Marilyn's Photos - June 10 2026 - Convert that building

 

How are some people covered by the media more than others?  The specific example that keeps appearing in the Bing feed is Jim Pattison. He seems to be a popular figure on the internet with his "story," the "secrets of success", how to build a $16B empire, and so on.  Add to that, he's 96 years old and still working every day. All the pictures of him show a big smile.  Maybe it is because he made the news in January when his Virginia warehouse was going purchased by the U.S. government to be turned into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement "processing facility."  There was an uproar and the sale was canceled.   Wouldn't that be a strange experience to sell your house and then find it is has been turned into some sort of detention centre?  His warehouse was over 500,000 square feet. Our houses are under 2,000 square feet.  We could expect a bed and breakfast, vacation rental, maybe an art gallery, or personal service business like hair salon replacing Gerry's railroad.  Here in Grimsby, around the corner, the house was torn down and more hospice space is being built in its place.  We mostly do the reverse - we take factories, schools and churches and turn them into homes.  One can find some jails and prisons that have been converted into residential housing.  This is called "prison flipping" where mostly historic heritage buildings are  conversion targets. Our famous Kingston Penitentiary has some surplus land being considered for residential development.  The Chatham Jail and Courthouse has been slated for conversion into private apartments. That's it for us. I don't see this as a trend. I think the conversion of these buildings into tourist attractions where tours are given and the historic events of past crimes and criminals are revealed. That's what they did with the old Kingston Penitentiary.  Here's one of the buildings - pretty limestone in a 19th century Neoclassical style.  The interior had nice colours, too.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 8 & 9 2026 Singing

 

This is yesterday's post - and it didn't seem to get out of the queue so here it is today. There's an article about the oldest verified instrument - a sort of flute made of bone and ivory.  My guess, though, is that the oldest instrument would be the human voice singing - us. Singing likely predates spoken language.  It is a physical capacity for pitch control.  And we had this up to a  million years ago.  Singing looks like a complicated skill right away.  I wondered what it means when they talk about the neurological and physical architecture to sing.  The neurological architecture integrates language processing in the left hemisphere and pitch/melody control in the right hemisphere, utilizing both dorsal and ventral pathways to connect auditory perception with vocal motor execution. I had no idea that something seemingly simple, is not.   Another summary says that singing demands coordination across the prefrontal cortex (planning, decision-making), temporal lobes (auditory processing) hippocampus (memory and cerebellum (motor control).  That sounds even more involved. The brain likes singing - it triggers the release of "feel-good" brain chemicals endorphins and serotonin and lowers stress hormones.  It is a light aerobic workout as well.  In terms of medical therapeutics it can help restore lost speech for conditions like Aphasia, Parkinson's, Demential and Alzheimer's and for Autism.  It is a recovery technique for breathing and lung issues. There are so many health and therapeutic benefits that I wonder if music is more popular than sports.  Music has high engagement - over 90% of people listen to music every day so scores high on engagement, accessibility and the global scale. It is more passive than sports, which has strong, energetic emotions and participants and fans dedicating active time and attention to games.   There's some common ground - in the last 30 years music concerts have taken on the characteristics of sports games - high prices of tickets and vast crowds watching a live event in a stadium like the soon to be with us FIFA World Cup.   Think of the size of audiences:  the FIFA World Cup will be at BMO Field, currently rebranded as Toronto Stadium and holds almost 50,000 people.  That's considered intimate.  I guess so, given the largest stadium in the world in North Korea can hold between 114,000 and 150,000 people, depending on the event. At FIFA 2026, the largest event will be at the Dallas Stadium which holds 94,000 people.  There have been numbers like this for choirs singing in a single venue or stadium.  The largest choir was 121,400 people in a venue in India - I wonder what they sang.   This is the Skydome stadium which holds almost 40,000 people.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 7 2026 - Motorhomes on the Move

 

