Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Page Numbers � Solar Flare: Science Fiction News Blog

Ok I may be a geek (computer, Scouting, wargames (table-top and computer) etc. ) but this is just silly, I admire single minded dedication to a topic of study and I really like Harry Potter books but come on folks - isn't worrying about the number of pages / chapters in a book grasping at straws. 'We can't find out anything else about the plot so we'll make the number of pages news?' The book will come out when it comes out.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Page Numbers � Solar Flare: Science Fiction News Blog

Sheesh

The Globe and Mail: Craig Chandler

The Globe and Mail: Craig Chandler

My Letter to the Editor in response to Mr Chandler's article.


Dear Editor;

Increasingly I'm torn, where do people like me who are socially very liberal turn? For example, I have no problem with early term abortion, distribution of and information on birth control or same-sex marriage. I support immigration to Canada and I am actively and personally concerned about the environment.

On the other hand I'm generally financially conservative for example I support gun control in principal but the gun registry is a waste of money. The amount of money paid to Quebec advertising companies apalls me and the waste canceling and re-issuing the helicopter contract is beyond words. This continues with submarines that leak, or burn.

In the middle of all this I support a strong war-ready military, not a peacekeeper force, though I'm proud of our continued success as peacekeepers. Our soldiers need decent pay, good uniforms and boots - not leaky submarines that waste taxpayers money. (It's tough to lend aid to a foreign country with a submarine) We need to be able to move those soldiers and their equipment anywhere in the world they are needed when they are needed - not two weeks later.

One third of what I make is taken by the government but I think that I've shown that most of that is squandered. We've paid down the deficit and we're working on the debt but I still haven't seen any real tax help.

If I support the Liberals I support further waste. If I support the Conservatives I pick up a set of baggage that I don't want. I'm an active Christian (Anglican) and the growth in the Evangelical movement scares me. I think that Bush is both scary and Nuts, and we were right to stay out of missile defense. I support a strong West - I think that a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money is spent keeping Quebecers 'happy' when in fact they are probably doing just fine really and would most likely be happier if we stopped interfering.

Where do 'middle of the roaders' like me actually turn? I won't support the unions by supporting the NDP and while the Green Party is getting there they aren't yet ready for prime time, but I'm listening to them.

I would suggest that many of my positions more closely resemble the opinions of the majority Canadians than Mr Chandler's article does but no party truly represents me very closely at all.

Let's not follow the American example of polarization to blue and red camps - let's follow the Canadian tradition of attempting to find a socially sensitive middle road.

Evan, Winnipeg

Friday Afternoon

Ever have one of those months? I was supposed to go camping this weekend and I'm not going to make it - not because I didn't have time it's just that frankly I don't want to - I have a bunch of stuff to do at home (not even New Being (NB) related actually) and other items that I'd 'like to get to' if I can.

One of the big ones is painting the master bedroom - we've been at that one for a week+ we have one wall and the bathroom left to get done, I've been beat most nights this week (with no real reason to be).

Tonight we're hosting a Murder (no, nothing criminal) a dinner party where guests play the part of characters in the story and together they try and solve the plot. That doesn't start until 7:30 and won't clear up until midnight at least.

Tomorrow I want to try and make an early start - paint the room and hope it has time to dry before I move the furniture back and try and move back in. Then we can clean up the spare bedroom.

All seems horribly mundane doesn't it? It's been a long time since I was able to devote serious consistent time to gaming or other relaxing pursuits, and with NB on the way I doubt that I will anytime soon...

Currently - finishing lunch, writing a new report for my current client, listening to the beeping of the students working on their forklift certification in the room where I'm programming - whew propane exhaust... sheesh.

Hey 'New Being' enroute

On Christmas day, during the Prayers of the People at church S. and I inserted the announcement that a 'New Being' is enroute to our home - and actually has been for some 90+ days. We felt that it was important for the prayers to have some positive news in them - too often we are pray only for sick or the dead - this seemed like just the thing to add to the joy of the evening.

So wish us luck - I'm in serious Data Acquisition Mode - Full 5 here - 2 books down for the count and I've already made 2 hunting trips to the bookstore and my amazon wish list has even more. I started The Big Red Book of Baby Planning (not a book, but my hardcopy planning, shopping and note-taking journal) and am ready to take notes and clip ads and articles with wild abandon! Now it's not exactly a fair comparison because S. has no choice but to be the carrying end of this team but that's ok - I have a basement to finish and a nursery to build.

Merry Christmas - may the spirits alive around the world this night bring you peace and joy.

Christmas Rundown

Recently a church where I live had the Christmas lights stolen off their building. The parish had gotten together and raised $400 to pay for new low energy LED lights (which are just becoming widely available in Canada) and spent a fair amount of time getting them all up for the coming Sunday.

