Oct 12 2023 - Is it Friday the 13th tomorrow

 

It is like sleeps before Christmas.  The Friday the 13th Port Dover website is counting down and it is only 17 hours to go.   Given the first Friday the 13th was in January, this will be a celebrated day - and the weather looks good, too.  Friday the 13th can only occur three times in a single calendar year.  A leap year that starts on a Sunday has a  Friday the 13th in July.  That was way back in 2012 and not until 2040.   When I think of it,  only June, July,  August  and September would be reliable Friday the 13ths for the Port Dover celebration.  Next year's event is June, and in 2025, it is September - so looking positive for the celebration. Can you imagine such a variable schedule for events?  Maybe it is part of the allure.   All the Friday the 13th jokes have a place at this event.  Here are a few:  What might a restaurant serve to the bikers tomorrow? A good Friday the 13th pasta - Fettuccine Afraid-O. Don't worry if there is a tear in the leather jacket as seamstresses or tailor on Friday the 13th - know a lot about superstitchins. And what about dreams at the Friday the 13th party?  - It would be a horse in armour chasing a biker - It would be a Knightmare. What sort of parties does the Town of Port Dover organise on Friday the 13th?  Search parties.   I stopped by Charles Daley Park earlier in the week, and the colour of the locusts didn't compare to this picture.  October is very windy at the lake, and often the leaves blow off so there's not much of a show. And then one can always create the Autumn display in Photoshop.

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Polar Vortex on a Polar Coaster

I am compelled to look at the official weather forecast for this winter.  That's because Polar Vortex is in the title.  What about the Polar Coaster that was predicted just a few weeks ago.  Add to that - Global News tells us to brace for Game of Snows, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. With this many catchy titles, I wonder what the  Weather Channel's official forecast looks like.  Let's check it out. It is visually very compelling: The weather map is brilliant colours - a big deep blue circle in the middle of the country, a light blue circle that surrounds it which includes Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton and For McMurray, a third green circle, and finally two red circles.  You can imagine that red is above normal for average temperatures.  Then there are charts for snowfall/precipitation.   Their headline on the Polar Vortex is to get ready for a classic Canadian winter.  That sounds like we have a polar vortex every year. The Great Lakes  are a concern. Why is that?  Water levels are well above normal - so there would be flooding in spring if there is a cold and snowing winter. The overall map shows a pattern or warmer temperatures all along the North American west coast, and below normal in the majority of the east and central portions of North America.   You can see the Weather Network maps HERE.   I expect it to be a cold winter when I compare this year's snow in mid-November with last year. Here's a picture from last year at the same time.  We can look to the promise of spring below - the weeping cherry tree on Niagara Street, in St. Catharines.

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Are You Professional?

The five traditional professions are architecture, clergy, engineering, law and medicine (in alphabetical order). They are also considered the most prestigious  - perhaps over thousands of years, prestige and respect have accumulated. A profession has special characteristics - advanced qualification and training is important.  Also attributed to top professions is a sense of service with the implication of a broader meaning involving moral or ethical foundations and practices.   So where are we today in terms of the top professions? Have things changed? The World Economic Forum has an article on the world's most respected professions around the world.  Here's their top ten list: 1. Doctor 11.6 2. Lawyer  9.5 3. Engineer 9.1 4. Head Teacher  8.1 5. Police Officer  7.8 6. Nurse 7.4 7. Accountant 7.3 8. Local Government Manager 7.3 9 Management Consultant 7.1 10. Secondary School Teacher 7.0 I wondered about the difference between third world and first world countries.  I  went in search of an American Poll and found a 2014 Harrison Poll indicates that American adults identify doctors, military officers, firefighters, scientists, nurses, engineers, police officers, clergy, architects and athletes.  There is another Harris Poll that includes a few new ones: video game developer, entrepreneur, chef, musician, EMT, journalist, and veterinarian. So a little variation is coming forward now. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) has determined that out of 800 occupations,  chief executive or general administrator, public administration top the list.  Manager, medicine and health is second.  You can see the article HERE.   In my search I found some funny answers and websites: one is called askmen - astronaut tops their list over doctors. Prestigious and exclusive. I've been looking over at the cemetery with the Japanese Maple that surrounds a tombstone.  I haven't taken any pictures as the colours are not great this year - maybe colours will come later, or maybe the leaves will fly first. These pictures are from last year.

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Russia - A Nation of Humour!

