Marilyn's Photos - Oct 19 2025 - Ice Cube on the Burger

Do we know the ice cube on the burger technique?  It creates steam which adds moisture to the meat   I was wondering about this as we had a really great, moist burger at The Good Earth Restaurant on Friday and wondered if it was the chef’s touch or a different technique used this time. These headlines reveal it is considered “a hack”. Does the Ice Cube Burger Trick Really Work? The Ice Cube Hack for Ridiculously uJicy Burgers Every Time YouTube · Groark Boys’ BBQ -  I put an ICE CUBE in my BURGER and this is what happened ... In comparison, the ice cube technique is also used for the following Childbirth preparations - getting comfortable with discomfort and practice coping skills during childbirth Psychological grounding - manage dissociative episodes or intense anxiety, by holding an ice cube in the hand or mount and focusing on the intense, phsyical sensation of cold Laundry - remove wrinkles by throwing ice cubs in the dryer creating steam Skincare - to reduce swelling, redness by rubbing ice cubes on the skin to soothe irritation and make the skin feel fresh and glowing In Baking?  Put an ice cube into the hot Dutch oven when baking bread to generate steam and enhance the crust texture and put the frozen dark chocolate into the batter to make a Lava Cake. I recently found this picture of reflected colours on water in an aquarium in Florida.

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Marilyn's Photos - Aug 26 2025 - More Lost and Found

 

After the wedding ring story yesterday, it got me wondering about famous lost and found stories.  Most of them are about people being lost and found.  Under the heading Heartwarming Reunions:  Raudhatul Jannah: A young girl swept away by the 2004 Indonesian tsunami who was found a decade later after being cared for by a fisherman's family. Jaycee Dugard: Kidnapped at age 11, she was found 18 years later living in a suburban backyard, though she had been hidden in plain sight the entire time. There are many Lost Cat and Dog Stories: Emily the Cat: Found in a shipment of paper bales, this tabby cat had traveled 4,500 miles before being reunited with her family by Continental Airlines.  Howie the Persian Cat: After running away from home, this Persian cat was found a year later, having crossed 1,000 miles of Australian outback.  Georgie Georgie, a black and white dog, went missing in Tlisi, Georgia, in 2015. His owner, Mr. Biani, searched for months with no success. Three years later, employees at a local business saw a dog matching Georgie's description and contacted Biani. The subsequent reunion was filmed and went viral, with tens of millions of views, capturing the emotional moment the dog recognized his owner.  And consider the famous paintings that were lost and then found.  They include Van Gogh's "Sunset at Montmajour", found in an attic after the owner's death, and "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, which was stolen and recovered twice from different locations.  Stolen paintings recovered is a long list with some of the works still "missing."  You wonder whose walls they are showcased on. There are many Stradivarius thefts, and most of them seem poignant and sad.  Take these two examples:   Lost: Violin prodigy Min Kym's 1696 Stradivarius was stolen in 2010 while she was eating at a sandwich shop in London. Found: The violin was recovered in 2013, but was not returned to Kym. The trauma of the loss and recovery is detailed in her memoir, Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung.  Lost: This 1727 Stradivarius was stolen in 1995 from the apartment of virtuoso violinist Erica Morini, just weeks before her death. It was replaced with an empty case and has never been found.  The best lost and found stories are about connection and caring, and never giving up - and especially poignant when it comes to dogs and cats.