That Saturday night someone stole the lights off of the church (you know - the old punishment for desecration a church was hanging!). It's Christmas time and you steal lights off of a church -somewhere along the way we've seriously missed the boat here - when Christmas becomes more about what you have hanging off of your house than it does being kind and generous with strangers, friends and family then we are in real trouble.

Sigh...

Hockey Smockey - I want my newspaper back!

If you're a hockey fan you're not going to like this, I'd skip to the next post...

In the interests of full disclosure - I don't play hockey, watch hockey (never been to a game), skate, wack frozen bits of rubber on ice or out front on the street, hip check people (except when attempting to dance), drink beer, or subscribe to any sports TV channel or web site (the concept of 'sports reporter' is a joke, I don't even read the section of the paper that says sports) - the only reason that I'm commenting on this at all is because this nonsense is invading the front page of my newspaper and my websites - that makes it fair game.

The NHL players recently offered a 24% pay cut for their players. Now let's understand some statistics; for a player making 17 million in 5 years that reduces their income from 3.4 million to 2.58 million dollars per year.

And now a couple of questions: a) why does any one doing anything need to make that much b) The 2002 average Canadian income for a two parent double income family with kids is $67,700 (2002 dollars Source: Statistics Canada) that means that this player makes 38 Times as much and he (note that this is a male-only sport at this level) gets to do what he loves to do - play hockey.

And they are offering a 24% cut - humm this is a little like the sales at Canadian Tire, Sears etc. An item comes in and sells for 59.99 - eventually it drops to $19.99 (or less) on sale. As these companies avoid (not absolutely but generally) selling anything at a net loss that means that the wholesale price was under $19.99 to begin with and they started at a 200% markup.

I wonder - if players make 3.4 million, and they've put themselves on sale for 2.58 maybe we should just wait a while and they will eventually drop to a level that makes more sense - maybe in the 200K range.

Please everyone that is worried about Hockey - get a life - go to the library, buy a book, build something, play soccer (most of the rest of the world does), play Quidditch (if you read you'd know what that is) , take a trip someplace warm (without hockey) the world will NOT end if you don't see Don Cherry (don't even get me started on him)

Sigh...

Open House Round-up

Well, the open house has come and gone and was a great success. We had lots of friends, good food and fun for hours on Saturday, some 30+ visitors actually.

It's interesting the differences in what we use from year to year - last year we had lots of left over mulled wine, this year we used 1 1/2 batches (we use 30 cup coffee perks to make it) .

It's great to catch up with everyone and see them getting to know each other - a New-Old friend of mine (long story maybe for another post) turns out to have gone to school with our next door neighbor's. We had a chance to visit with our SouthSide neighbor's more than we have in the weeks since freeze up)

Spook (the cat) was so tired by the end of the day - he'd been so scritched, hugged and entertained that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer - it's funny to see a cat try and stay awake just as he fades out.

S. was at a volunteer meeting in the morning and came home at about 1, we were opening our door at 3 so that left it to me to do much of the final cleaning and finishing off the tree. Apparently the Ladies at the meeting were surprised that her husband would do this - I'm continually surprised by this - isn't the idea of being married include splitting up the work even doing stuff you wouldn't normally do if needs require?

Humm - more to think about on that one later - for now I have Christmas shopping to do!

In the 2nd week of Advent 2004 - this is 5Life

Open House To Be

So, the Synod is over and our Open House is rapidly coming up! This annual event takes place in our home every year. I get into baking up a storm, shortbread, butter tarts, cookies and whatever else I can come up with, if anyone knows a recipe for Rice Krispiee cake that doesn't turn as hard a rock in a day or so I'd like to know!).

We've sent out an evite using (www.evite.com) to make it easier and cheaper for people to be invited and to send RSVP's

This weekend we'll take out the decorations, clean up the house and generally try and get ready as much ahead of time as possible!

We need to order glasses (we always rent them - it's not too expensive and is much less work than washing and cleaning everything. )

Then there is the desk in the kitchen to attack - unfortunately we don't use it much as a desk and more of a dumping ground - maybe we need a better chair, in order to make it more usable - it's counter top height so a regular office chair isn't going to work - maybe IKEA has something that will work there.

TTFN

Well I survived the Funeral

Well we survived, it was as long or longer than I had ever hoped was possible. We began by leaving home at noon and arriving in SmallTown USA some 2 Hours later. We stopped by the widow's home (where many grandkids and parents were staging for the trip to the funeral home.)

We then changed and left to go to the Funeral Home at 4 for family prayers - unfortunately I had it in my head that this would be 20-30 minutes long (this was my previous experience) then we could leave and come back at 7 for the memorial service - no such luck. We had family prayers from 4 to 5 then it seemed like the whole population of SmallTown showed up (they had to finally close the funeral home doors) between 5 and 7 to pay their respects. S. and I finally snuck out at 6 to go and get water, gum and hard candies. Then we had a nice 20 minute memorial service.

