2013-04-14 Sun

Retired

I walked to the Green Living Show at the Exhibition Grounds this lunchtime. Down Strachan Avenue. About 7,000 steps in about an hour; about five kilometres.

The rails that will take the airport GO trains will be underground between Bathurst and about Ossington, by the look of it. A trench has been dug and stout box girders laid across it as far as the eye, as they say, can see.

Here's a view into the trench.

And here is a view looking east. The box girders are painted grey, and in this photo appear as a mat, although there are gaps in between them.

SUFE

Sort of.

I thought that this was a most imaginative use of a three-legged stool, keeping a two-legged crawler under control.

SUFE

I decided to become a landscape artist this morning.

All you need is what I needed - two sheets of scrap paper, food coloring, and one of the many frames I've rescued from the recycle room.

Here I've torn part of one of the sheets into 5 ragged-edge strips.

Here are a couple of drops of green, and of blue food coloring in a saucer of water. Stir gently with a fork.

After the first dipping, laid out to dry on a wire rack.

After several dips, seen from the back - the printed side.

Arranged for gluing.

This photo doesn't do justice; the ragged edges have adopted a darker hue, as if there are small shrubs on each rise.

The second sheet, as a backing sheet, has been dipped in a saucer of blue-tinted water.

That's not the sun shining, it is the flash from the camera.

Hang it all.

It would probably look better horizontally on a much wider frame - say three feet or so instead of ten inches.

2013-04-13 Sat

SUFE

I came home through the Grenville/College underground parking lot, and what do I see at the southern entrance but three vermicomposters-to-be.

With built-in racks, yet!

My first thought is that wooden sides, thin plywood sheets encase the racks.

Kitchen scraps are tossed in the top and the finer material is gradually "wriggled" to the bottom by the worms.

A fuzzy photo of the other side of a rack.

With wheels, too, for easy movement prior to cleaning.

I'd need a collection tray under the device.

Retired

I was going to title this "When tracks go off the rail", but I suspect that it's just a piece of track that has been retired.

2013-04-12 Fri

Retired

I'm still retired; retired from the Sales and Marketing aspect of business. But business is still Business Solutions, so when a spontaneous enquiry arrives I consider it.

I received an email with a suggestion of a four-to-six month contract downtown. That would suit me fine, both in location and duration.

But how do they (or their client) know it is 4-6 months? That suggests that the client feels they have a good definition of the solution, to be able to assign a completion time to it, and that suggests that they have an even better grip on the problem. So where is the problem specification? And their preferred solution specification?

I will sit with the client, listen to their introduction, then ask the question "What is your goal?".

If they don't have a goal (that they can slide across the table in writing on a piece of paper), how can they have a solution? And if they don't have a solution, how can they cost a solution?

If they do have a goal, then stating a cost suggests that they have mapped out a path to reach that goal, and that, a solution, suggests that they have a understanding of the problem, in which case, why don't they slide the problem across the table to me?

Usually I find that someone would like the project to be completed within 4-6 months, based on what they've seen in the past, what they've done it the past, their level of skills (not great!) and their myopic view of computers through the user-interface.

Clear Thinking

So around ten to four the alarms sound in Lillian Smith branch of TPL; not to worry, says the PA, it is a false alarm. But we know the fire trucks will be here.

I have a book to return, so I decide to return it before anyone changes their minds and forces us all outside; I don't want to lug the book home.

From the second-floor window overlooking College Street I see an eastbound streetcar, and I hear the fire truck sirens. A small domestic station wagon moves forward, I assume to get out of the way of the curbside trucks, but the streetcar is also moving forwards.

The car glances off the streetcar, the driver brakes partway into the intersection. It is a low-speed collision, surely no-one is hurt.

But it strikes me that excepting for a head-on collision, the streetcar can never be in the wrong. Because it is constrained to run on rails!

No one seems flustered, but the streetcar driver unloads all the passengers.

I feel sorry for the driver; by the time I descend to street level, the fire crew are asking the four-wheeler to move forwards because the fire crew have another call further down the street.

