Recording Devices at Airports and Border Crossings

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has announced that they are installing 'listening equipment' to record conversations in airports and at border crossings. A lot of people are upset by this. They don't want anyone to hear what they are saying to their friend or spouse. On the other hand, I think it's just a return to 'the good old days' -- which were never as good as people like to think. I believe that this is merely a return to the small town way of watching your neighbours -- albeit with electronic devices instead of the town busybody telling everyone what you were saying.

In the first decade of the 20th century, about 85% of Canada's population was rural or lived in small towns or villages. In 2000, about 85% of Canadians were living in cities.

There is an anonymity in cities that does not exist in small towns. I do know this for a fact. The village where I was born had a population of about 150 people. Nothing escaped the eagle eyes of the village residents. My mother told me a story about having been at a church meeting, and walking home from it with her best friend's older brother -- who was just home from university. Between the time they left the church and the time they arrived at my grandmother's house (about a five minute walk -- ten if you're lollygagging), two people phoned my grandmother to tell her that my mother was walking with a man.

Privacy is a concept that really took hold in the late 20th century. Prior to that, everyone knew everyone else's business in their village, or on their block. Why do you think Samuel Pepys’ diary was written in a cipher? It was certainly true when we moved to an Ottawa suburb. Everyone knew everyone else on our street (it probably helped that they all had kids about the same age) and what was going on in their lives.

But, when you live in an apartment building, you might know your neighbours -- but, then again, you might not. I now live in a suburb of a southern Ontario city and have been here for four years. I know my neighbours on one side, but not on the other. I know the ladies in the houses across the street, but not the people who live behind me.

So listening in on our conversations is just another blast from the past -- with the CBSA playing the role of busybody / tattletale. Just like the days of old, they will be running to the authorities with information about who said what to whom and, again like the days of old, the people who are careless in their conversations will be in hot water.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Cuts to the Federal Civil Service

While I can understand Harper’s desire to cut federal expenditures by making massive cuts to the Federal Civil Service, I don’t think most Canadians have grasped what it will mean to them in real terms.

First, the wait times for services will increase dramatically. You think the service is slow now? Just wait until it takes twice as long to get the same service because only half the people will be doing the work.

Second, our lives will become less safe. Services that we have always taken for granted – like inspections of food providers – will be pretty much a thing of the past. Remember the listeria outbreak in 2008? People died, right? Well, we better get used to it, because dramatic cuts are being planned across the board and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will not be exempt. From what I’ve heard, these companies that package meat, as well as other foods, will be more self-regulating. If I wasn’t allergic to legumes, I would turn vegetarian.

Third, the unemployment rates will rise in all the areas that have government departments. Remember the decentralisation programs of the 1970s? There are departments all across Canada now. Yes, Ottawa will be hard hit, but so will other areas. Many of these people will not be able to find work in their fields.

Fourth, we are going to lose many of the brilliant minds who provide services and information to public – for free. I’m thinking specifically of NRC, Health and Welfare, and the Transportation Safety Board. These are people who have spent their lives working in one area. Other countries are begging for people in these fields, and more than willing to pay relocation costs. Once these people are gone, there will be no turning back. Sure, there will be people to replace them eventually, and I believe that they will have to be replaced, but the new people (as enthusiastic and hard working as their predecessors) won’t have the same level of expertise. It will take at least a work generation (about 30-40 years) to get back to the level we were at before Harper’s cuts were put into effect.

I understand that many Canadians believe that Federal Civil Servants are a lazy bunch, but I have seen them at work, putting in long hours of unpaid overtime to try to make Canada a better place. Many of them take courses on their own time and their own dime in order to up their qualifications. Sure, like any other company, there are problems who sneak in under the radar, but they are dealt with – just like they are dealt with in the private sector.

I truly believe that, when Canadians realise what has been done to the services they are accustomed to, they are going to scream bloody murder. But it will be too late.

Michel de Nostredame

After last week's post, I was contemplating the universe and remembered the original post by the man who referred to Nostradamus' predictions.


What most people seem to forget is that Michel de Nostredame (which he latinised to Nostradamus) was, first and foremost, an apothecary. That would be a chemist in British terms, a pharmacist in the Canadian lexicon, and a druggist in the American vocabulary. As I read through the jams and jellies section of the book, I was amused by how much sugar was required ... until I recalled that sugar was only available through apothecaries in France in the 16th century.


Nostradamus' book, Traité des fardemens et confitures, was published in 1555 -- although the prologue was dated 1552. It was revised and reprinted about once a year for a number of years. 


Now, it turns out that someone else has already translated the book into English and published it in 1996. You can find it on Amazon, The Elixirs of Nostradamus: Nostradamus' Original Recipes for Elixirs, Scented Water, Beauty Potions, and Sweetmeats, by Knut Boeser.

Here is a version that a friend translated a number of years ago ...

Nostradamus - Quince Jelly Recipe

To make a jelly of quinces, of great beauty, bounty, flavour, and excellence, suitable for presentation to royalty, and which can be preserved for a long time.

Take as many quinces as you like, as long as they are well ripened and yellow. Cut them into quarters without peeling. (Some peel them, but the peel improves the fragrance.) Cut each quince into five or six pieces and remove the seeds, for it will set well without them. After cutting them, put them in a basin full of water for, once they have been chopped or cut, they will soon turn black if they are not placed in water.

