Jury Duty Day

Suppose to be at the courthouse at 9am - arrive to find a fairly long line to get into the building, security check don't you know...and me without a jacket (wasn't expecting a line)... Luckily not too cold, and I made it into the building just before the rain started! Checkin and wait...

10:20am - going into the courtroom... First degree murder trial - wow... I guess I can't say much more about it here... Ouch, the most number of people to stand up for exclusion so far is people who have been through something similar before, first guy said his 14 year old son was murdered... This shouldn't be the biggest reason people are excluded, that's just not right... Nope, medical reasons is the biggest. Nope, exceptional hardship is the biggest - mostly students (ie. missed classes and exams) or people who are self-employed or who aren't paid for their time off. I made it through preliminaries, but need to be back at 2pm to begin the formal selection process, apparently we will be merged with another panel of pre-filtered candidates.

Want to know when I update?

For the very few people who actually read this blog, if you would like to be notified when I add a (significant) post, just click the "Notify..." link in the left-hand menu under the "Fellow Bloggers..." section. Its nothing fancy, just the "mailto" function with a preloaded subject line. I'll add people who send me an email to a distribution list for future updates.

Terms of use:
• I will only send an update if I've added something significant, I promise not to spam you with updates about my choice of socks for the day or the funky pattern that the frost made on my car windshield the other morning.
• You agree to click at least one ad link from the top heading bar or the bottom of the left menu area each time you visit my blog. Okay, so this isn't really a requirement and there isn't really any way for me to (easily) track this, I'm really just askin'....
• Not sure what else...we'll see how it goes...

Fish tank

Lost another fish today - the last of the phantom tetras. The only remaining fish are 2 Chinese catfish, a zebra tertra, and a neon tetra. Need to get a couple more to round things out...

Testing the weeping tile

The garage weeping tiles are getting a work out today... The heavy equipment left some big ruts in the ground behind the garage which filled with water during the rain - so I cut some grooves in the dirt for the water to drain - and of course the direction of the hill is straight into the back of the garage. I hope the heavy machines working at the front didn't wreck the drainage paths, or my garage's floating cement pad might float its way down into the front yard!

Wow, the pool is really moving along!

Things are really moving - the bottom is cemented, the side walls are up, the waterfall is almost done, the form is built for the cement pad for the cabana, the skimmer and auto-water filler are installed, the pipes are in and running back to the cabana, the rocks are in around the cabana and behind the seating area - wow! Pictures are below.
Next step is to finalize the form layout for the Patterned Concrete decking/patio that goes around the pool and up to the house. We hit a snag here because we want the cement to come right up to the existing patio doors in the basement of the house - and we also want a deck above this under the doors that come out of the kitchen. The problem is the posts for the deck, they will need to be placed where we want the cement to be - but the cement decking is a "floating pad" but the deck posts need to be connected to cement piers sunk 4+ feet into the ground. The floating pad can't be connected the piers or the pad will crack if there is any movement. As well, we only want 2 posts, 12' apart and 8' from the house (to support a 10x16 deck). The standard building permit plans show a maximum of 10' spacing for posts, and the need for 12" diameter piers - that's a big hold to try and drill into the cement pad after it is poured...
Current plan: sink 14" sonatube forms about a foot into the ground where I want my deck posts to go, pour the patterned concrete around the outside of the 14" tube, auger and install 12" sonatube pier forms 4+ feet down inside the 14" hole and fill with cement to ground level, install the post on the pier and surround the bottom of the post and 14" hole with dirt and flowers. In the end, the posts will be on 12" piers sunk deep and solid, and the cement pad is free to float.
Challenges: still have the issue of post spacing, we want 12' not 10'. Also, not sure if the Patterned Concrete process can manage a hole in the middle of the pattern (I assume there is a patterned form that gets laid on the top of the cement, so having a 14" sonatube in there might mess up that pattern).
One challenge at a time - going to Home Depot on Sunday to see if the deck design guy can give me some ideas for overcoming the 10' spacing issue.

Mouse Season has started

I've got 4 mice in 2 days - definitely mouse season has started... The farmer churned up the back fields the other day, so I'm guessing that's when they decided to move out of the fields, and in to my house... Started tracking on my pest control tally sheet...