This garden is at one of the seniors' condominiums in Grimsby - it has a covered gazebo with a waterfall and pond.  Quite a lovely spot.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 9 2025 - Fear of Missing Out

 

The New York Times has an article on AI int he classroom and reference the tech companies' sales strategy as being based on the "fear of missing out" - that students will be set up for failure if they don't use AI.   My generation is genuinely marvelling at what can be done by chatbots.  For people with low skills for composing, they are amazed at what is written on their behalf.  I listened to a conversation amongst people who I thought were educated. They had math and science skills and felt they didn't have good composing skills for emails and correspondence.  AI gets them up to and beyond the threshold of good writing.   That makes me think this is about the fear of missing out - of not being "good enough" or  being able to "keep up."  So would we expect it to improve their general writing skills?  I expect it will replace their correspondence and they will be dependent on it.  Is that what we want of school learning?  And I sure hope AI gets better at writing.  To me, a lot of what it writes is ingratiating, unctuous, flattering, insincere, obsequious, and fawning. There needs to be some AI to develop authenticity. Me, I seem to be going backwards. I've turned off spell-check. Gerry showed me where I could do this in my MAC so there's almost no word replacement, except for some programs online. I would rather have to read my work carefully than just blast along with a trail of weird words dangling behind.  Some of them were fun, though, and I will miss those surprise moments.  There's a colourful array of Muskoka Chairs.

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Mairlyn's Photos - July 7 2025 - Pinks and Quarts

 

Those little pink and quart boxes are the standard for fruits - especially tender fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for as long as I can remember.  And I know they were made of thin wood prior to being moulded paper or plastic. The original approach was called a pottle and it was a conical wood chip basket with a handle.  Wikipedia has a picture from 1688.  What were they replaced by int he mid-1800s?  Punnets - that was the name for our current little square wooden box.  Beamsville had a punnet factory - but it was called the Beasmville Basket and Veneer Company. "Logs were soaked in boiling water, and then peeled strips were dried and assembled into various sizes of baskets. The factory's output was crucial for the region's fruit industry, enabling growers to transport their produce to market." "The Beamsville Basket and Veneer Company operated until December 1981, when a fire caused its destruction. Despite the fire, the company's impact on the region was substantial, particularly in shaping the fruit-growing sector and the town's economy. The factory's history is intertwined with the growth and prosperity of Beamsville and the surrounding fruit belt." And we haven't mentioned six-quart, nine-quart, and 11-quart baskets.  That's for stone fruit - peaches, apples, pears - things that are bigger or are not tender.  What about those tough little blueberries - they can handle a big basket. And didn't I forget bushel baskets?  There they are filled with pumpkins and squash.  From beginning to end of the growing season, baskets are with us.

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Jan 23 2025 - Fun Countries

 

Canadian advice on how to respond to tariffs at the individual level is starting to gear up.  One is buy Canadian bourbon not U.S. Another is travel somewhere other than the U.S. - for warm winter weather choose Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, costa Rica, panama, and Ecuador.  Where will Canadians travel to for spring, summer and autumn vacations?  That's assuming a full depression hasn't started. What are the countries with the best "Fun Rating?"  It turns out Spain, Brazil, Thailand rate as the top 3 by US News.   Other services rate Canada as one of the top countries.  Maybe we should travel in Canada as the year progresses.  Canada is considered a desirable destination for adventure.  I assume you'll go west for that.  Then there's wildlife and nature. British Columbia is highlighted.  Toronto and Vancouver are considered top places. Wanderlust named Canada the second most desirable country after Australia.  What makes us fun?  We seem to have "very specific Canadian habits" that other countries don't understand and find funny.  What are they?  Here are a few. The rest are HERE.  "My favourite one is when people come across a mitten, hat, or scarf, and place it on the nearest pole so the owner can easily retrieve it, and everyone respects it." "Switching between metric and imperial depending on the situation..." "...or ignoring both altogether when it comes to driving distance, and just using time instead." "Our lack of standardization when it comes to dates. We use all three formats, anytime." "I thought 'shit disturber' was a universal term. Apparently it’s quite Canadian." "Calling electricity 'hydro.'"  "Using the barbecue in winter. I can't think it's a purely Canadian thing, but we had some Swiss people here, and they audibly gasped when it became known I was going to BBQ burgers and chicken in the backyard." "Backing into parking spots."     I found this puppy picture of Millie and turned it into a watercolour.