Once they have been chopped, set them in a large quantity of water, and heat until the water is almost bubbling.

When they are well cooked, spoon out the contents of the pot into a thick, new cloth, & squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. [In other words, strain out the solid bits, leaving as much of the liquid as possible. ed.]

Take this liquid and, if there are six pounds of liquid, take one and a half pounds of Madeira sugar and add it into the mixture. Then let it boil on coals at medium heat until you see that it reduces significantly.

Put it by a small fire, but take care that it doesn't burn the sides, which would give a bad colour to the jelly.

To test whether the jelly is done, take a spatula, or a spoon, and put a dab of the jelly on a flat surface. When it has cooled, if the drop stays rounded, then it is done. Take it from the fire, and wait until the scum forms over the top. While is still quite warm, put it in containers of wood or glass. If you wish to write something on the box, you can do so.

The colour [of the jelly] will be so diaphanous that it will resemble an oriental ruby, will have such excellent colour, and even better flavour, that it can be given to the sick & will make them better.

Source: Traité des fardemens et confitures

Eclipses and Earthquakes

Last weekend , there was a Ring of Fire (annular eclipse) across Western and Central Canada and the south-western United States.  I was talking to people about it on Yahoo that day when I saw the following post:

* * *

You won't need to see the eclipse. just listen to the new [sic] for the next 48 hours.

There will be earthquakes and mega damages all around the world ... Cayce and Nostradamus have predicted this as well as the Mayans and other past civilizations [sic] for May 20-21, 2012. Prelude to the next 7 months and final Dec 21, 2012.

My reply (which had a number of people up in arms, as well as some supporters):

And just how would the next few days or months differ from the past 50 years (since those are the ones I remember)? These natural disasters go on all the time. But as soon as someone says that it was predicted, everyone starts paying attention for a change and they *think* it's true because they are actually watching the news. It's actually just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

* * *

Well, there were no earthquakes after the eclipse. There was one in Italy, but it was about 24 hours before, so I don’t think we can count it. Not only that, but it was in the interior and also in an area that rarely gets quakes.

Then I recalled hearing that eclipses can affect the tides and make them stronger, thereby triggering earthquakes. Well, never having lived near a body of water that had tides, I didn’t know very much about them ... only what I can recall from holidays to the seaside.

So, I started looking up information.

An earthquake is being predicted for Japan  this coming July. Different sites are claiming that it is being caused by a) the annular eclipse that we just had, and b) a lunar eclipse coming up on June 4^th. To me, they seem to be a trifle distant in time to be causing earthquakes.

But, hey, what do I know? So I went back to the recent tsunami disasters. (Well, recent to me.)

I started with the tsunami that hit Japan on March 11^th of last year. There was an eclipse on December 21, 2010 – over northern Canada. That’s two-and-a-half months before the tsunami hit.

Then I went back to Boxing Day, 2004, when about 350,000 people died in 14 countries around the Indian Ocean. There was an eclipse over two months before – but it crossed from Russia, across the Pacific to North America -- nowhere near the affected area.

Not convinced, I looked at the Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010 – partly because I was personally acquainted with someone who died there. There was a partial lunar eclipse on December 31, 2009 – over northern Africa and across Asia. Am I being entirely too sceptical, thinking that it happened on the other side of the world? There was also an annular eclipse on January 15^th, 2010 – across Africa, Sri Lanka and central China.

Then I started looking up eclipses in general.

1)       There have been 26 lunar eclipses since the beginning of 2001. June 4, 2012 will be number 29. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_eclipses

2)       There have also been 25 solar eclipses since the beginning of 2001. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_solar_eclipses

That makes for a total of 51 so far this century. I haven’t been able to tie most of them to earthquakes or tsunamis at all. If there was a tie-in, I would have expected 51 disasters withing a few days of an eclipse. Not that I want disasters to happen. Far from it.

A huge amount of information is out there and it would take me weeks – if not months – to sift through it all. I found a number of blogs that claim that there is a correlation between eclipses and earthquakes, but no scientific sites.

Until I find such information from a reliable source, I will continue to be a doubting Thomasina, and assume that disasters of this nature happen when and where they happen. I will continue donating to the disaster relief funds, according to my means, and stay out of the way.

Signed, A Sceptic.

Uniquely Canadian Holiday

Victoria Day has a variety of names. May 24^th weekend. May two-four. The two-four weekend – as if it had been named for the number of beer bottles in the case.

My first trip to Europe was in May 1982 – the year of the Falklands War. I had booked my coach tour of the United Kingdom in January. The war started in April. Of course I didn’t have travel insurance. I couldn’t afford it.

Not that I would have cancelled anyway. I was finally going to see some of the places – and some of the things – I had studied in school. I had saved for a long time. Well, it seemed like a long time to me at the age of 25. Nothing was going to prevent me from going to Europe.

I arrived in London in mid-May and took off to see the country. May 24 was a Monday that year and, that day, I passed by a bank. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, and the doors were propped open. I peered inside and it looked just like one of the sets from Mary Poppins. Feeling a trifle bemused, I wandered in. No customers were in line and the pleasant teller asked if she could help me.

“You’re open,” I said, gazing around at the most beautiful bank I’d ever seen.

“Yes,” she replied, appearing a trifle puzzled but smiling.

“But it’s Queen Victoria’s birthday!” I blurted.

“Is it really?” she asked. Another teller joined her, also smiling.