I hand my card to the streetcar driver, and write my name against the phone number.

I feel sorry for the streetcar driver. Through no fault of his own, he will be saddled with a ton of paperwork, have a mark on his record, be late home, and surely a whole lot of other stuff.

I don't feel sorry for the four-wheeler idiot.

As I walk home (to Bay street from pretty well Spadina) I pass several streetcar stops with anxious customers peering westward, wondering whether the car will soon be here to take them home or to daycare or to their classes or to their next appointment.

One small piece of distracted driving is causing misery for hundreds of people right now.

2013-04-11 Thu

Discovery!

I've had more telemarketing calls than I care to think of on this new, my only, number over the past twelve months.

So it was with unbridled joy I discovered a little feature on my humble non-smart LG phone.

Now I'm waiting for another telemarketing call so that I can add them to my own do-not-call list!

2013-04-09 Tue

SUFE

Rain.

It's too wet to enjoy a tromp across to the dollar-store or an expensive tromp to the drug-store, so what's a guy to do?

Here is the backside of a clean scrap of carpet. I've used my 7-year old comfortable walking shoes to draw an outline of the outer edge of the sole. The walking shoes leave the story at this point.

I hand-draw a second line about one quarter of an inch inside the first; no artistic skill is required.

Then I use the tip of a sharp knife to cut through the backing material along the inner line.

You get the idea. It's like walking on carpet!

2013-04-08 Mon

SUFE

And it was, last weekend, Hey! For the annual Bloordale Rummage Sale, helping to set up and test most of the electrical and mechanical appliances for the appliances tables, and helping sell stuff the next day.

At the end of my shift I went off-duty and purchased a shredder for $2 (it needs the knives cleaned of some stray junk, is all), a Hammond World Atlas - executive edition in excellent condition for $1 (I objected to the price and finally got away with $5 by handing over the bank note and not waiting for the change), and a 3-mug thermos flask for $2.

Thermos flasks were a prominent part of my teenage years. My parents wouldn't get in the car without at least one thermos of tea, and the trip between Perth and Geraldton, 6 hours in those days, was interrupted by a tea-break during the driver swap over at two-hour intervals.

Nowadays the stress seems to be on individual insulated mugs, and it seems like a loss.

I pre-heated the thermos with hot tap water, then filled it with black coffee at 6:30 last night, and brought it home.

Ninety minutes later the coffee was too hot to sip. At 9:00 this morning, fourteen hours later, the coffee was still piping hot; I could drink it by sips.

Of course I dismantle it to check it out.

A broken flask would still have given me a superb, large-volume handled funnel for the kitchen.

But the flask is intact. I used a toothbrush and a dab of detergent to clean the upper rubber sealer ring, removing a few years beverage stains.

I have re-assembled the flask, wadding some dry shredded paper around the flask to increase the insulation. (Well, I wanted to use the paper shredder ...).

It seems to me that I could drive Toronto to new York and enjoy a piping hot home-made soup on arrival.

Many aspects of use will reduce the effectiveness of the flask:

Adding cold milk and sugar when loading the flask lowers the initial temperature.

Taking drinks en route lowers the temperature, because it allows heat to escape and introduces cooler air (OK, not a big loss, but a loss nonetheless).

I'd be for taking some powdered milk and sugar in a couple of empty (well-rinsed) pill bottles and adding the solids as required.

2013-04-04 Thu

Toronto

Our first block of warm days this spring; yesterday was about -1 with a wind-chill factor of about -15, or so it seemed.

Today is +10, clear sky, sunny etc, and yet half the pedestrians are walking around with thick coats, mittens, large woolen hats, and scarves held tight across the face, as if it is still Antarctic winter.

It seems to me that one segment of the population clings to winter in the form of clothing until heat-wave time; as if they are reluctant to let go of a chance to complain about how cold it is.

It's spring, folks; open your coat and feel the sun-warmth come through your shirt onto your belly.

2013-04-03 Wed

SUFE

"Screwge"

2013-03-29 Fri

Retired

Still!