Coinstar cash converter - 9.8% !!

Some time ago - shortly after the Zehrs in Bolton added the self-checkout lanes for groceries, I thought it would be a great idea to have a much better coin receptacle for feeding coins into the machines. It makes perfect sense for these machines to be setup to get your coin as easily as possible since I'm sure that grocery stores need lots of coin for their operations. At first my thinking was to just make the slots on the existing machines in the checkout aisles with a better design that allowed dumping a handful of change into a pot instead of having to feed them one-by-one through the little slot. Later I thought it might be better if there was a separate change machine that was setup to accept change in the best way possible, and print a coupon with a bar-code that could be scanned by the checkout machines to apply the value of the change you deposited against the purchase you were making. I thought this was a great idea - and apparently so did someone else because I am now seeing "Coinstar" machines starting to appear. These machines accept coin and convert it to ... I think less coins and bills. I'm not sure what you get because I read the fine print - 9.8% fee!!!! Are you kidding?!?!?! I was thinking of charging maybe 1 percent with a minimum fee of 5 cents, or something like that, with the thinking that if the machine was designed to properly sort the incoming coins, then the store could use the coin in their daily operations, reducing the need (and cost) for coin delivery to the store. I like the idea, but I won't pay almost 10 cents on the dollar for it...

Aaaaah! There's a bobcat in the back yard!

It was just sitting there... I was able to sneak up through the trees close enough to get a pretty good picture without scaring it away. The markings are a little different so it isn't a really bobcat, but definitely a related species. And through the trees in the front yard I just caught sight of his big brother... The boys will definitely have something to say about this! (actually, all they did was pee on them...)

Things are continuing to move along with the pool. There have been 2 of these things around for the last few days and things are progressing.

Right People with the Right Tools

Over the course of 3 days we had LOTS of activity and the pool has been taking shape. It is amazing how quickly things have happened. From lines painted on the grass to this - in 3 days!

Pickup truck in yard...!

This morning I was surprised to wake up to find a pickup truck in the driveway - the guy is waiting for sunrise to start work....!!!! Been there since before 6:30am (that's when the boys noticed him and raised the alarm). Just before sunrise he started up the heavy machinery so that it would be warmed up by the time the sun was up... dedication...

Watch that first step...

The back deck is now a pile of scrap wood in the back yard, and most of the patio bricks are up that were underneath the deck - and the first step out of the back doors is a big one... The pool people came on Monday and marked where everthing goes in the yard so we needed to get the old deck out of the way since we want to have the patterned cement patio around the pool come right up to the house. Sharon and I decided where we want everthing to go and how big everything is going to be, and now its off to the races! Looking forward to having a nice place to sit in the back yard. Then we will need to plan and build the new deck to fit into the pool-scape. And we are toying with the idea of a solarium off the side of the house with a hot tub and sauna - we'll see how it goes.

Jury Duty Summons - CRAP!

Damn, called for Jury Duty. I find it very interesting that parking is quote "VERY limited" at the courthouse, and suggesting the use of public transit. I am not anywhere near public transit so I will need to drive - but likely there won't be any parking - and if there is, I'll have to pay. So there's all this stuff about civic duty, but employers are not required to pay you for the time you are off work and you are responsible for all the costs associated with getting to court. In my opinion the whole thing really sucks.

Evolution - thought...

Okay, so my understanding of the theory of evolution is that in a given environment, certain traits are better suited to survival, and therefore organisms with those traits will tend to survive longer and therefore have more opportunites to reproduce, thus resulting in more organisms with those traits as compared to organisms having less advantageous survival traits.
Now, when thinking of humans, we don't have a lot of variation in general traits at birth. So my thinking is that if something really bad happens (global environment changing) that could lead to a mass near-extinction, I don't think we are going to be able to adapt fast enough as a species... But then I had a thought... In any environment changing situation, the surviving organisms will continue to struggle and reproduce. Assuming that the population is now much reduced, there would likely be a higher potential for inbreeding. This may lead to an acceleration of enhancing beneficial traits since the gene pool is biased towards survival traits, but could also lead to more "birth defects" which could result in an accelerated rate-of-change in the general structure and development of new organisms..... just a thought....