I closed my eyes when the realisation struck me. How stupid could I be? Of course Britons wouldn’t celebrate the birthdays of dead monarchs. They would end up with over 40 holidays a year – and that’s just since 1066! That’s when I realised why Canada celebrates Victoria Day. Queen Victoria was the monarch on the throne during all the years of negotiations leading up to when we actually became a country.

The differences between, say, Canada and the United States? I was already accustomed to those. I lived an hour’s drive from a bridge to the U.S., after all. They made sense to me. But I guess that, being part of the Commonwealth, it hadn’t occurred to me that Victoria Day wasn’t celebrated in other areas. Duh!

Just call me a stupid colonial. (I’m smarter now.)

It's Mother's Day

My mother died over 25 years ago, after two and a half years of battling cancer. She had been due to retire later that month.

I could write about how we rarely saw eye-to-eye, or how we fought on a regular basis, because that is what I remember most about her. Instead, I have recently come to realise how much of a pioneer my mother was. Indeed, all of the women on my mother’s side of the family were strong women who worked hard all their lives.

Let’s start with my maternal grandmother. Grandma Campbell was a teacher. Many people would consider this a suitably feminine role to play in the late 1910’s. In fact, it was a job that was later known as ‘pink collar’ work – women’s work outside the home. What was unusual about Grandma? At a time when female teachers were fired by school boards as soon as they were wed, she was one of the first women in Ontario to teach after she was married.

In the late 1930’s, my grandfather who was a veteran of WWI, had been offered the job of Post Master in eastern Ontario. My grandparents sold their farm on highway 43, and moved into the village of Avonmore. In 1952, my grandfather died and my grandmother was offered the position. Again, it was unusual for women to hold that job – but not unheard of. There were sacks of mail to be hauled around and dealt with. My grandmother would have been 53 at the time and, according to her, had very little trouble lugging the mail. The only time she had difficulty was each December, with the Christmas rush.

Meanwhile, my mother had also become a teacher in the late 1940’s. She married in 1952. Fortunately for her, teachers were allowed to stay on at their jobs after they were married. It was almost expected by this point.

I was born in early May in the mid-50’s. During these years there was no such thing as maternity leave -- and very little sick leave. It was also the time when Grade 8 students had to write entrance exams at the end of June in order to be allowed into high school. My mother was concerned about her students (in a one room school) and the reviews she wanted to cover with them before the exams. At the beginning of June, she was back at school – taking me with her. I’m told she put a blanket on the floor and set me on it – as farm wives had done for centuries to keep an eye on their infants while going about their kitchen chores.

So, at the tender age of one month, I went to school. I’m not sure how much I could possibly have absorbed, but I was later considered one of the ‘bright brats’, as we were sometimes termed, and put into an accelerated program. But I’m no pioneer, so enough of me ...

In 1962, we moved to Ottawa. My father had been working for TCA (Trans Canada Airlines), the precursor of Air Canada, and was commuting an hour each way. My mother got a job in the Nepean Township School Board. In the interview, she was promised a salary of $4,000 per year. When she arrived to teach there, having given up her previous job in Long Sault, she was informed that she would be earning $3,600 per year instead.

Later that year, my grandmother called us and said she was lonely and could she come and live with us? I was ecstatic because I missed Grandma terribly. That was when she gave up her job as Post Mistress, at the age of 63, and moved to Ottawa. She started supply teaching with the Ottawa Public School Board in order to augment her pension.

I remember playing with other kids my age in our neighbourhood and hearing their mothers make pitying remarks to me about the fact that my mother worked. I couldn’t understand why the comments were being made. Everyone worked, didn’t they? I also couldn’t understand what these women did all day. As far as I could see, they met for coffee, went shopping, and watched the soaps. They certainly didn’t do arithmetic flash cards with their kids, as my parents did with me, and then had the temerity to wonder out loud why I was doing so well in school.

In the mid-1960’s, my mother realised that it wouldn’t be long before all teachers in Ontario would be required to have a university degree – and that no one would be exempt. So, a couple of years before the ruling came down that they had to start taking courses, she signed up for a university course during the summer. My grandmother was given the job of keeping me quiet and, preferably, out of the house.

I realise now how scared my mother must have been. She had been out of school for over 15 years at that point and the prospect of studying and developing good study habits must have been terrifying – especially when you consider that her continued employment hinged on getting grades good enough to graduate.


By the mid-1970's my mother had her BA and her Master's degree in Education. She was qualified to teach every option available from Kindergarten through to grade 8 -- including woodwork and metalwork. Her favourite position, though, was a the school librarian.

Flash forward to my first job and filing my first income tax.

Mom helped me understand how to read government forms – and how to call and ask for clarification if I was puzzled by what was written. She could have done it for me – after all, she did the books for my father’s business which he had started in the early 1970’s – but she wanted me to learn to do it myself. After a couple of years, she and I would sit down together and, starting with the same information, see who could do it the fastest. Then we would compare results. If we got the same number, I copied it out in good and my taxes were done – usually in under an hour.

It was also in the 1970’s that I realised that farming doesn’t pay the bills – at least, dairy farming in eastern Ontario didn’t pay enough to live on. This was one reason why all my female cousins worked outside the home – aside from wanting to prevent a stagnation of the brain.

I hadn’t realised until, a few years ago, that these women in my family were the grassroots of the Feminist Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. I’m proud to be related to them.