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Dec 10 2024 - Winingest One of Us All

 

The Fantasy of Trees finished on Sunday and the raffle draws were done on Monday.  As part of the team, there is lots of careful work - making sure all the tickets are out of the holder, stirring them up, a second person picking one ticket, the auditor watches to ensure no looking at numbers. The auditor receives the ticket, then gives the ticket to the caller - my role - who calls out the number, then the look-up person who makes a match in the lottery record book, the win recorder, the runner who takes the information to the telephone callers, who make the call - You've won! It's a lot, isn't it?  I didn't win anything.  I had lots of help putting tickets into trees and items- by various children of people I know who promised to take away the toys or chocolate decorations.   Such excellent odds of winning something, too.  So it got me thinking about Frank Selak, who we've read about before - he's listed as the luckiest man in the world.  Actually he is known as the luckiest and unluckiest together.  "Frano Selak, a Croatian man, miraculously cheated death seven times before eventually winning the lottery. Frane Selak, of Croatia, has a reputation as the world's luckiest man. Frane Selak, an elderly Croatian man, is known around the world for being the luckiest man alive." HERE's the full Wikipedia entry.   Note that none of his depictions of life and death events are verified. But he did win the lottery at 73, so that with his strange saga of death events has elevated him to the luckiest/unluckiest person in the world.  But really, we just looking at raffles and lotteries.  But the stories here are about people who hacked the system, beat the system or one that big powerball lottery in California - the one that is over $1 billion. "The largest gathering of lottery millionaires is 110 and was achieved by The National Lottery (UK), in London, UK, on 7 October 2015."   My guess is that Frank stays in the retrievals because of the novel story of life and death and lottery win.  Tracking multiple winners would likely make the gambling and lottery world jittery.  Gambling is considered a problem behaviour in humans.  Cheating and hacking the system seems to come with it and would be something we simple lottery players don't want to find out. The Fantasy of Trees takes place at the Grimsby Museum each year. This is the Museum entrance with Santa - taken a few years ago.

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Oct 17 2024 - Steep Losses

 

That's quite a steep loss - 96%.     "$100 in 1915 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2,589.13 today, an increase of $2,489.13 over 109 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.03% per year between 1915 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 2,489.13%. This means that today's prices are 25.89 times as high as average prices since 1915, according to Statistics Canada consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 3.862% of what it could buy back then." ~ taken from in2013dollars.com  The notion in my mind is that I can remember when butter was 50 cents a pound.  But I seem to be slightly off.  It looks like it was almost 70 cents in 1959.  That's hoping I am reading the historical Statistics Canada listing of prices correctly. It says that butter was 69.6 cents in 1959.    And what about the price of butter back then?  It seems to me as we get older the farther back we go when we compare prices.  That makes the gap bigger every time the price goes up.     Following from yesterday's pictures, here's one with the little red koi in the shot.  I'll have to be satisfied with this version if I want them both in the image.

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May 30 2024 - Seti is a Must See

 

Now I am confused.  Was Seti (or Sety) the greatest king of the Egyptians or is he the greatest mummy of the Egyptians.  A program on television last night described his mummification as the most sophisticated of any.  The mummy is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The methods used to make his face to look life-like are complex. His sarcophagus was alabaster.  Can you imagine?  I saw a picture of it in a British Museum.   All that lavish attention spent towards getting Seti into the afterlife in good shape.  What about the regular Egyptians?  Did they have an afterlife?  Here's one article on the subject:    "The dead had to negotiate a dangerous underworld journey and face the final judgment before they were granted access. If successful, they were required to provide eternal sustenance for their spirit. These things could be achieved if proper preparations were made during a person’s lifetime." Can you imagine being stuck preparing for your retirement, and then for your afterlife?  What a burden.  With all our social issues, this seems like we have a much brighter perspective on living and dying.  Here's more: "The dead were granted a plot of land in the afterlife and were expected to maintain it, either by performing the labour themselves or getting their shabtis to work for them. Shabtis were small funerary statuettes inscribed with a spell that miraculously brought them to life, enabling the dead person to relax while the shabtis performed their physical duties." And the afterlife is known as the "underworld" - this can't go very well.  And it goes into eternity, doesn't it?   “To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…” Hamlet knew a thing or two about the Egyptians - even though everything we know about them came after the Rosetta Stone when their language could be interpreted.   Our picture today comes from an Australian cemetery.

