2013-02-27 Wed

Snow

We had another two inches of snow this morning. Billed, yet again, as a massive storm. It was a snow fall.

Soft goofy flakes most of which died when they hit the ground.

Toronto is a city of new SUVs, jeeps, and suburban off-road vehicles, all doodling around the city streets, instead of being useable a hundred miles or more further north.

Driven it seems by drivers who just don't have a clue.

The city screams with tires spinning under full throttle, vehicles suddenly getting a grip and launching themselves into a lane of traffic, lanes of traffic slamming on brakes and sliding towards a gazelle-like hazard.

Which used to puzzle me. Because I've had no problems driving a snow here for thirty years. Me, from the arid desert of Western Australia. Ten inches of rain a year, if you're luck, in Southern Cross.

What's up?

The answer lies in the difference in the two environments.

In Toronto we get a snowfall perhaps five times each winter. Folks get five opportunities to use driving techniques in slippery conditions.

In the desert, the wind blows dust hither and yon, the dust settles on the impervious clay. Then we get a millimeter of rain, nothing at all, really, but the roads are transformed into skating rinks, and the bulk of the rods in The Yilgarn and earth-roads.

As a consequence the bulk of my early driving years, age sixteen through twenty-one, were spent with frequent real-life tests on skating-rinks.

And when it wasn't raining, we had thick dust on the roads, drifts, if you will, nit unlike snow-drifts in Toronto.

Except we had them 365 days a year!

2013-02-26 Tue

Retired

Here's something I'm still struggling to explain; this is part of the struggle.

Blood Pressure; Doctor says recording for 3 months, then come back. OK, something to do on rising, and on retiring at night. Blood tests. Today's the day. FASTING blood test, and the last time I did this across the street I was one of four people struggling to be first in line, but today I'm more relaxed.

I take my Blood Sugar and Blood Pressure, slip a $50 note into my wallet, and drift across the street. Listening to podcasts, relaxed, in and out in 15 minutes!

Collect two white dress shirts from the cleaners (there's a wedding in the offing), collect the papers from Ryerson University, and arrive home at 9:45, pour my first coffee and settle down to read the paper.

At 10 the phone rings, friend Betty out the west end. Would I like to join here at The Montreal Deli for brunch after she has dropped off her car for service? Sure. I have nothing else planned for the day.

Truth is I DO have things planned, but nothing that can't be shifted.

Each day I have an assigned task that MUST be done. Today it was fasting-blood-tests, and since that's done, nothing else is fixed in stone. (Tomorrow is Meet-Fred-for-lunch; once that's done, the rest of the day is my own).

So out to the west end, a nice brunch, collect the car, it needs a new tire, but Betty wants to go to Bloor West Autos, so off we go, get a quote, she schedules a visit, and what now?

It is 2pm.

Let's check out Vaughan Mills and see what we would have to pay for a light-weight canoe. ($700 + tax, including paddles, vests, transporter kit) and that done, let's wander the mall.

It's payday, my pension cheque is in, so I treat betty to afternoon tea, a decadent desert and rich coffees, we wander some more, then head home and grill a steak with boiled veggies, play cards, there is an agitated telephone conversation with Betty's sister regarding canoeing (we laugh) and I arrive back here around 11pm.

What a day!

And except for the blood test and shirts, I had no idea that my day would unfold this way.

I love the randomness.

2013-02-25 Mon

The TTC

The TTC has its faults, and most of them are passengers. Stupid ideas about seating is, perhaps, my pet grievance.

In the photo above, take my word for it, the lady, seated, hidden, whose bag is occupying the seat directly across from mine, is putting on make-up.

Peak-hour on the Bloor-Danforth line,

The two young ladies partially blocking the view are too timid enough to speak up and sit down. Instead they will stand and be buffeted by the train motion and passengers moving past, until it is their stop.

I hope you'll forgive me suggesting that you look between the legs of the lady to my left; you can see no feet-of-a-seated-passenger there, can you?