Good Friday: I wake to see nobody on the streets; a public holiday. I dress and walk down Jarvis to King, hang a right, and drop in to Tim Hortons to pee and buy a small coffee. And a muffin. Back Outside I see the last Toronto Star in a box, so I pay for a newspaper (first time in about a year) and retreat back into the coffee shop. Why hurry?

I may not get done today all I want to get done, but there's always tomorrow ...

I walk back up Church street and arrive home around 10am.

Once divested of my vest, a whim strikes me: a hot bubble-bath would be nice. Why not? In the past I'd have postponed the bath - there are proposals to be written, phone calls to be made. But today I plunge into a warm soaking bath, at 10 am, with a good book.

Dried and dressed I hear a small plane fly overhead. Why does this always make me feel happy? Perhaps because the first small planes I saw I saw at the seaside, and only at the seaside, so the sound of a small plane is associated with good memories of sand-castles, sandwiches, and a generally good time when even my mother was relaxed.

SUFE

So today is national let's-inspect-the-primary-vermicomposter day.

This vermicomposter is no more than a cardboard carton with a black plastic garbage bag.

I have tipped the contents onto a table-cloth - another black plastic garbage bag. Why are you surprised?

Into the emptied bag go the month's accumulation of shredded paper; this will provide food and air and a moisture reservoir so that the bacteria can thrive.

Over the paper scraps I deposit the original contents of the vermicomposter, which is the accumulated decomposition of this months kitchen scraps.

The paper bin is empty and ready for next month.

I am contemplating making another kit for a friend, so I'll put the paper directly into an empty potting-soil bag, then add a gallon of kitchen scraps, and next month seed it with some handfuls of material from the primary vermicomposter.

So it goes.

2013-03-28 Thu

Clear Thinking

Thanks to federal law or guidelines, almost every scrap of processed food in Canada is labeled with a few ingredients, quantified.

This does not apply to broccoli, carrots, and other healthy foods.

I am in a good mood, about to meet my friend Cathy, so arriving early I treat myself to a chocolaty milk drink; not good for my weight, but a treat once a month is a good thing.

Check out the label above.

What do you think?

Take the entry for Sodium as an example. Depending on where/what you read it is said that North Americans consume around 2,500 mg of salt (or sodium; the writers appear confused about this) each day, and that a large part of it comes from processed food.

We need (depending etc) about 280 mg, as I understand it.

In other words, we consume way too much Sodium Chloride salt (NaCl) than is good for us.

So, look again, and you think 150 mg is not bad, probably a small amount compared to what the cook will add to the chicken soup, or the salt in the whipped cream in the desert.

Look again; it isn't 150 mg at all.

Look at the top of the label; amounts are quoted PER HALF BOTTLE.

As Cathy says, "Who drinks just half the bottle?!". I agree.

We also agree that this sort of labeling is bordering on dishonesty.

For packages where we ladle out a spoonful at a time, we expect to see "per teaspoon" or similar, and to check the units.

But why try to hide the fact that the bottle contains more than the daily requirement?

Clear Thinking

Outside the local church, two women standing with a sign "Life is Precious" with a picture of a baby.

I assume this is an anti-abortion statement, and without getting into the pro- anti-life debate, I'd like to suggest that life is NOT precious, never has been, never will be, and it's getting cheaper by the second.

If Isaac Newton or Einstein hadn't come along when they did, the universal truths would have been uncovered later rather than sooner, but they would have been discovered, for sure.

What's a delay of 2,000 years in a Universe that is already 13,000,000,000 years old?

And mankind's biggest problem right now is population growth. We already have mass-deaths through starvation, thirst and drought, in fringe areas of the world. Children and Adults drop like flies through disease and pangs.

Even the most "advanced" areas have managed to dry up the Colorado River so that it no longer reaches the sea as it should; aquifers are dry after being squeezed to provide cheap food for growing markets.

I wish you a healthy life, and for all children too, but I'd be too self-centered if I believed that my genes had any more value than the others; chances are they have less value than yours.