I'm concerned

Last August, my doctor had me go for an ultrasound because, given my age and weight, she wanted to check for a fatty liver. There appeared to be a cyst attached to one of the kidneys, so she arranged for some more tests (a CT scan and an MRI) packed me off to an appointment with a urologist. Those tests showed that it was not on the kidney, but attached to the outside of the adrenal gland.

I was packed off to a surgeon. This surgeon (I saw him just before Christmas) had me do some tests. To prepare for the test, I had to give up caffeine (including chocolate, of course), pain killers (including my arthritis medicine), and fruit -- for three days! Strangely enough, it was the fruit that was the most difficult for me. When I get up in the morning, I immediately have a glass of juice. Breakfast is usually an apple. My favourite bagels have raisins in them. You are probably seeing a pattern here. If I could live on fruit, I would. After two failed attempts, I finally managed the test.

When the results of that test came in, I was informed that I would have an appointment with an endocrinologist.  Turns out, it's not a cyst. It's a tumour. I have a condition called pheochromocytoma. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001380/

Tumours of this type are fairly rare and almost never outside the gland. Mine is. They are rarely malignant. Given that I'm bucking the odds on this, I'm a little scared right now. I'm the same age my mother was when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I know that ovarian cancer is not hereditary, but the parallels have me spooked.

Anyway, among other questions, the doctor asked if I had experienced high blood pressure recently. I told him yes. He put the cuff on me and checked. Normal reading. I had to explain to him that it's only in the last few years that I could get up without feeling dizzy. I've always had a problem with low blood pressure. High is a relative term. Then he asked if I'd had hand tremors or a racing pulse. I replied yes, but only when reading a letter from my ex's lawyer. He ducked his head to hide the smile, but I could see his shoulders shaking. Maybe, at our next appointment, he'll realise that I am using humour to cope with the stress.

One of the problems with removing this tumour is that, when it is removed from the adrenal gland, the gland sometimes goes into overdrive. This can boost the blood pressure off the charts. So, on top of having it removed, I will probably be in the hospital for a few days. I'm so glad I live in Canada.

To be absolutely certain that he knows as much as possible before arranging for the surgery, I have to do the  same tests again to verify the results from the first test. Bummer. I'll have to prepare for it over the weekend and do it on Monday because my birthday is next Thursday. I'm having meals with several friends towards the end of the week and don't want to limit what I can eat.

The good news is ... my liver is just fine.

National Job Fair

The National Job Fair, in Toronto, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

After I got the insert from The Sunday Sun, I found the list of companies that would be attending, along with the floor plan. I put a tick mark next to the names of all the companies I was interested in -- including the ones I'd never heard of.

Then, I spent the better part of Monday googling them. I whittled the initial list of 43 companies down to 8. This included 5 high tech companies and 3 placement agencies.

I spent the whole of the next day updating my résumé, printing out enough copies, and developing a covering flyer. Yes, a covering flyer -- not a covering letter. I would write a covering letter if I were applying for a specific job but, with this situation, I thought I needed something more generic. After all, I wasn't even sure that they needed technical writers or editors. I ended up with:

*

Hi,

I am a writer and editor with over twenty years’ experience, including:

· computer manuals (especially for novice users)

· software changes

· telecommunications

· user manuals for manufacturing equipment

· ISO 9000 documents

· newsletters

· publicity

My specialty is helping small to medium sized companies with documentation problems. I work at your site or mine, for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months – depending on the project.

I’ve attached my résumé so, even if you don’t need a writer or editor now, you’ll have it if you need one in the future. Should that day come, I hope you’ll think of me.

*

Wednesday morning was cool, windy, and sunny. I parked my car at the TTC lot and took the subway downtown to Union Station on Front Street. I decided to take the indoor route because of the wind tunnel effect of all the office towers. What a mistake! I think I walked to Mississauga and back by the time I found the right place. Fortunately, I had worn comfortable shoes.

When I finally got into the right building, I had a view of the show from the level above. It was a seething mass of humanity, and I nearly turned around and went home right then. I hate crowds. I truly do. But having spent almost 3 days getting ready, plus the gas to drive in to Toronto, I thought I'd better give it a try.

I was daunted by the line up just to pay to get in to the show, but it moved fairly quickly. At $4.95, the advertised cost of entry to the show included tax -- a pleasant change. Inside the Job Fair itself, it didn't seem so bad. People bumped, of course, but everyone was very polite and civilised.

I went to all eight booths, and talked to people at each one. A couple of them have no need for technical writers or editors, which was fine. I just kept going.

In less than an hour, I was done.

The covering flyer had worked, too. I had two companies show an interest in me -- one of them quite keen on the fact that I had worked with the ISO 9000 standard.

Now to see if this effort translates into a job offer.

I bought a copy of the Toronto Sun

Normally, I don't read The Toronto Sun. In fact, I can't stand its fascist diatribes. But I don't mind other people reading The Sun at work. In fact, I think it's rather amusing that the guys I work with seem to think I'm bothered by something as tame as the Sunshine Girl.

But when I was working on Saturday night / Sunday morning, I ended up with nothing to read ... except The Sun from the previous Wednesday. I flipped through it quickly, trying not to let my fingers touch too much of it, only to discover that the National Job Fair will be held in Toronto this Wednesday and Thursday. The advertisement also mentioned that there would be a 20 page insert about the Fair in the Sunday Sun.