Barbados - Departure Day

I'm going to miss the warmth and the water...but I am looking forward to being home. The Hilton is very nice and the staff are very friendly and helpful - no complaints at all. Note that the items stocked in the bar fridge in the room are available in the convenience store in the lobby for half the cost - so you can have the convenience of using the in-room bar fridge without the excessive cost as long as you remember to restock the fridge each day before the maids arrive to makeup the room.

The food at the Lighthouse Terrace is good and we have eaten there most meals - mainly since they aren't a lot of other places around. The sun has been going down at about 6-7pm so unless you want to walk around in an industrial type area in the dark - your choices are limited - unless you take a cab everywhere.

I got to the airport and of course I forgot about the departure tax... I had been good and had used up almost all of the Barbados and US dollars, and then suddenly needed BD$25 more...over to a bank machine in the airport to withdraw BD$40 (since need BD$25 and machine only gives 20's) - so I now have BD$15 in my wallet, and will have for months...

The flight back was good. The little airplane on the TV display screen showed that we were traveling at 800 km/h as we started flying over the US and the outside temperature was -58 degrees C at 37,000 feet, just out of interest... Good to be home and have Dad waiting for me at the airport.

Barbados - Last Night

This is my last full day here. It has been beautiful, hot, and sunny, but I'm ready to go home.

I just finished reading a book I borrowed from my buddy Pete a long time ago - "Soul Music" by Terry Pratchett. Having finished that one - finally (review to follow), I have decided to re-read a book I read in university, "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" by Timothy Ferris.

Barbados - First Day Off for Sharon

Met and talked to Rose yesterday. Nice lady from the Kitchener area. She moved to Barbados about 10 years ago. Now she runs a convenience store located between the Amerylis and Savannah hotels, but on the other side of the road. I definitely recommend Rose's place for your snacking needs - example: a coke from the Hilton is BD$7, from the convenience store in the Hilton is BD$3, and B$1.75 from Rose. I'm sure you can get it even cheaper from the street vendors I have seen, but they aren't always around, and Rose is always at the same place, 7am to 7pm.

I had a "farmer's tan" - well burn actually, from wearing my t-shirt all the first and second day, so left my shirt off for most of yesterday - so now I have a nice all-over burn. I've been feeding the tingly parts of my burnt shin moisturizer in the hopes that it will stay on long enough to shift to a nice brown tan before the inevitable pealing begins. My forearms aren't bad since they are accustomed to the sun, however my shoulders, chest, and (ample) belly are the most tender, not having seen the sun for a while. I also got my haircut just before departure so my hairline is also a little tender.

Last night we had the seafood buffet at the Lighthouse Terrace at the Hilton - neither of us cared for it. Since the hotel isn't really near anything, and since the heat zaps your energy, and since Sharon has been working long hours and fighting traffic to and from the office each day - neither of us has had much energy to troop through the streets to find somewhere else to eat. Sharon is not working today so maybe we will find a place together.

Barbados

I have noticed around the Hilton pool that women seem to take better care of themselves than men - at least within the sample set of the people that stay at this hotel. I found myself a bit inspired since the men fell into 2 categories, a) excellent shape or b) gut hanging over the belt - not much in between (I'm hoping I fit into the "in between" area as I'm not "a" and don't want to admit that I might be "b"....). I'm going to get that universal gym in the basement setup and also get the treadmill going when I get home...honest I am...

Barbados - First Full Day

The Bridgetown Hilton is in a bit of an industrial area, not much around so snacks and quick meals are pretty much limited to the hotel ($$). There is a shuttle that runs into town, I might give that a try today to scope the place out for Sharon and I for the weekend. For now, its off to find some breakfast.

I took a walk down the beach - the Hilton definitely has the best beach in the area. A guy tried to sell me some aloha vera leaves for sunburn and such. I talked to him a bit - his job, as he states it, is actually to make sure that visitors have a good time - aloha vera, coke, weed, girls - or boys - whatever makes the tourists happy. Thanks but no - but need to lookup the Amarillas Hotel, it looks nice. The beach is not too bad just a bit south of the Hilton and this hotel might be more in our price range if we ever want to come back here. The Savannah Hotel is there also - AVOID - the beach is covered with rocks and the space between the hotel and the beach is overgrown with trees, leaves, and stuff - it didn't look good at all.