As a note to those running funerals in the future - take care of the living! Water, tea, coffee and some small nibbles are really a blessing especially for family that has to be there for 3 1/2 hours.

This isn't happy happy joy joy...

Here's an interesting contrast, Wonderful Wife and I are going to have to travel out of province for a day to attend a family function. The contrast comes in when you compare how Wonderful Wife and I approach this situation - I'm not happy, this will involve two days of people I don't know well, dinners, gatherings etc. that will require continued personal interaction - i.e. talking. On top of all of that we're staying with relatives, so there's no escape (not that the relatives are not nice people, they are) the issue here is energy - I see this kind of situation as energy draining, with little or no ability to recover. On the other hand Wonderful Wife sees this as an opportunity to meet with family - generally an energy + evolution.

While it's true that I don't know this branch of the family well, it's also true that I find any large unlimited gathering like this as draining.

I wonder if other 5s find this kind of situation draining as well...hummm

Evan

It just isn't meant to be...

Ever have one of those weeks (months) when things just don't work out... I've been involved in a major project at work for the past several weeks, the initial work I did was horribly tedious and detailed. Requiring very small manual changes to the code that creates printable labels, now that that is all done I've finally been able to go to the client and score a success with good test result.

Now, S. and I need to go off to a family funeral - it's out of province so we'll be away overnight. We need to go, not really an option not to, and of course, one of the days we're going to be away was the day this was to be installed. I doubt that I'll even get mentioned in the 'ataboy' email...

Sigh

Ok so now it's a Deck

Well, we finally have a deck, got the platform up in a day thankfully, glad to have that project completed - now we can close up outside and get ready for the winter. Those of you who don't live in Winnipeg should realize - snow by Halloween is not uncommon - so we're just about out of time.

The Garage is much less full of 'stuff' (extra lumber and other items - much much better than it was before! I was thinking of going for a hike with the Scouts tomorrow but may stay home and clean the garage enough so that we can get the cars in - that would be nice! Then there is the Christmas lights to clean up, the roof to fix a shingle on and a couple of other 'outside' chores that need my attention - oh well and here I thought I was done...

Maybe next week (if it doesn't snow)

Evan

It's a Shed Jim...

We took delivery of our new shed this weekend. Now, this is a wooden kit - not metal. Pre-made trusses etc. kit comes complete with all the nails, shingles, door hardware etc. and (most importantly) instructions. Now here's where we get interesting. being the 5 that I am I'm happy with instructions - I like them - I'll read them a half a dozen times before we even begin to work. The kit got dropped off at about 1 on Sunday and I would have been happy to move the kit pieces to the back yard and then spend the next hour reading 4 pages of instructions. S. on the other hand was happy to go to the backyard and read them as we went along...The compromise was a quick lunch and reading them as we munched. Only got part way yesterday - more to come today.

 

So we can add work working to our summer of Brick...yea....

 

 

 

Mind like a Library

I often think of thinking (which is a 5 thing). I often describe my brain as a big, dusty library, with old librarians moving slowly around pulling old tomes and putting them away after blowing the dust off of them, or sitting in big chairs by the many fireplaces and reading (and falling asleep) sounds like an old tv show actually - The House of Freightenstein - probably where I got the image. There are rooms along the walls that house laboratories etc. (with the occasional kaboom for good measure) but on the whole the place is busy but old, dark and sedate.

S's mind on the other hand could be described as a modern book store, full of life, light, many new books and magazines and CD's and DVD's and giftwear and other stuff, it has a coffee shop for that caffeine hit. Very busy, somewhat disorderly and fun. Interesting contrast no?

I'm shuffling ahead laying the patio in our back yard now, one brick at a time, tap tap tap, level, tap tap tap, level, ok , tap tap tap level the other way, tap tap tap, ok (you get the picture) I'm holding my hammer at the top, near the head and letting it's weight do the work - too much more and I break the brick. S. starts working on brick - she holds a hammer like you should - at the end, and tap tap snunk (the brick has a rather distinctive sound change when it breaks. ) 5 times in a row - which is (of course) annoying for hear and dangerous for me to be around.

I'm going to be ever so happy to be finished this project - both to be finished with the tap tap tap than to be around a happy S again...Sigh tap tap tap...

Bye from the brickyard...

Book recommendation

5's are typically interested in books and this month is no exception - I just picked up Gwynne Dyer's book Ignorant Armies. It discusses the run up to the 2nd Persian Gulf War that we're currently experiencing. Interesting thing is that this book was written over a couple of weeks in 2003 before the war started. Shows you how predictable this whole thing has been.