2013-03-27 Wed

SUFE

So you trot over to your friend's house, where her youngster has eaten a banana and dropped the peel down the toilet before pulling, in a manner of speaking, the chain.

The toilet is blocked, water escapes slowly, but not, sad to relate, solids.

Your friend does not own a plunger.

By the way, a plunger should be pressed gently into service, then yanked back, vigorously, OUT of the toilet bowl. The idea is to bring the blocking material back into the real world, not to wedge it further into the S-trap by forcing it in.

Grab the ever-present toilet brush and one of those plastic milk bags, rinsed.

Place the toilet brush inside the bag, and tie it off with one of those elastic bands or hair-rings that litter the city sidewalks. A tight wrap is not mandatory.

Turn on the bath-tap, slowly, warm water. You may want to wash your hands and forearms after this exercise.

Grip the handle by the rubber band to effect a good seal; the toilet-brush, encased in an air-tight bag has morphed into a flexible but strong balloon.

Gently insert the balloon into the drain, letting water seep up and around it, then give a vigorous backward yank to create a partial Vacumn behind the blockage. Rinse and repeat.

This normally does the trick.

If this fails, you can try vigorously PUSHING the balloon; that sometimes forces material through, especially if it is flexible biomass, such as orange or banana peels.

But if the blockage is a feces-encrusted plastic toy, it may be time to call the plumber.

Clear Thinking

So off to the Dollar Store this morning for a $1.00 pair of 3.25 reading glasses.

Attached to the glasses is a clear plastic pouch bearing the sign "Warning enclosed".

I expected to find the standard stuff about heat, batteries, small children suffocating and so on.

Instead, a bit of text.

I am fascinated by the part that reads "These glasses are not designed to replace corrective glasses sold by prescription".

Huh?

I thought the sole purpose of dollar-store reading glasses was to provide presbyopic folks with a means to read.

Aren't these glasses meant/designed to replace prescription lenses, when you are out of town, left your glasses at home, dropped your glasses down the elevator shaft, and so on?

Isn't that the whole purpose?

2013-03-26 Tue

Clear Thinking

Accosted, again, this morning by a construction site worker who I correctly addressed as "idiot", to which he took offence; but I was right.

Lest you think that I go out of my way to antagonize street folk, be assured that at 66 I've had experience crossing the street in the UK, Australia, France, Singapore, USA and Canada - all places where I have resided and worked for extended periods. I'm not counting vacation spots such as Cuba, Germany, Spain and so on.

So to this morning: I walk up St Luke's Lane with a car slowly catching up to me. A construction-lorry blocks the end of the lane, so I know the car will elect to turn right, east, towards Yonge Street and an escape.

I elect to turn left, west, towards my home, and catch the eye of the truck driver, but he is now busy reversing because a truck-trailer ahead of him is reversing; I'm certain neither of them can see me.

So I duck between the construction fence and the row of 30-inch high concrete traffic barriers. Well-protected, me, from the two drivers.

But not from the local construction tin-god who berates me soundly for putting my own life in danger.

Huh?

He, of course, is operating on a minimal set of facts: I am walking where he thinks I shouldn't.

I am operating on a larger base of data: The car, truck, and trailer combination are all focused on their own paths.

I have placed myself into the protective security of a significant traffic barrier of concrete.

Who is the idiot?

2013-03-21 Thu

2013-03-21 Thu

Clear Thinking

I think that there are more cell-phone-vendor kiosks in Toronto than there are Tim Hortons coffee shops.

My cell-phone partially packed in this morning. I spent the day trying to remember not to use the touch screen to accept calls, dial calls, select podcasts etc but by 6pm I'd had enough.

So I called the help-line, where a youngster assured me that I could drop the phone off and it would be sent off for inspection and repair and returned to me within six (6) weeks.

I suggested, as politely as I was able, that going without a phone for 6 weeks could not be classified as a service. He seemed inclined to agree.

After some hesitation he said that there was another option. I said it couldn't be another option since going without a phone for 6 weeks (while paying for a phone service) wasn't an option.

The first option (now) is a "loaner".