Oh, great. Just great. I hadn't seen any advertisements about the Job Fair in either the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. Now, in all fairness, I didn't read both papers every day last week, so I might have missed something. But neither paper mentioned it in the Saturday editions, either, that I saw.

So, I went into the convenience store Sunday morning on my way home from work. I approached the newspaper rack and, automatically, my hand reached out for the Globe and Mail ... but the Globe doesn't publish on Sundays and I'd already read the Saturday edition! My stomach churned with embarrassment as I reached down for a copy of The Toronto Sun -- on which I had (years before) bestowed the cognomen The Toronto Stunned. I felt like I was betraying literate people everywhere.

I grabbed it and went to the cash ... better to get out of here quickly before someone I knew saw me with this rag in my hand. Why, oh why didn't I think to go out of town to buy this?

Gritting my teeth, I got to the cash.

"Pearl," piped up the cashier, accepting my money, "why aren't you getting the Star or the Globe?" (Just my luck that I get the one clerk who knows my buying habits.) Then I flipped through the pages, grabbed the insert about the Job Fair, and asked the cashier to throw the rest in the garbage.

The paper had, finally, been marginally useful.

Last course

I've finally signed up for my last course at UofT. Well, the last one for my Certificate in Creative Writing. There will be others if I can afford them.

The thing is, I've tweaked the first hundred pages so much, that I'm not sure what it says anymore! I need to settle down and review those pages one more time before sending them off to my faculty advisor.

Story

I am currently working through comments on my novel from my proofreader. There are a number of things to be dealt with.

And I thought I was doing so well!

It's allergy season

Yes, it's allergy season for me. As a result, I'm struggling to stay awake for more than 12 hours a day ... and struggling, during those few hours, to think coherently. It also seems to affect my ability to spell. While I was typing out the last sentence, I spelled 'during' as 'juring'. Hey, that's how it's pronounced, right? Then I stared at it. I knew it was wrong, but couldn't think of the correct spelling for a minute.

Sure, I could use the online spellchecker, but I think you'll agree with me that it has -- at best -- a limited vocabulary. The online spellchecker doesn't correct words that are words, but not the word that's wanted for that particular space, grammatically speaking (or, in this case, writing). No, my beef with spellcheckers lies in the fact that they inform me that I should be using some other word -- completely unsuited to the context -- because it does not recognise the word I've chosen.

Anyway, I'm off to sleep some more so that -- with luck -- I'll stay awake at work later.

I thought I was the last ...

For those of you who have never heard of him, Rick Mercer is a Canadian comedian and pundit with a television show. He has a quintessentially Canadian view of politics (if we don't laugh about it, we'll cry). But more than that, he interviews people from all over Canada about all sorts of things, from their interesting jobs, to their unusual celebrations or hobbies, to the teams taking part in various sports. His website, with selected pieces archived from his show, is here:

http://rickmercer.com/

I just found this skit about the last person to start a blog in North America:

http://www.youtube.com/mercerreport#p/c/20D68A4847393FEF/24/5p7K0LvK_fk

(Darn - I thought I was the last!)

Polite Cat

The strangest thing about reading my novel aloud is, Alexander the Great (my cat) hears me talking, walks into the room and sees that I'm alone, and starts talking to me. He seems to be under the impression that I'm talking to him.

Well, there's no one else there, right?

Alex waits for me to pause -- usually when I'm marking up the manuscript -- and then starts meowing. He doesn't interrupt at all. Such a polite cat.

The oddest thing about this is, he doesn't do it when I'm on the phone.

The End of an Era - Death of A. Trevor Hodge

A. Trevor Hodge was a renowned scholar, a brilliant teacher, and a fun person. His classes were full to overflowing and, sometimes, they were students who weren't even registered. They just wanted to hear what he had to say.

When I was in my third year at Carleton, I managed to get into his class on Ancient Science and Technology. There were 108 people in the course, because it was a popular with engineering and science students as their arts elective. Of that number, there were four of us who were Classical Civilisation majors.

It was a full year course and we had the option of doing two essays or an essay and a hands-on project demonstrating the technology of the ancient Mediterranean world. It was an evening course and, as I entered the theatre, I could tell where most of the students had had dinner -- The Pub. The place reeked of beer.

A couple of weeks in, Professor Hodge was demonstrating a replica of an early drill. He had a piece of scrap wood and was demonstrating how the drill worked on the floor of the theatre, which was concrete. 108 students couldn't all see, so he moved it up to the (wooden) desk. He got talking, and the drill kept drilling, and it was a rhythmic movement and before he realised it, Professor Hodge had drilled a hole into the desk!

The following week, one of the engineers showed up with a tube of plastic wood and filled the hole. Hodge thanked him, and we were off on another class -- how the Egyptians used screws in cases to irrigate fields with Nile water. I suppose we should have been grateful that no previous students had built that as a project.

Hodge had gone to Europe to measure aquaducts. (I'm not sure exactly when it was, but I heard this story in the mid-1980's.) Toward the end of his trip, his rental car was stolen along with his briefcase, which contained all his notes, that had been in the back seat. He had to recreate the entire thing from memory, and managed to do it.

Yet, when he arrived home from another trip, he walked right past his wife who was there to meet him at the airport. Apparently, he didn't recognise her -- which doesn't really surprise me, after all. She wasn't a Roman arch made of stone!