A few stops later, "all change", and a different lady sis; a lady with a large shoulder-bag, which drapes to her right, our left, onto, or at least, above the seat to her right.

The neatly-dressed gentleman standing in front of me won't ask her to swing the bag around to her chest/lap so that he cane sit down. He probably thinks he is being polite, but I think he is being rude to other passengers, by blocking the aisle when there is no need to do so.

The TTC

So I toddled off to Wal-Mart by College streetcar and bought myself a $10 pedometer. (Pedometer: An odometer for the childishly obsessive), strapped it on, and walked back to the College streetcar stop at Dufferin.

Over a dozen people waiting for the eastbound streetcar. Not a good sign, more so because several were stepping out into the street and staring upstream to see where the next streetcar was, or if it was.

Not a soul sitting on the seats provided in the shelter, of course, so I sat myself down, plugged in the podcast, and stared upwards.

There in the shelter is an electric sign that said the "next streetcar is due in 8 and 19 minutes". I think they mean the "next streetcars are due in 8 and 19 minutes", but I quibble.

Dawned on me that the next streetcar stop upstream is a mere 5 minutes walk away, and I'd like to log up a few steps on my new pedometer, so I up and strolled to stand with two (! Other folks for the next streetcar, which came as predicted, and I got a good seat on the south side of the car where I could smile in serene contentment at what would have been my crowd of fellow-boarders all fighting for the right to board the rapidly-filling streetcar.

Sitting on a moving streetcar is better than sitting on a stationary bench.

Sing praises for electric signs and eyes to see with them with, and legs to deal with.

2013-02-23 Sat

Retired

I still have appointments - medical, friends, things to pick up - and shopping to do, but life is not so ordered to the clock. I find myself strolling (rather than walking) around the downtown core.

Walking is difficult in the heart of a large city. Bunches of people impede progress at any regular speed, crossing lights and delivery trucks make a hash of a non-stop burst. The only way to accomplish a brisk non-stop walk is to find a large park and circumperambulate it, or to hop on public transit and walk a network of suburban housing streets, but that's not as interesting as the downtown core back streets with their specialty shops.

So what can I do about all the people?

I've decided that I can be of service to some of them.

I stroll 650 metres to Ryerson University each morning and collect two free copies of The Toronto Star; one for my building's common room, one for me. I stroll 650 metres home. That's not much, but it does get air into my lungs, and it establishes for the day that I've not been holed up in my apartment.

A primary goal of my day is to establish contact, however brief, with at least one complete stranger every day.

It must be a complete stranger, so that after a few weeks the cashiers in the supermarket are eliminated, as is the free-paper man on the street corner.

But the downtown core is busy, so it's a simple matter, most times, of making a flattering compliment, and I'll do it as the young lady in the coat walks past me; opportunity allows me to call out "What a lovely coat", or to the lady pushing a stroller-strapped toddler "That's a cute hat". Sometimes a dog-walker approaches me with a tail-wagging Labrador. "Are we friendly?" I ask, and the assertive nod lets me squat down and offer my hand.

These contacts are minimal, yet I find myself wondering what the city would be like if each person made a commitment to establish friendly contact, however brief, with at least one complete stranger every day.

The compliment, by the way, doesn't need to be honest, but it must be realistic. I've found myself in an elevator car with a man wearing the same shade of purple shirt as mine. "Nice shirt!" is enough to bring a pleasant acknowledgement from the man, followed by a few seconds reflection then a burst of laughter and a huge smile. The whole elevator car cracks up at that point. Mission Accomplished!

2013-02-22 Fri

Diet

The most basic dietary advice you'll ever read.

• We are animals. Unlike the other living things (plants), we can move around. It's the way we are, or more correctly, it's the way we have evolved. We are evolved to move around, as in "exercise" and we need fuel for energy to move around, as in "diet".

That's it.

So if your weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, body-mass-index etc. is high, and since your life consists of movement and fuel, there's only two things you can do: Move more and fuel less.