Hooray! Now we are getting somewhere.

I could drop the phone off and fill out a form, and a loaner-phone would be available for me within 7 to 10 business days.

I said that's two weeks, and dropped the stylus back onto the "going without a phone isn't an option" track.

'Gustus didn't know what to say. So I helped him out.

I suggested that the first option was for both of us to recognize that there were 17 phone kiosks between here and the southern end of the Eaton Centre, that is, within 20 minutes stroll south of where I live.

Option two, I suggested, was for him to come up with a better plan for my old cell-phone within the next twenty minutes, for by that time I'd be deeply engaged in conversation with a rival phone service.

'Gustus admired my logic, but was stumped, so we escalated the call to his supervisor; if he could locate one, which he thought he might, please hold.

I slipped on a shirt, a pair of pants, a jacket, cap and gloves, and was partway out the door when Jodi came on the line.

"How are you?". "Bundled up for a quick walk to the Eaton Centre, since you ask, where there are many brightly-lit phone kiosks and many success-oriented students doubling as sales representatives, since you ask".

In the time it took me to reach Gerrard Street, Jodi had determined that a loaner was available and was waiting for me at the corner of Dundas and Yonge. Which confused her when I asked which corner; hang on, she'd get back to me. Which she did; 10 Dundas Street East, whereas the store is really on Yonge Street about 80 yards NORTH of the corner, but ...

There's a bit of sleight of hand gone on here.

They have a loaner, but it only does phone, not podcasts, so an upgraded model was produced, for which I paid cash; they say that the balance of payment due on the old phone will be paid by them, not me, so the theory is my phone bill will go down next month, since I won't be paying off a phone.

We'll see.

Moral: Never believe the front-line help-desk; it may pay, always, to escalate the call; especially if you have, say, 17 alternate solutions.

2013-03-19 Tue

SUFE

East shelf, lower.

East shelf, middle.

East shelf, upper.

South shelf, lower.

South shelf, middle.

South shelf, upper.

I estimate there are 26 cartons ("Domtar copy") of books to be shipped out.

I'll need 16 empty boxes to repack the stuff that's jammed into old-and-bursting cartons. It will take me about an hour to repack all.

After that they need to be taken out by trolley out to the service elevator, hoisted up one floor, then by trolley out to the loading dock, then carried, one box at a time, down a narrow flight of six stairs into a car.

26 cartons is about 600 pounds of material, roughly three overweight humans. The car can manage me and three tubby humans (braking distances increase!), so one trip should do it.

If I sort the books into cartons of "mine" and "give away", I can drop mine off at home, then proceed directly out to the next lucky book sale receipient.

Or I could dolly them home and just wade through them as I did the previous 26 cartons.

2013-03-18 Mon

2013-03-18 Mon

SUFE

I continue to be amazed at what gets Recycled rather than Reused.

Above is part of my haul from last night's foray to the recycling room. The small green plant pot was pressed in to immediate service to hold three plant cuttings that demonstrated roots.

This is a One-Gallon can of Latex Paint, marked "Orange", and apparently unopened.

Who knows, maybe it doesn't contain orange paint after all.

I shall open it, paint a chip, let the chip dry, then offer the can of paint it to whoever wants it.

Perhaps I have been spotted carrying away pockets-full of dead lamp bulbs.

Perhaps these bulbs were deposited in the hazardous-waste by the same clown who snips the wires off appliances that, for him/her/it, don't appear to be working. "If I can't fix it and use it, I'm damn sure no one else will benefit from it".

The two lamp bulbs had the metal shanks twisted off, and then the shanks were crushed with pliers! That, to my mind, is malicious.

Clear Thinking

All bullies are cowards, and vice versa.

Even the faint-of-heart bullies.

I set off for my local internet café this morning, the one with only one much-coveted power outlet. Most of us have learned to share. Some of us still have to learn.

Sitting there, with books and papers and bag spread out two or three feet to the side is my target.

I ask, politely, if I may sit on the (material-occupied) chare because I need access to the power outlet.

