgary and Edmonton get smoggy, at least they have in the Summer when I’ve been through, but it’s not a year round problem. Regina and Saskatoon tend to get foggy at worst. Smog in those two cities is usually attributable to stubble burning, or a forest fire. Our water sources are not so great as it is in Toronto, to raise our humidity to the point where we can’t breath from the mixture of moisture and muck.

And so a combination of economic induced denial sets into people. It especially settles in people who have no grasp on chemistry, history, or physics because they lack the logic defenses their mind needs to shrug off propaganda fed from other people who depend on our broken systems not being changed.

If your skies looked like this, would you have 2nd thoughts to the seriousness of air pollution too? For some people out here, it’s the last straw they need to give up on logic, and to give in to denial and complacency.

- Museum with ship and a “new” elevator, 2 minutes south of Moose Jaw on Highway #2. There’s a NFB film about this ship, and the poor man who built it. He wanted to sail it back home to Europe, but was committed and died. He tried to tow it across the prairie with animal and human power, to sail it up to Hudson’s Bay via our river systems. In a way he’s a metaphor for people of this country who don’t understand or even acknowledge we have an air pollution problem. They build too many of the wrong vehicles, and mis-use them until they go crazy and die, defeated. Hard working, but in a role that can’t last. Instead of finding a new way to live where we are, we’d rather destroy ourselves on the chance that we can get back to how things used to be; Back to better times.

ACR has the headline the mainstream media probably wanted to run with.

The web is buzzing with ordinary folks who think the TSA is full of really SMRT people. These particular ones found that I predicted the new War on Boobs.

- Flemming, SK old grain elevator is getting a facelift on one side

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I’m back in Regina after a very odd day. It’s strange to say goodbye to someone for probably the last time, but that’s what I did. Then arriving back in town just in time for a birthday party, and 3 games of laser tag which have been planned for more than a week. I finished 2nd, 1st and 1st and scored 5th on the daily leader board. A day with lows and highs, and in two capital cities.

-One Red Paperclip house in Kipling

- Near Confusion Corner in Winnipeg on the way back from a birthday supper

- Grey Cup 2007 sign won in a bet with Manitoba, on our border

- Good advice about taking the stairs instead of the elevator. I do about 12 flights a day in separate trips.