Do these motorhomes/RVs of the future look attractive to you?  They remind me of yesterday's "big lips" post.  They seem like some sort of surveillance vehicles, maybe looking for space aliens or illegal aliens. they definitely look military to me.  Other variations look like transport trucks with windows so the cargo has a view.  That's a plausible explanation as to why bananas have jumped to 99 cents a pound. It is the added transport costs. Here's one that might be part of a new sort of public transit system. Alternately, it could be an industrial vehicle that lays down pavement on the highway. What about a roing restaurant with those big double doors and large entry. The article calls it an SUV.  This one is a $5 million Rolls Royce motorhome. These pictures do not take you to articles about the vehicle, but to camping equipment sales sites. Another article says the Rolls Royce Motorhome is $2 million.  That one goes to a YouTube video on the vehicle, which looks different than this one, but doesn't look "better." These pictures do not take you to articles about the vehicle, but to camping equipment sales sites. Another article says the Rolls Royce Motorhome is $2 million.  That one goes to a YouTube video on the vehicle, which does look different than this one, but doesn't look "better." So it seems that my everyday has gotten away from me - from motorhomes wider than our actual highways to bananas at $1 a pound.   It seems so bizarre - here we are where we can't even get the trucking industry to have proper driver training and testing. And we're going to let loose our next door neighbour with one of these parked out front.   Here's my kind of truck.  This old, rusted variety is popular at the Niagara wineries.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 6 2026 - The Biggest Body Parts

 

We get a name and then it is fair game for anything.  I saw a headline where a woman has the unofficial title of "woman with the biggest lips in the world."  Her name is Andrea - it is a name of Greek origin derived from the word andreios and translates to manly, strong, courageous and warrior.  She seems to have lived those traits - she has spent over $26,000 with more than 40 rounds of lip and facial fillers.  There are quite a few operations to get to the look she wanted.  It is hard to describe how she looks now and it makes me wonder which amount spent is accurate - the $26,000 or the $50,000 .  What do you think?    There are all kinds of biggest body part records - feet, buttocks, tongue, heart, and of course penis.  There is no official record for the largest natural human lips. There is the largest lip plate (cultural) record There's the widest mouth and the largest mouth gape records - here he is with a seemingly impossible big mouth. Big lips and big mouth pictures are strange.  Who would guess someone is pleased with themselves for having these traits.    Here's my picture of a boat "bottom" done as a mirror image looking sort of similar to Andrea's big lips.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 5 2026 - Names - Humans vs Dogs

 

We've consistently used human names for dogs and thing names for dogs, but we haven't always used thing names for humans.   When we were little, dogs had names like Fido, Fluffy, Scruffy, Shadow, Sandy, Rusty, Buddy, and so on.  What are dog names today?  Luna, Bella, Daisy, Max, and Willow. Those are the top names.   Back 100 years ago the most popular human names were Mary, Dorothy, Helen, Margaret and Betty along with John, Robert, William, Charles and James.  Doesn't it seem like all the men were named after the British monarchy?   Or maybe the British monarchy claimed all the good names as their own. Today the most popular baby names are Olivia, Amelia, Eliana, Sophia, Charlotte, Noah, Liam, Oliver, and Elijah. Luna and Willow are on the list too. When it comes to human names, things have changed - celestial bodies, nature elements, combining sounds to make new names.  There's a distinct need for names to be new and different. Names like Truce (means peace) for boys.  For girls the two top names are Eliana (Hebrew for spiritual weight) and Aurora, goddess of dawn. On the human side of things, research has found that a name affects and influences the owner's personality - this is called nominative determinism.  This may explain the shift in names. Our approach to dog names has shifted as well.  We know that when it comes to dogs they look at names as a cue to pay attention.  They don't have an identity experience. Here's the naming advice today: - They love vowels - that ee ending grabs a dog's attention - Two syllables allow for inflection to convey emotion - Avoid commands as names - isn't that perfect advice! Naming a dog Mo can sound like No.  And then what will you do for No? People changing their names is said to be a act of redefining identity such as breaking free from past trauma, or establishing a fresh start.  Dog experts say the same is true for dogs.  When they are adopted into a new home, it can be a positive experience for a dog to have a name change.  Here's a happy colour image for the day.

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