I remember reading a few years ago, among the Letters to the Editor of the Globe and Mail, a note that appeared a couple of days after one of Trevor's witty insights. It went something like this:

Dear Sir, Why do you insist on calling him A Trevor Hodge,

when he is clearly The Trevor Hodge?

*

Here is what Carleton University had to say about him:

http://www2.carleton.ca/chum/2012/dr-a-trevor-hodge-1930-2012

Addendum:

I just found out that he had a blog! http://www.trevorscolumn.com/?page_id=2

It turns out that, in his retirement, he had started giving lectures on cruise ships ... I can see him now, banging the drum to help keep the rowers in time.

He was also writing a mystery novel.
http://brendachapman.blogspot.com/2012/02/puttering-away-my-saturday.html

Living History vs Introversion

It has been over two years since I last attended a living history event.

I used to belong to two different groups: one that was inclusive (Mediaeval / Renaissance) and one that was more focused (Viking Age). When I moved to southern Ontario, I tried to continue my level of activity with them, but found that I wasn't enjoying it as much.

Then last year I realised that, for the first time in my life, I am happy. I don't spend my time on the road every weekend. I don't have to socialise with people I really don't care for -- in order to see the people I do like. And, best of all, it's quiet, low stress, peaceful ... well, you get the idea.

I have always had limited tolerance for noise, and bright lights, and too many people -- especially too many people. I used to come home from a stressful day at work and I would close the drapes and the door, and sit, cross legged in the middle of my bed. Sometimes, I would pet one of the cats. This was how I dealt with stress.

Yes, I am an introvert.

Now, introversion is not the same as shyness. That is, an introvert can be shy, but it doesn't necessarily follow. According to Myers Briggs, the difference between an introvert and an extravert is where they get their energy. Introverts get it from being alone or with one or two close friends. Extraverts get it from being surrounded by people.

As I'm growing older, I find myself getting more and more introverted. So, maybe it's time to get rid of all the clothes for different periods of history. I've been complaining about my lack of space anyway ...

Adverbs

One of the other tidbits I have learned in my courses at UofT, is to get rid of the adverbs. Why, I asked, would I want to remove a perfectly acceptable part of speech? After all, adverbs and I go 'way back. In fact, I think it was Grade 6 when we were introduced, and I started learning how to parse a sentence.

The reasoning is this: if you are using adverbs, your verbs may be weak. For example, I can say

Darrell walked confidently into the room

or I can say

David strutted into the room

or

Janet sashayed into the room.

The second two examples tell us as much about the person's state of mind, as they do about the style of walk.

As I was writing my novel in the fall, if I had an adverb, I would pause and try to think of a stronger verb. But there were times when the correct word just wasn't there for me. So, I used the weak verb with its modifier. After the rough draft was complete, I went through the document searching for 'ly' and replacing those phrases with stronger verbs. A few have been left in, mostly in dialogue, because people use adverbs in everyday communication. It's part of our normal speech patterns.

However, after reading sections BAM and AAM (before adverb removal and after adverb removal), I can say that the parts without adverbs are definitely stronger, and pack more punch. The adverbs seemed to point up how weak the verbs were ... or, maybe, I'm just noticing it now.

Novice Plumber

I don’t know what it is, but on sunny days I have this burning need to do chores around the house. Today was a gorgeously sunny day, a few degrees above zero (Celsius), and I was particularly busy.

First off, I should say that I have very little problem with philosophy or the theoretical side of physics. Plumbing, however, was completely beyond me until I moved to southern Ontario and had extremely hard water to deal with.

So, having been here for three and a half years, it shouldn’t surprise me that my showerhead jets were starting to clog up. So were the taps on the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen.

Mentally, I girded my loins and hauled out my Dad’s old adjustable spanner. The shower head came off quite easily, as did the nozzles on the taps. I filled up an old bowl with CLR and soaked them, then scraped, then soaked some more. It took the better part of the afternoon, but it was worth it to have done it myself. I know it’s not *real* plumbing, but it’s the level I’m at, and I’m proud that I did it.

Anyway, late this afternoon, I rinsed the pieces and put them back on, and they work – with no parts left over!

Be careful what you ask for ...

Newt Gingrich did not support SOPA because he (apparently) said that people, who believe that their copyrighted work had been used without their permission, know how to sue those who have stolen their work. Now, it appears that he has been using the song "Eye of the Tiger" to herald his arrival at political events since 2009 -- without permission.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/30/gingrich-sued-for-using-eye-of-the-tiger-in-campaign/

Amazing band

I believe that I have found a group whose raw energy pulses through the musicians, their music, and on out to the listeners, in a manner equal to The Who. In order to comprehend the magnitude of my statement, you need to know that I have been a loyal fan of The Who since the late 1960's ... when I was in public school. These videos of the group Clanadonia have me wanting to get up and dance -- a rarity, I assure you.

The first one is called Egyptian. It has pictures of members of the group, as opposed to footage of their performance. That's okay, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95oz0hPeqxE&feature=related

This one was taken by a tourist who happened across the group on one of their street performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHch3mV5SG8&feature=fvwrel

Ya Bassa is a long video -- almost nine minutes -- but I think it's worth watching, if only to see how they work with the crowd. It was taped at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEq9Qhx1bGI&feature=related

And, last that I will list here (for now), is one with only a single image, but well worth it -- Tyler's Lament.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAC70RIpw3o&feature=related

Editing

One thing I've learned from my teachers at the University of Toronto is -- once I have marked up my story, novel, or whatever -- read it aloud.