Your choice of more-movement and your choice of fuel-less is up to you and your doctor, but find a doctor who listens and prescribes exercise and diet within your means, and work as a team.

Or die trying.

Diet

Bathroom scales will NOT cause any weight-loss. The exercise in stepping onto the scales and stepping off does NOT count as a step-up exercise. Only changes in diet and exercise can cause a weight loss.

That said, we have a mental thing called MOTIVATION, and bathroom scales are great for this.

I purchased a battery-powered (why can't we have scales powered by the fact we step on them? Why do we need battery power in a bathroom scale?) digital set for $20. The read-out appears to be in tenths of a pound, which is more than accurate enough for anyone outside a medical laboratory; but I am a scientist and my laboratory is about 13.7 billion light-years radius.

So I weight myself every day, at the start of my weight-loss program. (I started a week or so ago at 175 lbs; my goal is 155 lbs. Note that I have not set a time limit for my goal; I just want to get there).

I rise and head straight for the scales; naked, I step on; the illuminated dial I can read without my glasses; I mutter the readout, then go pee. Then, being curious, I weight myself again.

Interesting. Same curious exercise for the other stuff)

Then I re-don my sleep clothes. Then, being curious, I weight myself again.

Interesting; my sleep clothes account for 0.6 lbs. I need not strip to shivering nakedness tomorrow morning. Same curious exercise for street clothes, winter version.

I write the value (176.2) on the little memo whiteboard on the fridge door and set about my morning routine. (Blood sugar, Blood pressure readings, but more on that later). I record my weight in the spreadsheet (see "scientists" above!) and if I've forgotten it, I obtain it from my earlier written record. I don't trust my scale's memory any more than I do my own.

Throughout the day, in the early days, I check my weight obsessively, and If I detect a lower reading than the first reading of the day, I use that as my record. It's cheating, sort of, but until my trend in weight begins its steady downward path, I'm using every ounce (hah!) of support I can get to keep me on track with diet and exercise.

I'll weigh myself before and after exercise out of curiosity; if I get a lower weight, it replaces the higher weight. I'll weigh myself out of boredom; if I get a lower weight, it replaces the higher weight. I'll weigh myself before my last snack before going to bed; if I get a lower weight, it replaces the higher weight. So that by the end of the day I've recorded the lowest weight I can, and my downward trend begins as soon as possible.

I see this as a strong motivation factor; if my night-time weight is about as low as my day-long minimum, I'm motivated to have just a small snack before retiring for the night.

And each time I drop to a new, lower pound reading, I celebrate with a meal or snack I wouldn't normally eat. I've learned that such an activity barely causes a blip on my weight trend, and gives me an excited reason to attack the next pound.

Yay! For bathroom scales.

2013-02-21 Thu

Diet

Like some people I am becoming health-conscious in a way I could not have foreseen when I was a teen. My diet is considered healthy in terms of shopping habits.

I shop the "L", and if you think of your chain supermarket you'll see that means shopping along one side (fruit and vegetables), along the back row (dairy and milk) and avoiding the aisles (packaged and processed foods) altogether.

So an article on nutrition labeling in last weekends Toronto Star caught my eye; most of it I already knew: "less fat" doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you. Indeed, it is bad for your syntax and semantics. "less fat THAN WHAT?" we should ask; the label poses more questions than it supplies answers. And when did you last see a produce advertised as "More fat"?

Cheese with 33% fat is better for me than cheese with 45% fat is better for me than cheese with 65% fat is better for me than ... But the best cheese for me is a very little cheese, maybe a one-inch slab cut off a big block, and consumed with leafy-greens and salt-less crackers.

And so to the article.

The writer makes the point that anything that needs to tell you how good it is, probably isn't all that good to begin with.

The point is made that broccoli doesn't have a label. OK, you don't like broccoli? You just haven't cooked it right, but substitute "strawberries" or "peaches" or "carrots" or "green beans".

Got me thinking; excepting for labeling for weight and price and perhaps country of origin, could I make a decent meal from unlabeled foods?