Grudgingly the hog allows me some space, explaining as he does, that he really needs the seat because he is waiting for a friend. Presumably both he and the friend will be discussing matters from The Attorney General's Office, for the material covers the counter.

"Sure!", I say, "I may well be finished before your friend arrives". I have a feeling that I will be.

I drag out my session as long as I can, 90 minutes at least. I recompile to the web everything I can think of; I download every podcast I can find; I browse Google Maps and the National Weather Service Animated Radar .

Noon comes and goes; home-made bean soup beckons my stomach. I fold my tent and make to slip away, saying as I do, "Your friend sure is late; I hope they show up soon".

Bullies 0; Christians 5.

SUFE

About a week ago I picked up an as-new Acrylic Rug in the recycling room. That means it is time to retire my old grey rug and fit it to the bathroom.

I make, in sequence from left to right,

1: A rough outline sketch of the room (rectangular) with overall measurements to the nearest centimeter.

2: A detailed sketch of the room with measurements of every nook and cranny, including the overall space required for the toilet pedestal.

After documenting every measurement, I add them up and make sure that they agree in total, and in particular that the aggregate measurements agree with the rough sketch.

3: Carpet must be marked and cut from the underside, so I prepare a mirror-image reflection of the second sketch which can be transferred to the underside of the carpet.

Here is a better view of my mirror-image sketch.

This prepared, I march back into the bathroom and re-measure every nook and cranny to confirm that I've got it right.

After that I brew a pot of tea and sit down for 15 minutes.

The old adage taught me by Mr. Hewitson in 1956-58 still rings true "measure twice, cut once".

After my sit down, I re-measure. Measurement is free, but once I start cutting, both the carpet and I are committed.

I am using the spare track from a closet as a steel straight rule. Here is the start of the markup on the underside of the carpet.

The left margin of the photo shows the dotted line which will be cut to slip the carpet around the toilet pedestal.

The rectangle (top-right) is the base or plinth of the vanity/hand-basin, just inside the door.

The line of blue pile shows where I have cut-along-dotted-line to make a slit to receive the toilet pedestal. I will cut to fit the pedestal once the carpet is laid in the room.

That's the new acrylic rug peeking out from underneath. It takes raw courage to carve up an old rug on top of a new rug.

Here I have cut almost all the way to a triangular chunk. I'll make the final cut once the carpet is laid. There's no sense cutting and making a mistake out here when I can make a better-informed cut on site.

Here is a view from the doorway. The vanity is on the near left.

The carpet slit is fitted around the toilet pedestal.

The small triangular nook is waiting for the carpet to settle into its final position before I trim-to-fit.

Here is the carpet struggling to fit around the toilet pedestal.

The narrow gap between carpet and bathtub will disappear once I settle the carpet into its proper place.

Here is a view looking out to the doorway. The pile is too thick for the door. That means I'll have to remove the door and saw about ¼" from the bottom of the door and repaint the door to seal it against moisture (and hence swelling and warping).

2013-03-15 Fri

2013-03-15 Fri

SUFE

The Vermicomposting Bin which premiered earlier this year, last reported 2013 -02-21 Thu continues to compact.

Last night I noticed that the black plastic sleeve appears to be descending with the material. No matter, I'll just insert a second sleeve and let it works its way to the bottom.

What is at the bottom?

That's a large shoot, possibly from a potato eye, peeking out under the plastic, and some eggshells and scraps of paper that appear to have fallen through my grid.

The castings accumulate, although they haven't reached the point where they cover the bin floor, and so they have not yet reached a mass where they can support a small colony of fallen worms to complete the digestion.

Here's a detail showing how the sleeve has slipped down, exposing a bit of the cardboard tower.

The second sleeve is in place. Do I spread its lower rim out, or leave it clustered?

I left it clustered; some worms will make their way up through the aperture. I of course hope that the majority of worms will stay below and continue to do their business.

The new sleeve extends quite a way over the outside. Yes, those are tear-holes in the sleeve. Should have used a new bag, right?

Oh well, it's an experiment at this stage ...