At first, I felt kind of stupid reading my prose out; after all, I live alone, except for my cat. But they suggested this as a self-editing technique, so I was determined that I was going to try it.

The first few pages went smoothly because I had already polished them several times. I was on the fifth page of my novel when I started hearing flaws that my eyes hadn't caught. One problem was that there were occasionally too many sounds were the same in a short space, even though they looked different on the page. Another flaw was that, in trying to vary my sentence length, Isometimes had run-on sentences. Other times, I used people's names too close together when there was a group chatting.

Some of these problems I can put down to the rush to get 50,000 words of my story out of me and into the computer in 30 days. But I'm not rushed now. I have no excuse for these errors.

Reading my story out loud has also helped me slow down and find errors in my punctuation. I though MSWord was supposed to catch these sorts of typos.

But the most important aspect to this technique has been to make me stop and think about what I'm reading -- and whether or not it's moving the story along. In the first 85 pages, I've now cut 7 pages. There was one scene (a little over 3 pages) that did not move the story forward or tell us anything new about the characters involved in it. I had read it silently several times and had been quite pleased with it, but I tend to read quickly so it didn't seem as long. Reading it aloud is a slower task but, oh, so worth it. Out it went.

Now finished 100 pages (of 245) and am ready to keep going as soon as I've finished the latest round of paperwork for my separation.

Rev. Eugene (Jeep) Green is dead

I remember Rev. Green vividly from my high school days in Ottawa. He was the Anglican priest who led the ecumenical services, known as Prayers at my school, most mornings. We shared him with a boys' school a few blocks away.

His wife worked in the office at the school and his daughter was in junior school when I was a senior.

When I was in university, my friend's kid brother (who went to the boys' school) was grumbling about how no one ever showed up to cheer them on at their curling matches. My friend and I started going to them, and then it became a habit ... made all the more pleasant because Rev. Green was the coach. I asked him how he got the nickname Jeep. He told me that, when he was a kid, there was a cartoon called 'Eugene the Jeep'. His first name was Eugene, so he got tagged as Jeep.

Fast forward to middle age (mine) ... I was taking music composition lessons from a friend. She wouldn't accept any money for it, but I wasn't comfortable taking something for nothing. She was the organist and choir director for All Saints Westboro Anglican Church on Richmond Road, and mentioned that she could use another Second Soprano. So, I started going to that church and was delighted to discover that Rev. and Mrs. Green were living in the parish! It felt so good to see them each Sunday, as the choir processed and recessed.

When my father died in 2003, I turned to Rev. Green to perform the funeral service. I couldn't imagine asking anyone else, and I couldn't have asked for a kinder, more thoughtful person. Rev. Green may not have recalled my father from my high school days, but he didn't say so. It was a lovely service.

Jeep Green will be deeply missed and, given how many of my friends are asking for details about his funeral, I'm not the only one who will miss him.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ottawacitizen/obituary.aspx?n=eugene-green&pid=155706663

So frustrating!

How I love chatting with my friend in Sydney (Australia, not Nova Scotia). But, why is it that Facebook seems to act up the most when we are IMing?

It can't have anything to do with online piracy. I'm not egotistical enough to think that someone is absolutely fascinated by my FB posts and comments, but we were on for about an hour when I got dropped and can't get back on.

Maybe I should be doing housework instead of IMing ... nah. I should, however, be tweaking the first hundred pages of my novel to get it ready to hand in to my teacher in March.

Kim Dotcom

Well, it really was only a matter of time.

While I don't believe a whole lot of what the FBI spouts, I believe nothing at all that I read in the Toronto Sun. This means that I can read what passes for news in that tabloid ... and shake my head in disbelief.

Take, for example, the article from January 22 of this year. Apparently, the FBI were involved in apprehending Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom, in New Zealand, for his alleged ownership of Megaupload.com -- a site that was actively involved in selling pirated items.

The article claimed that this site had generated $175 million from subscriptions and advertising. It also quoted the FBI as saying that Schmitz had garnered $42 million personally in 2010.

First, the last time I checked, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not allowed to operate outside the U.S.A., just like the Central Intelligence Agengy is not allowed to operate within the U.S. Agencies in the United States seem to be very jealous of their jurisdictions / territories. I just can't see the FBI operating in New Zealand. The CIA, maybe.

Second, I think these figures may be on the conservative side. $175 million? How many years has it been in operation? And Kim Dotcom / Schmitz received a quarter of that in one year alone? Something's funny here. Of course, that could be bad reporting.

Kim is being hailed as a hero of the little guy, a kind of modern day Robin Hood, if you will. But, given the size of the mansion he was living in (picture in paper, and my scanner not working) and the fleet of about 20 cars -- including, if we are to believe the report, a pink Cadillac and a Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe.

I would have a whole lot more respect for him if he had given the bulk of his money to charity. As it is, I think he's just as greedy as the big movie studios -- and no different.

Reflections on SOPA

Now that it's dead in the water, I think it's time to consider what the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was trying to achieve.

I know that there are a lot of people who think they should have access to other people's work for free, but it seems unfair to deny a living to the people who did the work in the first place.

For example, I have just finished my first novel. If I can sell it to a publishing house, and they actually print and distribute it, I will receive about 10% of the cover price for each book sold. So, if a book is $8, I should receive about 80 cents for each copy that gets sold.