Could I live for a day on unlabelled foods?

A week?

Let's see!

Clear Thinking

The first westbound streetcar stop east of Dundas/Spadina.

Simple translation:

"A Starbucks coffee for Canadians who do not think they like Starbucks coffee."

A less-offensive (to Canadians, at least) version:

"A Starbucks coffee for Canadians who think they do not like Starbucks coffee."

Makes you think ...

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

I buy cheap laundry powder at No-Frills; comes in a carton about the size of a small car. I've been decanting it into empty 4-litre water bottles that someone on my floor tosses into our floor's recycle bin. Lately I realized that it's a terrible waste of a potential food-container.

I launder by soaking my clothes in a 24-litre pail to which was poured about ½ cup of cheap powder. Water is the universal solvent, as any chemist worth his NaCl will tell you, also that any soap or detergent is merely a wetting agent.

Soaked for 20 hours, I drain the buckets, and take them to the laundry room, where what would be a normal cycle of wash followed by rinse becomes two rinse cycles, removing every trace of dirt and cheap laundry detergent from my clothes.

Dawned on me that folks buy liquid laundry detergent and toss the bottles in the waste bin. Laundry detergent bottles, rinsed and dried, would be better harbours for laundry powder than drinking-water bottles, which are idea for storing rice, sugar, and so on. (Easier pouring and measurement!).

Here's a turfed bottle "empty" of detergent, right?

So I start to rinse out a cast-off laundry bottle in the kitchen sink, and realise that water is the universal solvent, and any soap or detergent is merely a wetting agent. That's unused detergent I'm flushing down the drain.

Here's the same bottle getting worked up into a lather.

So from now on

1: I don't buy dishwashing detergent

2: I use rinse-out laundry detergent for dishes (which I always rinse in fresh water after washing anyway)

3: I drive the superintendent batty by dropping a laundry-detergent bottle, empty, into our floors recycling bin every day.

There are but six apartments on this floor ...

Books

"Bookends" is a book-store within a library, the Toronto Reference Library, Yonge Street 100 yards north of Bloor. Books are 10c, 50c, and a dollar. A few books are more than a dollar, but you have to look hard to find them.

Here's today's haul:

All four books in excellent condition. The music CD is still shrink-wrapped.

Here's the track list, if you're interested.

I got the lot for $5.

China

On my way to "Bookends" I found "Hockridge", www.hockridge.com and fell in love.

You will find the 113-year old store on the west side of Yonge street, three doors south of Irwin, hence between Wellesley and Bloor-Yonge.

Here is the store front; you will walk inside and be trapped for twenty minutes, at least, overpowered by the sight and colour of the wares. I've popped in there three times; no hard sell; just cheerfulness and a warm welcome back.

It's way better than any porcelain museum I've seen.

For one thing you don't have to walk between exhibits; you are part of the exhibits.

Take your wallet; you don't have to spring $450+ for a dinner set, but you'll surely find a smaller item that will thrill one of your beloveds.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

My fingers are cracked open with what look like paper-cuts; my fault for walking around without gloves.

So I've been wringing my hands with hand-lotion and wearing my favorite gloves for a fortnight.

Today the wind was (mumble) giving us a wind-chill factor of (mumble-mumble) so I hauled out a cardboard carton marked "Winter". Shoulda done it two months ago.

That's my favorite pair on the right, woolen, soft, easy to fart around with the controls on my cell-phone while I'm listening to podcasts.

The other pair are effective. Both pairs came from recycle bins and have been laundered.

The blue pair have Velcro straps which insist on hooking up as soon as I take off my gloves, making it impossible to get them back on without first wedging the straps open.

Which made me think about a third winter glove, one with a huge Velcro square.

I think I'll detach the Velcros and use them, with glue, as devices to "hook" my mini PC-speakers to the wall, or to the side of my little desk.

Yes; that's a tube of Polysporin pushing its way into the picture.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

Candle-wax we love, us SUFEers; we melt it down, clarify it, then wonder what to do with the "plates" of wax.