If you haven't read or heard of Gwynne Dyer before and are at all interested in war and the politics of war check him out. He's very down to earth, not a pacifist, he's served in several navies and taught at Sandhurst. Should be a good read.

Signing off from 5 Space,

Evan

Welcome to the Brickyard

The differences between S. And I (She's a 7 ) are amazing to me some times. I'm not individually goal oriented - that is to say completing the little bits of a project doesn't particularly thrill me, I'm almost always too caught up in 'the big picture' to bother with checking off little boxes on a to do list (if I had a to-do list on paper at all actually) S. On the other hand is really driven by that being marked off the list.

We're working on our brick sidewalk and patio - we have about 15m of sidewalk to lay down and we're proceeding at the rate of about 1m a day. It's going to be well into the August before we're done. Now, I knew that this would be a big project, and had some time ago decided that my summer would be taken up by this particular project.

Now the here's the conflict - I know that this will be a doggedly slow process taking up most if not all of the next month of our time, pretty well every evening that we've got. There isn't a check off here for her, she can't 'win' at this and check something off. To her this is appearing like the 'never ending task' and she's now feeling like we're never going to get done. I on the other hand will slog forward (occasionally bitching about it, I acknowledge) but It'll get done.

7 vs. 5 hummm

Election

Well, it's over and the liberals have a minority government, (for those who don't know that's when no one party in our house has a majority of the seats - 155 would be required I believe in this case), the downside is that this kind of government doesn't last that long and that we're probably going to be back at the polls within 18 months. The upside is that we might, for a change, actually get some responsible government, where the people in the commons actually want to find a solution that pleases several viewpoints (notice I didn't say pleased the voters, because I don't believe for a second that they have changed to actually caring about how their decisions affect middle class Canadians. ) That said, we might get some good decisions from this.

 

The conservative in our riding was trounced by thousands of votes, I'll have to look at a poll by poll analysis when it comes out to see where the strong liberal support actually is, I suspect it's in the north of my riding in the French quarter but I don't have any facts yet to back that up.

 

S. and I are going to make contact with the local Conservative committee and see what we can connect with.

 

I'm sure this is going to be an interesting year...

 

 

 

Colds

I hate getting colds - I was out at the Goldeye's game the other day for the evening and it was very cold and damp, that on top of being tired coming back from the camp may have done it. No I have a sore throat, no other symptoms yet but I'm at that point - don't know if this is going to evolve into a full blown cold or just be an annoyance for a few days.

I have stuff to do this weekend, I don't want to spend the day moping around being sick.

Drat

Cement & Hikes & Attitude

Got back from the hike with my scout group, had a great time turns out that 7km with these kids was just about as much distance as they could take in one go. You know, the technical aspects of camping are important, the gear that I'm using today is amazing, high tech lightweight fabrics and insulation, very light weight stoves and cooking gear. I was still carrying 60-65 lbs of gear but what I got for that weight was impressive. That said, the attitude things with hiking are even more important than equipment (and I'm a 5). We got to bed on Saturday night at 9:30 - everyone was tired and the bugs were really beginning to drive us nuts. Now, the kids didn't get to sleep until 11 or so but that wasn't bad really. The interesting part was that I told the kids to wake us up early, say 6:30 or so and to have the first ones up wake up the rest - in fact we were up at 5:30 and on the move by 7 or so. No one complained, no bitching nothing. The trip was a very pleasant experience for everyone. The hike out was on a beautiful day the hike back a little colder but still nice. The food worked out great, the kids bought and cooked their own food and had good results, even the stew and dumplings worked out well. If only every scout event was like this.

After the hike on Sunday night Jerry came to mark out the new driveway - on Monday they had formed and rebared the entire area and on Tuesday morning they poured everything, it's now Thursday lunch and it's been sealed, cut and is dry enough to walk on - not supposed to put weight on it (the cars) until next Wednesday if we can help it. Attitude was interesting here as well, Jerry's guys were great to be around, very personable, obviously enjoying their work and the guy they were working for, they answered all of my 5'ish questions comfortably and with interest. What a nice change from many of the trades workers that I've been around in the last couple of years working on the house.

You know, maybe it is all in the mind..

Evan

The Deaf Cubs Made It!

We had a great time at the Goldeyes sleep-over with the 12 deaf cubs and various and sundry other adults. The kids had a great time, the HQ team made a point of designating a spot for us and setup the closed captioning of the movie (not that you could read it but...) I have discovered that Section C in the far left side of the field is a war zone for incoming fly balls - we had 3 people injured in our area including one of my cub parents and one other guy that needed 10+ stitches to close a cut near his eye.

It rained on Sunday morning of course - getting everything wet just in time for me to have to try and put everything up and dry it out before the upcoming hike...sigh.

Onto another day...