Did you know there is a very long tradition of Russian Political jokes?  I find this out from Wikipedia.  The jokes start with Imperial Russia and conclude with Post-soviet Russia.  They are HERE.  A Bloomberg article with the best jokes is HERE. Bloomberg's article, as with Wikipedia, demonstrates that Russian humour about the way the country is run is an unbroken tradition from the czarist era to the present day.  The article's author, like me, finds that many of them aren't funny.  But there are some great jokes in the article.  Here is Reagan's joke. "The CIA-Reagan Soviet joke pipeline was no secret at the time. One from a list declassified in 2013 was a particular favorite — Reagan told it repeatedly, once adding he’d shared it with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and gotten a laugh from him. The CIA version goes like this: An American tells a Russian that the United States is so free he can stand in front of the White House and yell, “To hell with Ronald Reagan.” The Russian replies: “That’s nothing. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘To hell with Ronald Reagan,” too. Two more from Wikipedia: A Gulag joke: Three men are sitting in a cell in the (KGB headquarters) Dzerzhinsky Square. The first asks the second why he has been imprisoned, who replies, "Because I criticized Karl Radek." The first man responds, "But I am here because I spoke out in favor of Radek!" They turn to the third man who has been sitting quietly in the back, and ask him why he is in jail. He answers, "I'm Karl Radek." A Stalin joke: Stalin reads his report to the Party Congress. Suddenly someone sneezes. "Who sneezed?" Silence. "First row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot, and he asks again, "Who sneezed, Comrades?" No answer. "Second row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot too. "Well, who sneezed?" At last a sobbing cry resounds in the Congress Hall, "It was me! Me!" Stalin says, "Bless you, Comrade!" and resumes his speech. Our pictures today come from Moyer Road - this is the road that Vineland Estates Winery is located on.  This silver barked bush along the side of the road is very photogenic as it is.  It becomes the texture for an abstract pattern created in photoshop.

I'll Take Mine Fried

I made it in time to capture the fiery foliage of the Cemetery Japanese Maple.  It is entwined around a headstone, which is not visible in these photos.  November is their month for vivid colour - as long as it doesn't get too windy.  That's always a dilemma here in Grimsby with the wind off the escarpment or the Lake. I planned to capture the large tree in front of one of our heritage homes and the leaves are gone - they dropped in one day.    And around the corner from me is the largest Japanese Maple I've seen in Niagara, with the glorious red colour on the tree and in the driveway. From the den garden website: "In Japan, maple trees are known as kaede (楓/"frog's hands"), as well as momiji (紅葉), which means both "become crimson leaves" and "baby's hands". Momiji is commonly used as the term for autumn foliage in general in Japanese, but it is also used as a term for maple trees. These names come from the appearance of the leaves, which resemble the hands of a baby or a frog. The scientific term for Japanese maples is Acer palmatum."   "In Japan's Osaka prefecture, the red and orange maple leaves are a sight to see during the fall. As is the case in the rest of Japan, people go out in droves to see the beautiful fall scenery. However, in Osaka, locals also go out in droves to collect the leaves and turn them into a deep-fried delicacy! Fried maple leaves are a very popular snack in Osaka, and apparently have been for at least a thousand years. The city of Minoh, located in the north part of the prefecture, is particularly famous for their fried leaves. The maple leaves are dipped and fried in tempura butter, which give them their unique taste. The secret of Minoh's success with fried leaves really isn't much of a secret at all. Chefs there usually store their leaves in barrels of salt for one year, which makes their leaves particularly tasty!"

On Being Cheap

I was in Harvest Barn yesterday - it is a local produce and bakery store in St. Catharines (like the old days of grocery stores in yesterday's daily post).  The cashier asked the lady ahead of me if she wanted to buy a carry bag ($.05) or use one of the small meat/freezer bags as they were free.  The lady had only 2 pounds of butter, and she wanted a bag because the butter was cold.  She accepted the little bag over the bag that cost the five cents.  Then the cashier told me how she uses these little freezer bag for all kinds of things.  And concluded with:  "I'm cheap". So I wondered what "cheap" is and how do we recognize it.  Here are 5 major differences between cheap and frugal from money.usnews.com 1. Cheap and frugal people both love to save money, but frugal people will not do so at the expense of others. 2. Frugality is about assessing the bigger picture and having the patience to cash in on the simple savings strategies. 3. Cheapness uses price as a bottom line; frugality uses value as a bottom line. 4. Cheap people are driven by saving money regardless of the cost; frugal people are driven by maximizing total value, including the value of their time. 5. Being cheap is about spending less; being frugal is about prioritizing your spending so that you can have more of the things you really care about. When I read the full article, I was a bit discouraged.  It points to a lot of rationalization by the 'frugal' author for choosing where and how to spend money:  a lot of one's internal conversations are taken up with mundane decisions.  It is a start, though, and helps to understand this significant topic. And a search for the country with the reputation for being cheap?  Two countries show up: Holland and Scotland!

Fall For Fall

We have great autumn colours in Niagara.  This was a little farther north, in Guelph.  I have the newly released Topaz Impressions and this image has a painterly effect from the software.