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Apr 6 2024 - Alien Implants

 

There have been continuing reports for decades of alien abductions.  Last night one show included alien implants that the abducted people said they received. There was a NOVA article in 1996 about alien implants investigating what they were.  They did not get to document even a single case - not one person who claimed abduction would agree to x-rays, MRIs or similar test to investigate the evidence.   There still are so many headlines on alien implants.   Whitley Strieber is an author whose book Communion is about this alien abduction and implant.  There doesn't seem to be any further investigation or evidence around his implant - just the story. It is all so interesting and mysterious, and then goes no further.  What has been noted is by Joe Nickell,  an investigator who says that what has been described as implants turns out to be shards of glass, jagged pieces of metal and carbon fibre.  And then go to Wikipedia - Wikipedia's entry is short and sparse.  There isn't much to say without evidence.This is the stuff of story and opinion.   That summarizes all of our experience with aliens so far.  But it remains tantalizing and compelling - we really do want to know if we are alone in the universe.   This hand-painted plate was sent off to the lily auction a few years ago  - can you imagine the skill of painting on a plate?  It seems amazing to me.

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Sep 28 2023 - Neanderthals

 

We have considered Neanderthals our ancestors, and that we are related to them.  There are also the  Denisovans, an Asian people who are considered our direct ancestors.  Maybe because of the fossils we have a compelling interest in the Neanderthals.  Both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago. They overlapped for up to 5,400 years.   Professor Thomas Higham  published an article in 2023 on the mapping of DNA and concluded there was interbreeding: ‘Other recent studies of Neanderthal and modern human genetic make-up suggest that both groups interbred outside Africa, with 1.5%-2.1% or more of the DNA of modern non-African human populations originating from Neanderthals.  And it is East Asians who seem to have the most Neanderthal DNA. There was inter-breeding between Neanderthals and "modern humans." In that era the other humans were was Homo heidelbergensis, Homo intercessor or another species.  Neanderthals were named Homo neanderthalensis in 1864, so Neanderthal seems more of a short-form and nickname. Just like "modern human" is a nickname for Homo sapiens to my mind.  Neanderthals are our closets ancient human relatives, but we leave off the Human from their name. What are they missing compared to us that we are so clear about our difference.  It seems that research shows there isn't as much difference in their social and other behaviours.  They made art, jewellery, and tools.   But they didn't evolve over technically the thousands of years the way Homo Sapiens did.  That's why we named us sapiens for 'wise' or 'astute'. Which parts of the human genome have we inherited?  Thicker hair and skin - useful in colder climates.  Also immunity which would provide a quick fix against local infections. On the downside, diseases such as diabetes, lupus and Crohn's disease are inherited from the Neanderthal DNA. Another article says that our nose shape gene is inherited from Neanderthals. So likely there are more discoveries to come. How much of the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced?  In 2010 researchers had produced the first whole-genome sequence. The groundbreaking research was conducted by Svante Pääbo who established a new scientific discipline, Paleogenomics.  The article on his research being awarded the Nobel prize in 2022 is HERE. This picture of the family tree divergence with the Denisovans and Neanderthals comes from that article.  I look at that solitary figure in the far background. Could there be other human species that we haven't discovered?  Discover Magazine says it is possible.  Given how far we've come in understanding so that the Neanderthals are no longer considered inferior cave dwellers.    This is a bit of rust on the Calamus Winery shed.  I named it Cave Dwelling. at the time.

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