I had brunch at the Hilton beach bar - a fruity rum drink, sparkling water, and quesedillas - and then toured the old fort that is on the Hilton property at the point at Needham's Point. The cannon are a bit fake since they aren't really mounted for firing, they have been remounted just for show. Interestingly, there are a bunch more cannon below the walls in the water that have rusted together and have formed part of the break-water at the base of the fort.

Barbados - On My Way !!

Sharon has been sent to Barbados for business, left early Sunday morning, so I have decided to take a few days vacation and join her for the long Thanksgiving weekend.
I used my Aeroplan points for the ticket, cost me 55,000 points plus I had to pay ~$140 in fees and taxes, so almost free but not quite. I wanted business class because its a long flight, but the web site didn't give me the option. Turned out okay though, I had an empty seat beside me and the seat spacing was actually reasonable!

Mom and Dad are going to look after the boys (thank you very, very much!) - I think Dad is going to stay at the house each night and call the dog-walker (Tracy, from Noah's Ark Pet Care - great people) if he needs to go out during the day - really appreciate this everyone!

Sharon has a limo guy that she uses occasionally for work stuff, Ahmed, so I put the call into him for a 6am pickup. As usual, I was running late - not because I slept in, but because I had left too many little things to do for the morning. It started to thundershower just when Ahmed arrived (about 10-15 minutes early) and the boys wanted nothing to do with going out in the rain... If you could have seen the look on Gizzy's face! I had gotten them all excited about going outside and then threw open the door - and out they ran... Once those big rain drops started hitting Gizzy, he stopped dead in his tracks and gave me the look - the "you bastard" look. Anyway, the boys wouldn't do anything but look at me with squinting-in-the-rain looks on their faces, so I hope there weren't any accidents when Dad arrived.

The drive to the airport was slow because of the rain and then there was a dead traffic light on Hwy 50 - thank you Ahmed for getting me around this - I would have been late for my flight if I was driving.

I made a HUGE mistake at the airport by having some breakfast. What was I thinking?! A sausage "mcmuffin" type sandwich with spicy sausage, greasy hasbrowms and strong coffee - ACK! I was in gastric distress for the ENTIRE flight - 5 hours of rumbling and grumbling and extreme discomfort - my own fault, I know better - coffee and greasy food is never a good idea, and spicy sausage should be reserved for outdoor, breezy location (not a confined metal tube with lots of other people packed in all around you).

And now I am here... Beautiful. I'm staying at the Bridgetown Hilton. The sand is soft and plentiful, the water is turquoise, clear, and warm, and the weather is hot and humid - a perfect holiday situation! Since the room is paid by Sharon's trip, and my flight was just points, I am trying hard not to care that the food is so expensive. The people are great and the place is beautiful. I have been on my own since I got here because Sharon has been working late, but the staff are friendly and helpful so far I am loving this trip. Pic from our room =>

PVR Intelligence Suggestions

I do like my PVR and the online program guide, there is some good stuff out there, but typically the good shows are buried in a pile of crap. There needs to be some AI built into the on-screen guide, such as:

• option to sort channels by number of hours watched on that channel with most popular channels appearing at the top, mixed with any new or free preview channels. Need to include an option to easily mark a channel as "don't like"
• tracking of specific show episodes played and the option to mark a show as seen or don't like
• tied to above, option to search and record (automatically) show episodes that I haven't seen. Example: punch in Battlestar Galactica, and it records every time the show is on unless a) it already has that episode in memory (including quality check for satellite outages), b) I have tagged that episode as seen, c) or has a log that the episode has been seen in the past. At the start it would catch a lot of the older shows that I have seen, but these could be quickly marked as seen and deleted from memory, and then they won't get recorded again - also allows me to catch old episodes that I might have missed.
• option to identify a show series that I don't like - and being able to differentiate somehow - specifically for things like the various versions of Star Trek and Battlestar - I only want to see the new episodes of Battlestar, not the ones from the '70's, and only selected Star Trek spin-offs, not the old

I really should just ditch the TV - and internet access is suspect too... I'd likely be better off cutting the Cable and just buying / renting DVDs when I want to watch something.