Wonder no more.

Melt each plate individually (taking care) on the stove.

I had to snap each plate into quarters to fit it in my melt-pan, you can see the faint outline of a quadrant in the shot above.

I take a washed, rinsed and dried 500 ml cream carton, slice the top to make a hinged lid, and pour a melted plate into the carton.

Add enough cold water to make a ¼ inch layer of water atop the solidified wax, pop the container in the freezer for a half-hour, by which time the next melted cake (any colour!) will be ready for storage.

The two blocks on the left came from one ice-layered cream carton; the block on the right pretty-well had filled a single cream carton.

You can use well-cleaned paper coffee cups as well as cream cartons.

Second Use For Everything (SUFE)

So there's this as-new Hoover Duros (model S3950, I think) canister vacuum cleaner, looks as-new, in the recycling room.

I plug it in, power on, hear "vroom!", power off and unplug and lug it upstairs.

This is better vacuum cleaner than I own, or than the one I am selling on Craig's List. My friend is mad because it's better than her vacuum cleaner!

What's wrong with it?

THE BAG IS FULL!

I think the owner bought/received it as new and it came with three bags.

The owner did what the manufacturer suggested, and threw out the first bag when it was full.

The owner did what the manufacturer suggested, and threw out the second bag when it was full.

Now the third and final bag is full; there are no more empty bags, and the owner doesn't have a clue about how/where to obtain new bags.

OF COURSE the manufacturer wants you to toss the bags when they are full; that way the manufacturer can sell more bags.

I don't subscribe to that theory.

I cut open the bag for ease of emptying and re-seal it with small but strong paper clips.

Here you can see that I've cut off the top of the bag, the heavily-glued part. If you have patience, you can carefully unroll the glued portion, very carefully, and you'll end up with more capacity in your re-used bag than I, but since emptying the bag will be as easy as squeezing three clips, who cares?

Here you can see that, lacking paper clips and wanting to prove a point, I've stapled the bag closed with about seven regular staples from the office desk.

For safety's sake (I was demonstrating this) I added made another roll-over fold of the bag and applied a second set of staples.

LOOK! There's the part-number for new bags. Get on the internet or the telephone and have some delivered to you by mail.

Yes of COURSE the foam air filter was clogged; that probably helped convey the impression that this vacuum cleaner really didn't suck. A quick rinse under the tap solved that problem.

Now for the test!

I sprinkled some of the silvery-crud (Christmas decorations, spray-painted onto a bunch of dead twigs) onto the dark brown hardwood floor. I have splinters in my tongue because no vacuum cleaner can get these up.

I vacuumed with the Hoover Duros.

Voila! (or BINGO!) if you prefer.

Sparkles-be-gone.

And no, I didn't cheat by photographing another part of the floor, or by the trick employed in Free Ice Cream ).

Vermicomposting

The latest drop-through (gravity fed) tower continues to compact slightly. Although I have added some (uncovered) food scraps, the upper surface has fallen to two inches below the rim.

2013-02-20 Wed

I am retired.

In brief this means I'm not hunting for paid work; I have ceased my functions in marketing and sales, but I retain my passion in reducing the boring and repetitive aspects of people's business lives by implementing new and improved data processing procedures, with and without the use of computers.

You will see and learn some of the impact of retirement in the posts that follow this one, but the essence will be that I continue to pursue my other passion - Second Use For Everything (or SUFE ) - and I'll provide links to compiled web pages from time to time.

The new entries in this blog will parallel those of my Clear Thinking blog , since I will be expressing my thoughtful reaction to the world around me. Anticipate a post pretty well every day, and expect some whimsy!

Cheers! Chris Greaves.

P.S. The best way to circumvent my draconian spam filter is to click on a "Contact me" hyperlink from any page on my web site, including the link in this sentence!

Clear Thinking

I issued two letters to the editor last night.

Organ donation rate has stayed flat and No stroller restrictions, TTC decides .

More letters are in the pipeline.