It took me two months to write the book, but the idea had been running around in the back of my mind for years, so it wasn't really starting from scratch. I have a friend proofreading it for me. He's been at it for almost a month, and it's a heavy slog because Word didn't catch most of the errors. By the time I finish this, it will be the beginning of June -- seven months after I started -- and that's just my time, not my proofreader's time. Add the proofreader, and that makes it eight months of almost all my time to write this book and whip it into a decent shape.

During that eight months, I will have held down a part-time job to help stave off my creditors. If I actually sell it (and I'm not holding my breath, here), a big seller in Canada is about 50,000 copies, or so I've been told. Well, that's not likely to happen with a first novel, especially in genre fiction. So, say it sells 20,000 copies in Canada -- a nice round figure. Multiply that by 80 cents, and that's $16,000. Sounds like a lot, but it's under the poverty line, and I still have to pay the proofreader, and income tax and, by this point, I'll need an agent. That's another cut out of the $16k -- anywhere from 10-15%.

Okay, say that I keep churning out a book a year that my editor wants to publish. It's difficult, but not impossible. Gradually, my readership increases and I have a Canadian bestseller on my hands! That would bring in about $40,000. Let's face it. I'll never get rich doing this -- but that's okay because I love doing it.

Now, say that someone buys one of my later books in the first week that it's out. They take the time to scan it and put it up on the internet. They might put it out there for free, or they sell it. Either way, I'm not getting anything for it. Some of my readers might decide to read it online because they think books are too expensive and, hey, the author is rich anyway, right? All of a sudden, fewer of my books sell. And if it happens a couple of times in a row, I may not be able to sell the next book to my editor, because my sales are 'way down. The publishing house will get the impression that people don't want to read my stuff anymore.

No matter how I cut it, I'll never be able to make a great living as a Canadian writer, even without online piracy. With it, I might as well give up now.

*

The link below was posted by a film director a few days ago during the big SOPA protest. I know nothing about making films, so found his comments about how indie films are financed to be interesting.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/james-kerwin/on-this-day-of-internet-blackouts/10151170939155277

What I learned from NaNoWriMo in 2011

I learned several things about myself this past autumn, including:

- I will not accomplish anything without a deadline.

- an outline is useful, but is not cast in stone. I can even change the outline if something is not right for the characters. (In fact, I did have to introduce some extra secondary characters.)

- when I am on a roll and typing in the dialogue that I am 'hearing', I can write as much as 700 wds / hour. If I have to stop and figure out what comes next, I am down to about 400 wds / hour.

- my best places to write are 1) in the meeting room of the local public library and 2) a local coffee shop that is not a chain. The library is cheaper.

Most important of all, I learned that I could write a rough draft of a book in 45 days (not counting the couple of weeks for outline, so ... maybe I should include it in my estimate and say ~60 days). It may not be a great book, but it's done. Editing is the easy part -- well, relatively speaking.

I will definitely enter it again this year.

Meanwhile, there is the Script Frenzy in April. It is put on by the same organisation as does the National Novel Writing Month. I've never written a script before ... have no idea how to go about it. Hi-ho! It looks like a trip to the library for me.

I did it!

Last year, I made a New Year's Resolution to finish a novel.

I thought, at first, that I was going to finish the historical I had started (many) years before. In fact, I ended up polishing the existing sections for several months and wrote very little that was actually new.

Frustrated, I looked around for some inspiration, and on September 1, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to write 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days. 1,667 words per day.

It scared me because, even though I had written books and articles before, I had no idea how many words they were. I simply wrote until it was done. Of course, that was non-fiction. Okay, they were technical manuals. This was the first time I had a deadline for my fiction -- other than the assignments for class.

The rules were fairly simple.

- it must be a work of fiction -- that's the whole point of this.

- we can have an outline, background on the characters, etc., but we cannot start writing until12:00:01 a.m. on November 1.

- it's on the honour system. As they say on the NaNo site: "since the only real prize of NaNoWriMo is the self-satisfaction that comes with pulling off such a great, creative feat, we don’t really worry too much about people cheating. Those who upload 50,000 words they copied from Wikipedia.org just to see their name on the Winner’s page are pitiful indeed."

- winners are determined by the online validation process on the NaNo website. The 50k word count must be validated by midnight on November 30 in order to be a winner.

So, the beginning of September saw me feverishly pounding away at an outline. I finished it in a couple of weeks and thought "well, that was fun, but what am I going to do between now and the beginning of November?" In order to maintain my excitement about the project, I decided to work up two more outlines so that, when the time came, I'd be able to choose whichever story appealed to me the most that particular day.

November 30, I had 54k+ words, but wasn't finished the story. Realising that a lack of deadlines were what had kept me from succeeding in finishing my fiction before, I went onto facebook and announced that I was going to finish the story by December 15.

Then I got my first paid editing contract in 4 years ... of course.

I still finished the rough draft -- at 11:40 p.m. on December 15. Then I went back and dealt with the questions I had entered as footnotes (so I could keep on writing). The first draft (that I would let anyone else see) was finished at 5 a.m. on December 24. Just in time to give it to a few close friends for Christmas.

The result was a novel that was 70k+ words. 245 pages, double spaced, Times 12.

So, I'm going to do it again this year.

More info can be found at http://www.nanowrimo.org